But, this very important industry is facing another challenge, the constant deterioration of the sugar roads. These roads provide the transportation network for cane farmers, so that they can get cane to the factory.
Today, we asked Jose Mai, who has famously criticized the former Barrow Administration about their handling of the sugar roads, about what his PUP government will do about them. Here are those comments:
Hon. Jose Mai - Minister of Agriculture, Food Security, Enterprise
"We have identified the resources to fix the highways, everyone knows the situation the government is in right now. We inherited the worst sugar roads in many years, but I can't complain about that. We have identified money and at this moment we have contractors working. The weather has not been on our side, it continues to rain. We began on fixing the culverts, because culverts have caved in cannot transports material. We fixed the main sugar roads right now and we start dumping, but it just keeps raining and we cannot achieve as much as we want to but this we will fix as many sugar roads as we can."
And the New Agriculture Minister made it clear that there will be some politicking involved in the selection of priority sugar roads to fix. Here's that part of our interview:
Hon. Jose Mai - Minister of Agriculture, Food Security, Enterprise
"More money will be pumped into the sugar roads than what was pumped under the last administration. I will not tell you the exact amount of money, I cannot tell you at this time because I don't have it, but I can assure this. You remember when I said to the prime minister to allow contractors to fix the roads in Orange Walk south where we had 21% of the cane. They did not fix sugar roads in Orange Walk south, they did in Orange Walk north where Gaspar Vega's family has cane fields and they also did in Orange Walk east which was under the Minister Aragon at the time. They never gave us a penny to fix roads in Orange Walk south, so we will definitely get more than what they did not give to us."
