Today the 13 Senators sat down to debate the bills that we told you about from Friday's Sitting of the House of Representatives. But in an unexpected turn of events, a majority the senators forced the government to stall the controversial Sugar Industry Act. Both the opposition senators as well as the social partners had major problems with the bill, which they say would give the Minister of Agriculture excessive powers. Senator Eamon Courtenay stood up to introduce the bill, explaining what it entails.
Hon. Eamon Courtenay, Senator
"The Belize Sugarcane Farmers Association and Belize Sugar Industries Limited have not been able to conclude an agreement for longer than the next sugar crop. The existing agreement comes to an end in the middle of next month and the parties are negotiating but it seems there is a bit of an impasse. The second is that there are 3 associations, not the Belize Sugarcane Farmers Association, two of which have not held elections of officers. Members of those associations have called for elections and the existing persons who are holding on to office have refused to call those elections. The purpose of this bill is to provide an amendment to the law to provide a regime that will address that issue to ensure that at all times the Sugarcane Farmers Associations - all 3 of them or if there are more in the future or less, will always have elections by the time certain so that you do not have executives holding on to power without a mandate from the people."
And Senator Peyrefitte was the first to register his discontent with it. He lamented that the minister would be able to overturn any decision made by the board, and as such he could not agree with the bill.
Hon. Michael Peyrefitte, UDP Senator
"You want some level od certainty, but you also must be very careful that you don't interfere in the workings of the association. You have to be careful that you don't come with this big brother, big sister stick and tell private associations how they are to run their internal bodies. However, as I said we fully appreciate that the sugar industry is essential, so if you want to make mechanisms be there to say listen you have to have these elections by October, just like general elections in Belize. The law is clear when you are supposed to have a general election, city council election, a town board election - certainty in certain things is critical and key and we accept that and the board is being given more power in this aspect, because it use to be only if the associations would request the board to become involved with their elections that they could become involved, but with the new amendments it is saying that the board will do it. This law increases the strength of the board and we are saying fundamentality to protect the industry and to make sure we have a viable sugar industry, is difficult to argue with that. Even though it may be a little bit high-handed, its kind of difficult. But man, you took a nice and warm bucket of mill and pee pee in it."
"Section 38A, this is the law that they want to pass now: where a person is aggrieved by a decision by the board, the person shall refer the compliant to the minister for a decision. So, they made me read the whole functions of the board just now on a hungry belly only for them to proposed a piece of legislation that says all that have described that the board can do, all of these things that the board is empowered to do, a board that is an autonomous body - all of that that they do can be reverse by a decision of the minister. So you go to the board, the board makes a decision and you don't like it, you just go to the minister and the minister can reverse that."
"You have upended the powers of the board. It was you, in your planBelize that said you would decrease ministerial discretion and power, it was you and now you are passing legislation to do just the opposite. You are passing legislation to increase ministerial power. You are passing legislation to have the minister in his personal discretion control the sugar industry."
And, this time, the social partners were on his side. Senator Kevin Herrera explained that it felt like the government was trying to meddle in the private affairs of the board, and Senator Elena Smith agreed that she could not make sense of the bill's purpose.
Hon. Kevin Herrera, Senator
"It seems as if though government is proposing to fix this problem by amending the act to conduct and supervise elections. It's extremely difficult for me to reconcile the conduct and supervision of elections to an impasse between the manufacturer and association. I don't know if I am missing something, I'm just not getting the connection. How does this fix that problem?"
Hon. Elena Smith, Senator
"We cannot in any way accept that for issues to be resolved within an industry, an association that a minister has to have the power to do so. The board is an autonomous board, the board has authority to make certain decisions. The board has several of its members being appointed by the minister and if I am correct and somebody will correct me, it would seem that those appointments would be in the majority. So that if it is that the board is having issues and issues that can't be resolved, then we are saying that we are going to be putting the minister who would have appointed those persons to come and resolve a matter that his appointees along with the others can't resolve. Now, I don't know if that is going forward or backward. It really and truly doesn't make any sense to me and don't see how it would make sense to anybody else."
So, with all that, the government side realized it would not have the numbers to pass the bill, and elected to leave it in the Senate for further consultation. Later on in the news you'll hear why the biggest growers association, the BSCFA supports it.
