Ryan Bachoo
Lead Editor-Newsgathering
ryan.bachoo@cnc3.co.tt
Basdeo Panday’s death has unleashed an outpouring of local and regional condolences for the nation’s first Indian and Hindu prime minister. While his contribution to T&T’s development has been beyond question, there is one corner of the country where his legacy is more complicated, even in death. It is called Caroni 1975 Limited.
Sugar workers like to think Panday’s political rise and his ultimately becoming prime minister in 1995 were built on the backs of their support. They would later feel betrayed by the very demigod they created as Caroni 1975 Limited, closed eight years after Panday’s rise to power.
Yet, by the time Caroni was closed in 2003, Panday was well out of office, replaced by Patrick Manning and the PNM two years before in the famous 18-18 deadlock. However, for more than two decades, sugar workers have pinned the blame on Panday for Caroni’s demise, many are still aggrieved and others still finding it hard to forgive.
“You have to remember that it was on the backs of sugar workers Panday rode that glorious road to prime minister. They felt that he betrayed them,” Caroni’s former CEO Deosaran Jagroo said.
Panday’s rise to prominence
That glorious road Jagroo speaks of started when Panday served as president general of the All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers’ Trade Union from 1973 and lasted over two decades.
Rakeeb Mohammed, who worked for Caroni for 23 years as a sugar boiler at Brechin Castle recalled how Panday helped to create better working conditions for sugar workers. He said one of the former prime minister’s major contributions was that he lobbied for estate workers to get a minimum of 40 hours of work per week. Prior to 1975, estate workers would get work two days a week. He added, “Since his passing, I haven’t heard anybody talk about how Caroni workers never enjoyed comparable wages. Panday had fought for comparable wages. If you were an electrician in T&TEC, your salary would have been higher than an electrician who worked in the sugar industry. It was Panday who acquired sick leave, casual leave, holidays with pay, unused sick leave with pay and surgical leave. If it wasn’t for Basdeo Panday in the sugar industry, no Caroni worker would have had a fridge, TV or gas stove in their house.”
Sam Maharaj, a former general secretary of Caroni who served as a UNC opposition senator during the fourth Republican Parliament, wrote this past week of how Panday was able to rally a weary sugar working force who had lost faith in their previous leaders.
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The trade unionist started with the constitution where he gave every member the right to elect their representatives. Maharaj wrote, “During his tenure, Panday racked up some remarkable achievements, including guaranteed year-long work for all full-time employees instead of the previous six to nine months. In the next couple of decades, sugar workers’ wages would rise from $5 to $110 a day. Housing loans increased from $3,000 to $70,000, ensuring sugar workers could build decent shelters for their families.”
A study done by UWI economist Dr Dhaneshwar Mahabir in 1996 found that the economic conditions of sugar workers had improved four times over.
When asked if he expected any reward for his efforts, Panday replied, “What reward could be better than seeing my people enjoying a better quality of life?”
Using the trade union as his tool and surviving several gruelling political battles along the way, Panday’s popularity catapulted him to prime minister in 1995.
A choice between Caroni or country?
Panday’s rise to leader brought with it an increased expectation from Caroni’s 9,000-strong workforce. For more than two decades they had marched and toiled with him as he climbed the political ladder. But his election victory would bring him face to face with the financial reality of Caroni. The organisation had been recording loss after loss year after year. Few had a better seat to watch Caroni’s demise than Jagroo, who worked in the sugar industry as an Industrial Relations Officer before being asked to lead the organisation as its CEO. He would be the last CEO of Caroni.
He recounted how sugar workers’ expectations of Panday couldn’t match the reality of the economic situation at hand. Jagroo said Caroni workers, 90 per cent of whom were Indians, expected “much more” from the UNC founder when he entered government. “Sugar workers were always looked down upon as a drain on the economy, even from Eric Williams’ days. We were the bastard child. It had a psychological effect on sugar workers because they always felt that they were unwanted children from all previous governments.
“When Panday’s time came, they thought their esteem and their importance would have been lifted by the Government investing in the company and making it a more sound entity. And, most importantly, giving Caroni the lifeline it needed, and that is what did not happen under Panday so they felt let down.”
As an Industrial Relations Officer, Jagroo would go further in saying his management had “the most difficult time” in getting subventions when Panday’s UNC was in power. “Brian Kuei Tung was the Finance Minister and he was a brutal businessman and when we visited him each month telling him we fell short by $40m or $50m he would scoff at us and tell us to wait in the corridor,” Jagroo recalled.
As the officer in charge of liaising with the union, the former Caroni CEO said the frustration trickled down to the factory and estate workers who had supported Panday from union leader to prime minister. “People would say; ‘But this is my government. This is the Government we fought for and we catching we a.. to get we pay on time,’” Jagroo recollected.
Instead of the company moving towards a more sustainable future, Panday struggled, like every other prime minister before him, to make it profitable. Wendell Mottley, who served as finance minister in the Manning administration between 1991 and 1995 prior to Panday’s arrival as prime minister, told the Sunday Guardian he (Panday) found himself in a dilemma of serving Caroni workers and the greater needs of the country.
Mottley explained, “He came up through sugar. And there was an expectation that as a trade unionist, he would always protect the workers. Mr Panday was therefore seen as ungrateful, and the Hindi word at that, neemakharam, to have pulled the plug on Caroni. I was not there but it must have taken great courage because of that crossing not only his trade union background but almost offending the Indian culture by doing so. He clearly did it because he was prime minister and prime minister for all of Trinidad and Tobago.”
That’s not how Caroni workers saw it, according to Jagroo. “The glory of becoming prime minister on the backs of sugar workers was one that they sacrificed a lot for. They stood by him throughout his political life so when he lost the prime ministership they felt let down,” Caroni’s last CEO said. “Sugar workers can be brutal,” he added.
The end of an era
On August 1, 2003, the PNM administration closed the book on Caroni. The sugar manufacturing company ceased operation. Yet, despite being out of office for two years, Panday would continue to be blamed for the demise of Caroni 1975 Limited.
Jai Parasram, who was a close confidant of Panday, insisted it was never his intention to shut down Caroni.
In an interview with the Sunday Guardian from Canada, Parasram said, “I know that he had not planned to shut it down. The last speech I wrote for him was for a Caroni Long Service ceremony. He was prime minister at the time and in the speech, I wrote that Caroni is not shutting down and not for sale and the prime minister read it as it was written.”
Parasram said Panday had a plan which entailed Caroni being the holding company and the satellite companies each becoming separate entities would be able to generate profits. He insists, “It would not have been in his political interest to close it down.”
However, the numbers were never in favour of Caroni. From an annual operating loss of $175 million in 1996, that figure would skyrocket to $367 million in five years.
Mottley said the company was not salvageable. “Having seen that rate of decline. Having myself written off $2b in debt and very shortly afterwards to see it was of no avail, I don’t know how Caroni could have been switched to become that efficient,” he told the Sunday Guardian.
It’s a point even the former Caroni CEO agrees with. Jagroo said, “There were several things that were mitigating against Caroni. Those things included the cost of production, poor productivity, poor return on investment and poor yield from a declining plantation. Then, we had a factory that was not efficient so the extraction rate and the conversion rate were below industry standards.”
Given the crisis Caroni had found itself in, Mottley praised the leadership of Panday during those turbulent years when he sat as both prime minister and opposition leader. He said, “Mr Panday was the first Indo-Trinidadian prime minister. He handled that transition superbly. Obviously, there must have been apprehensions. He dissipated all of that and in this particular regard his handling of what was clearly the national interest, he rose above the fray and distinguished himself.”
For many sugar workers, the sentimental and historical value of Caroni 1975 Limited, being the very reason East Indians came to this country from India, stands above any economic reason for shutting down the industry. Panday’s legacy with sugar workers is not black and white, but instead, a grey area caught between betrayal and putting country before Caroni. For those who toiled in the fields and worked in the factories, Caroni 1975 Limited may be closed, but they’re still waiting for closure.
Caroni 1975 Limited Losses
1996–$175m
1997–$246m
1998–$305m
1999–$223m
2000–$349m
2001–$367m