We refer to your views published in L?express 24th January 2007, entitled ?AU JOUR LE JOUR: Rs 8,5 milliards en jeu? on the UASI/OUA Open Letter addressed to members of the National Assembly concerning the Sugar Industry Efficiency Amendment Bill (SIEAB) and the Multi Annual Adaptation Strategy Sugar Sector Action Plan 2006-2015 (MAASSAP). We are exercising our right of reply to your article and wish to bring to the attention of your readers the following information.

? it is precisely the suppression of workers viewpoint which is one of our main contentions against the MAASSAP - a plan which claims to have been elaborated ?through consensus?. We have proved with facts that this was never the case and that the point of views of workers were deliberately suppressed. Do you dispute these facts? If yes, will you also dispute what the government shamelessly admitted in the Draft Country Strategy Paper presented to the EU? We quote ??..It is in this context that the Multi-Annual Adaptation Strategy, has been jointly defined by the Government and the private sector;? [EU ? Mauritius Country Strategy Paper 2008 ? 2013 - annex 9 Mauritius - EC multiannual adaptation strategy]. How would you classify this process concocted between sugar barons and the government behind the back of the working people? ?reformistes?? ?conservateurs?? Whatever labels you might choose, for us this situation is not much different from the old colonial days where ?conservateurs? forces systematically denied the right of the people and acted as if their opinions were irrelevant.

Undemocratic and shady maneuvers

And yet you insinuate unions are ?conservateurs? and ?risquent de bloquer pour longtemps encore son adoption, compromettant, du coup, l?aide promise par l?Union européenne (UE) à titre de mesures d?accompagnement? ... A well informed journalist like you is surely aware of the fact that the elaboration of such a plan, without workers organisations being involved in its ?process of designing and implementing?, violates the EU guiding principle for allocating the accompanying measures. We quote: ?The process of designing and implementing an adaptation strategy should be owned by the concerned stakeholders, in and around the sugar sector. It should seek consensus and collaboration between actors??[Brussels, 17.1.2005 SEC(2005) 61, COMMISSION STAFF WORKING PAPER, Action Plan on accompanying measures for Sugar Protocol countries affected by the reform of the EU sugar regime]. The EU Parliament and Council eligibility clause stipulates that ?The requests shall be based on a comprehensive multiannual adaptation strategy, defined by the country concerned in accordance with Article 4, in consultation with all stakeholders?. [regulation (EC) no 266/2006 of the European parliament and of the Council of 15 February 2006]. Do you realise that this non-compliance if brought to the attention of the EU Parliament or bodies could in fact ?bloquer? the disbursement of EU accompanying measures? Who will be responsible if such a vital clause has not been respected? Will it be the workers organizations or those who hold powers? It is the undemocratic and shady maneuvers of those detaining economic power that can jeopardise the interest of the country and its people, not the working people Mr Raj Meetarbhan!

You quote a statement from our open letter where we wrote that ?The biggest scandal is that colossal concessions are provided to sugar companies in terms of funds and capital accumulations.? This is only a part of our statement which reads as follows ?The biggest scandal of the MAASSAP and its codification through the SIEAB, is that colossal concessions are provided to sugar companies in terms of funds and capital accumulations without any guarantee that the Sugar companies will generate sufficient decent employment to replace those being massively destroyed by the MAASSAP and the SIEAB.?

Using this partial quotation, you have qualified the union stand as ?outrancier et caricatural? and even said the following: ?ils utilisent un argument réducteur et inexact?. Why is it ?inexact? Mr Meetarbhan? According to you ?Les syndicats évoquent les gains ?colossaux? du patronat parce qu?il y a une perception que l?Etat injectera des sommes importantes dans les centrales bagasse/charbon. En réalité ces projets seront financés par des prêts bancaires.? [the underline is ours] We are sorry Mr. Meetarbhan. At page 81 of the MAASSAP, the table which describes the source of funding for items present in the MAASSAP, exposes in fact your own inexact statement. From the 675 million Euro needed for the implementation of the plan, 278 million Euro will be devoted to ?Power Plant?. And this 278 million Euro will be partially funded from the EU Accompanying Measures and the ACP/EU Energy Funds. And as far as we know EU Accompanying measures are not ?prêts bancaires?. Section 224 (ix) of the MAASSAP is even more explicit: ?Support to the co-generation projects will bring about a reduction in the cost of electricity, accordingly, part of the capital expenditure would be met from the ACP-EU Energy Fund and/or accompanying measures.? Has the government submitted a ?reducteur? or an ?inexact? document to the EU, according to you?

Massive profits for sugar companies

To justify the SIEAB you declare that ?70 % de cette aide servira à financer les préretraites des laboureurs, les indemnités de licenciement des artisans et les projets d?épierrage, de mécanisation et d?irrigation des champs appartenant aux petits planteurs. Le reste ira à des secteurs non-sucre que le gouvernement entend promouvoir.? We do not know where you got this breakdown, but we notice that you have omitted to give details concerning the non-sugar sectors which the government ?entend promouvoir? with the 30% of the ?8.5 milliards en jeu?. Does it not include ?Power Plant? for example?

Now let us come to your remaining 70 %, out of which, some Rs. 3.5 billion (Rs 2.52 billion for VRS and Rs 1 billion for Blue Print) might be used for ?financier les préretraites des laboureurs, les indemnités de licenciement des artisans.? May we remind you that the VRS/ERS and benefits due to workers under the Blue Print are not ?cadeau? from the bosses. They represent the investment in the reduction of labour cost, investment which will generate massive profit and which will in turn be converted into capital accumulation for the sugar companies in the long term. And one of the scandals is precisely that VRS/Blue Print expenses are NOT being paid by Sugar companies, as already provided for in the SIEA 2001. Sugar Companies will cater for only 25% (for factory closures) and 30% (for VRS/ERS) of the payment. This is despite the fact that they have already benefited from huge land related tax concessions, on the basis that they had to cater for VRS payments.

Lucrative energy secret contracts

The argument that sugar companies involved in land sales have not been able to sell their lands does not hold, given the multiplication of IRS projects underway. If sugar companies are not generating enough revenue from the sales of land why then does the SIEAB provides for ?cross border? investment of the proceeds arising out the sale of lands? [Section 4 of the SIEAB]. And what about the lucrative energy secret contracts which have been embedded within the MAASSAP? This is the reality of things Mr. Meetarbhan. You might think that what is happening is very sound, but not to us.

This is why we stated that ?colossal concessions are provided to sugar companies in terms of funds and capital accumulation? and added that this is being done ?WITHOUT any guarantee that the Sugar companies will generate sufficient decent employment to replace those being massively destroyed by the MAASSAP and the SIEAB.? How many decent jobs will be created whilst these massive concessions are being directed to the bosses? ...

Is it fair to tag unions as ?conservateurs?, when unions are struggling for working conditions not to be hurled backward like in colonial time?

Ashok SUBRON Technical Adviser, UASI/GWF

Serge JAUFFRET President of UASI