St. Kitts and Nevis' Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Dr. the Hon. Denzil L. Douglas (l) on a tour of the SSMC Transition Office with Interim Team Leader, Dr. Keith ARchibald and Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Cedric Liburd.

Speaking Friday afternoon following a visit to the just established Transition Office, located in the former Agronomy Building at the SSMC, Prime Minister Douglas said work is in process to compensate the workers.

We have the team working at this time on the compensation packages that will have to be prepared for the workers. We are trying to make sure that we have all the relevant information on all persons, the category of service that they have provided over the years, their number of years of service and though some of the information is difficult to come by, we are certain that within the next four weeks, we should have the bulk of the information on hand, said Prime Minister Douglas, who during a meeting in his constituency Thursday night fielded several questions from residents on the way foward following the completition of reaping of the last crop in July.

During the visit Prime Minister Douglas received an update from Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. Cedric Liburd, Interim Manager, Dr. Keith Archibald, Interim Project Manager, Mr. Keith Phillip and SSMC Agricultural Manager, Mr. Conrad Kelly.

Prime Minister Douglas also disclosed that the Team Manager for the SSMC Transition Office is to take up his assignment by the end of this month.

The services of the Team Leader, Mr. Gordon Alert, who has wide experience in the  development and diversification of the sugar industry in Jamaica, will be financed by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA), while that of the Project Manager, will be funded by the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB). Other regional and international institutions have offered varying services in support of the governments sugar industry transition programme.

SSMC Transition Team Interim Team Leader, Dr. Keith Archibald (l) and St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Dr. the Hon. Denzil L. Douglas (l) facing SSMC Agricultural Manager, Mr. Conrad Kelly, Interim Project Manager, Mr. Keith Phillip and Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Cedric Liburd during meeting. (Photos by Erasmus Williams)

This is a misplaced notion. We understand that there are a number of persons who are attempting to squat on those lands that belong to SSMC and are owned by Government and there are also people, who are letting lose their animals in these canefields, said Prime Minister Douglas, who warned that the Government will not tolerate that kind of reckless activity on the part of people who do not really care as to what happens to the industry in the future.

The St. Kitts and Nevis leader reiterated that the closure of the sugar industry does not mean the abandonment of the agricultural sugar cane lands.

What it means as I have said time and time again, is that we will not continue to grow sugar cane to produce sugar to sell to Europe or England. We will not do that anymore, he stressed.

Dr. Douglas said as was demonstrated to him during the visit to the SSMC, there are many uses that the sugar cane plants can be put to.

He said Government has been speaking to a group from Scotland which has indicated an interest in the manufacturing of whisky and rum.

That is just one aspect of the use of the sugar cane plant in the future, said Prime Minister Douglas, who further disclosed that he has looked at a variety of sugar cane that is now growing on the grounds of the Agronomy and which can be utilised in co-generation of electricity and also in the production of ethanol.