And in other news from the PM, the last we heard about the Commission of Inquiry into the sugar industry was in late January when Vice President for International relations at ASR BSI, Mac McLachlan had told us that he had only seen pieces of the document. The Prime Minister has the entire report but hasn't yet seen it. He explained why:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"The report has been given to me but unfortunately I have not been given a chance to take a hard look and to study but that is one of the things we want to do within the new government I'm hoping we get re-elected, but even if we are not I am hoping that the new government will then take a hard look at the commission of inquiry and the sugar industry. From the preliminary look and the discussion that I've had one of the main things is it's talking about the field and the varieties and improving how we grow our cane and the infrastructure that goes along with it that plays a critical role because as was pointed out, factories worldwide pretty much work on the same principles but you have to have good cane you have to have quality cane and you have to improve the yields per acre. Presently yields in Belize are probably around 17 tons per acre the goal is to at least reach to 30 tons per acre and by doing that then we can double the production with the same land that we have. So we need to take a look at that and look at the financing: how can we finance our farmers? Our farmers are pretty much getting a one year revolving credit and it is expensive between 12 and 14 percent. So, these are some of the main issues we have to address and of course working along with the mills, both mills, how we can improve the efficiency in the mills and of course to modernize the act. The act is old and antiquated. We've left it and now we need to make some fundamental changes on the act."
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