THE decline of Fiji’s sugar industry is as much a governance failure as it is an economic one, Sugar Cane Growers Council chief executive officer Vimal Dutt says.
Mr Dutt was responding to comments by permanent secretary for Finance Shiri Gounder that the industry could not be revived.
He said the dismantling of key institutions over the past two decades had weakened strategic leadership and long-term planning.
“The former Sugar Commission, the Sugar Marketing Authority and elected cane growers’ councillors played an important role in bringing stakeholders together, coordinating policy, marketing and providing strategic direction,” he said.
“Their absence has reduced coordinated leadership and long-term industry foresight.”
Mr Dutt said legislative and governance changes had also reduced growers’ involvement in decision-making within the Sugar Cane Growers Fund, limiting their influence over organisations established to represent their interests.
“The sugar industry cannot achieve sustainability when its principal stakeholders are progressively excluded from decisions affecting their future,” he said.
He rejected suggestions that growers were mainly responsible for the industry’s decline, saying they continued to absorb production risks despite increasing costs.
“Growers should not become the default explanation for systemic shortcomings elsewhere in the value chain,” he said.
Mr Dutt said accountability must extend across the industry, particularly to the milling sector, where efficient factory operations, transport systems and sugar recovery remained critical to the industry’s future.
