SMUGGLING BLAMED FOR CLOSURE OF HAITIAN SUGAR FIRM
A sugar mill which was this
nation's second largest employer closed its doors yesterday,
saying it had been run out of business by sugar smuggled from
Miami and the neighbouring Dominican Republic.
    The closure of the Haitian American Sugar Company (HASCO)
will idle 3,500 employees and affect as many as 30,000 to
40,000 small sugar cane planters in regions around the capital,
the company said.
    "Because of unprecedented and ever-growing smuggling, HASCO
regrets ... It cannot continue to accept delivery of sugar cane
after April 10," the mill warned planters earlier this week.
    Since President Jean-Claude Duvalier fled Haiti fourteen
months ago, widescale smuggling of basic goods such as cooking
oil, flour, rice, sugar and canned milk has lowered consumer
prices but bankrupted several local manufacturers, throwing
hundreds of thousands of Haitians out of work.
    At the HASCO compound, where grim-faced workers lined up to
receive their last pay, Spokesman Georges D. Rigaud showed a
warehouse stocked with an estimated 445,000 unsold 100-pound
(45-kg) bags of sugar.
    "We are closing because of our huge stock of unsold sugar.
We have no money left to continue operations," Rigaud said.
    He said the company owed 7.6 mln dlrs and had borrowed an
additional 1.5 mln dlrs in order to pay off workers.
    Rigaud blamed the mill's problems on an order by Duvalier
two years ago forbidding HASCO from refining sugar.
    He said the government then began importing refined sugar
at world market prices and reselling it at a huge profit and
the provisional military-civilian government that replaced
Duvalier last year continued the policy.
    "But now with all the smuggling even the state can't compete
with smuggled Dominican refined sugar," Rigaud said.
    HASCO workers earned 4.20 dlrs daily, considerably above
the usual minimum wage of three dlrs.
    It is generally estimated that every employed Haitian
supports at least six people. Rigaud said HASCO's closing at a
minimum would affect 280,000 to 300,000 people.
    Laid-off workers were bitter about the closure. "We're dead,
and it's the government that's causing us to die," declared
Lucien Felix, 34, who has five dependents.
 REUTER
