SENATOR Cynthia Villar blames the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) for giving sugar import permits to the traders instead of the food processors who are biggest consumer of sugar.
Villar who chairs the senate committee on agriculture is questioning such move of the SRA that resulted to institutionalized users to complain.
“Why give the import permits to the traders? That would result to cartel and high price of sugar. It’s the wrong move of the SRA. They are supposed to protect the sugar industry,” Villar said.
She added that imported sugar especially from Thailand is cheaper because their cost of production is less than about 50 percent compared to our production cost here so our local farmers cannot compete.
The government, Villar said, has not yet decided on the sugar import liberalization.
They are still talking, she said when asked about the report that the economic managers of the president are just giving temporary relief to the sugar industry by not acting yet on the sugar liberalization.
Villar is one of the 22 senators who passed a resolution asking the government not to pursue the planned liberalization of the sugar industry with the end in view of safeguarding the welfare of sugar farmers and industry workers in more than 20 provinces in the country.
Villar also puts the blame on the SRA for the underutilization of the P2-billion annual Sugar Industry Development (Sida) Fund. She revealed that under the Year 2020 budget, the Department of Budget and Management allocated only P500 million for Sida Fund as the sugar industry failed to fully utilize the P2 billion allocation for the past several years. (TDE)