Financial
Controller at the St. Kitts Sugar Manufacturing Corporation (SSMC), Mr. Oswald Martin said that local workers shared
a total of EC$4,058,200 excluding severance pay and overseas workers, EC$777,394.
In a meeting with sugar workers prior to the official closure of the sugar industry, St.
Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Dr. Denzil Douglas said the final total payout to end the industry is expected to be
approximately EC$44 million.
Dr.
Douglas told hundreds of sugar workers during a meeting at the Factory Social Centre, that his St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party
Administration has accepted the 1961 Agreement, which calls for long service workers in the field and factory to be paid severance
of 104 weeks instead of the 52 weeks legislated by law in the 1986 Protection of Employment Act passed by the former People’s
Action Movement Administration.
The 104 weeks severance payment
will be paid in two installments. The first payment will meet the requirement of 52 weeks in compliance with the 1986 Protection
of Employment Act and will be paid during the second week of September. That will be paid in six weeks and not in 12 weeks
as stipulated under the 1986 Act. The second payment will be paid before or in December.
Dr. Douglas
said sugar workers who retired since 1975 and who went home without any gratuity or pension, will also be paid now get a gratuity
when the monies are paid.
