Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s Secretary General and former member of the Parliament Professor Mia Golam Porwar has issued the following statement on 8 December 2020 to cancel the decision of closing 6 state-owned sugar mills in excuse of continuous losses and also to accept 5 point justifiable demands of the labor communities.

Through a public announcement, Ministry of Industry has notified that the threshing and sugar production activities will not start at state-owned six mills and three more factories will come under shutdown process in the coming year. Huge number of labors are working in these mills and factories. If the factories get closed, the labors will have no option to earn money. Already a significant number of labors are leading deplorable lives as they lost jobs due to pandemic situation. The decision of closing more factories will intensify their crises.

The season of threshing is just to begin. Under such circumstances, any decision of closing factories will cause more financial losses. If it continues, the farmers may stop the threshing process and local production of sugar may come into a halt. The leaders of the labor communities of these factories claim that, the decision of closing factories is nothing but a part of deeper conspiracy. The government is actually mulling to import sugar from a neighboring country,

We are of the view that, these sugar factories can be made profitable if the corruption of its directors, their looting, irregularities and recklessness are stopped. While discharging duty as the Minister of Industries; Maulana Matiur Rahman Nizami took various effective steps to improve the status of the sugar industry. Those initiatives were successful and resultantly attained appreciation from different corners.

I am urging the concerned authorities to accept the justifiable demand of the labors of the sugar industry. I am also calling them to cancel the decision of closing sugar mills rather to resume its operations immediately.