Antonio Isa Conde, the president of the Commission for the Reform of Public enterprises (CREP), says that the worst enemies of the privatization process are within the government. He said that government officials promoted the takeover of the State Sugar Council (CEA) sugar mill lands which has brought about major obstacles to the privatization of that money-gobbling corruption-ridden government organization. CEA has been losing thousands of millions a year, while the production of sugar has been declining steeply. Now it appears that the CEA privatization may fall through completely. The CEA privatization is affected by the problem of the invasion of lands, supposedly promoted to benefit PLD followers, military and wealthy persons, primarily during the administration of the previous director of the CEA. The CEA also has not able to make payments on moneys owed its former laborers, and has thousands of debts to suppliers, some real and some fake, but they are on the books. To make matters worse, the companies that showed an interest in the privatization of the CEA now say that the terms of the contract means they will have to absorb five harvests of losses. Press reports speculate that it is possible none will show for the tender.
