Talk about an embarrassment! Rather than simply accede to the request of the platform of sugar industry unions to submit the audited financial reports of the companies comprising the corporate sugar cane sector, the Mauritius Sugar Producers Association (MSPA) took it upon itself to commission a report by BDO, a firm of chartered accountants, on the state of its members’ finances. How very thoughtful of it. Except that it recently emerged that BDO managed to botch the job.

Admittedly, the mistake was hardly a monumental one. In its analysis of Bel Ombre sugar estate, BDO used the results for crop year 2007 rather than those for 2008.

If anything, the error marginally downplayed the thrust of the MSPA’s argument, namely that its members are losing money and hence cannot afford to grant a pay increase of 40% to the 5 500 labourers and artisans employed in the sugar industry.

The amended report shows that they incurred operating losses of almost Rs278 million “from sugar and by-products”, or Rs20 million more than was originally calculated using the 2007 results. Even if the miscalculation seems trifling, the stakes are high enough for it to have attracted the attention of the Financial Reporting Council and raised the unions’ hackles.

The latter don’t contest that the mills are losing cash on sugar and its by-products. They have however taken issue with the fact that the 21 companies comprising the MSPA forked out dividends of Rs1.4 billion in 2008 (incidentally, this tidy little sum would have more than covered the salaries of the thousands of workers in the industry). Such generosity is hardly the mark of corporations meant to be wallowing in the financial doldrums.

The MSPA says that the revenues used to line the pockets of shareholders were generated by non-sugar activities (the lion’s share of which came from the sale of land) and thus can’t be used to pay workers in the sugar industry.

And there’s the rub. Does the sale of hundreds of hectares of land that had formerly been used to cultivate sugar cane count as a non-sugar activity?

The unions think not, especially since many of the transactions were exempt from land conversion tax under the Sugar Industry Efficiency Act. They also contend that the sugar industry has already made significant savings under the two Voluntary Retirement Schemes. From this perspective, it does indeed look like another case of the MSPA wanting to have its cake and eat it. Little wonder then that the air is thick with suspicion.

Late last month, a contrite director of the MSPA sent a letter to the unions apologizing for “any inconvenience caused” by BDO’s slip up. To be sure, inconvenience is perhaps too soft a word. After all, we’re not talking about a broken lift or a delayed appointment.

More importantly, the MSPA seems intent on playing a zero-sum game, which explains why it is disinclined to so much as entertain the prospect of meeting the unions halfway.

It’ll take far more than a spoonful of sugar to make this medicine go down. A healthy shot of goodwill seems to be in order.