Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha (centre) interacting with Vishnu Panday (left) during a visit to Skeldon Estate last year.
January 8 ,2021
Region Six Chairman, David Armogan yesterday confirmed the resignation of the Skeldon Estate General Manager, Vishnu Panday, stressing that they are presently searching for his replacement.
In December, Stabroek News reported that Panday had resigned. However, when Stabroek News had contacted the Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha on whether Panday had resigned he said “Not to my knowledge”.
Armogan made the confirmation yesterday while responding to a question from Shurla Scott Richardson, APNU+AFC Councillor, at the first statutory meeting of the Region Six Regional Democratic Council.
Scott questioned whether the reopening of the estate would be affected by Panday’s resignation.
“Can you say that would cause some level of setback for Skeldon Estate and who would be the person that would replace him if you have that information”, she asked the chairman.
Armogan responded, “Panday as you know he was a manager there before, he worked at that estate but he hasn’t stated the reason why he resigned so we assume he had resigned for reasons of a personal nature because he hasn’t stated exactly why he resigned, so right now we are looking to replace him at Skeldon Estate”.
Meanwhile, after the agriculture report was presented, Scott also asked for an update on the sugar estates within the region.
“As you know there is one grinding estate in the region which is Albion and we have fallen short (of) the target… I think the industry, all the grinding estates would have fallen short about 7,000 tons together”.
He said that that was as a result of a number of reasons which included strikes and bad weather.
He added “I’m not sure how much Albion would have fallen short by but they have fallen short of their target… It’s probably the lowest in a number of years”. He noted that some critics had said that the targets were unrealistic, “it was too high”.
Armogan also said that works are continuing in the fields of the Rose Hall and Skeldon estates “to bring them back to a level of preparation that they can start doing replanting”.
While land preparation is ongoing, Armogan said that GuySuCo will be purchasing some machinery. Other machines have been deployed to the non-grinding estates as well and they have also hired private machines to do land preparation at those estates.
He said, “The factories are not badly off, besides the Skeldon Factory cause Rose Hall was a grinding factory when it was closed and so some maintenance work has to be done there but Skeldon there has some major works to be done and that will be undertaken as we speak”.
The regional chairman also pointed out that a number of persons have been re-employed at both estates so far.
