Prospective executive chairman of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) Raj Singh will not be receiving a $5 million monthly salary or a $3 million tax free monthly salary, Minister of Finance Dr Ashni Singh said yesterday.

Instead, he said, “my information is that the individual concerned will not be paid any more than the last full-time CEO”. Stabroek News clarified that the minister was in fact referring to former GuySuCo Chief Executive Officer Errol Hanoman and his $2.5 million-a-month salary.

http://www.stabroeknews.com/20...o-earn-2-5m-a-month/

 

=======

That's US$ 150,000/year

For a third world country like Guyana they do seem to like to pay developed world salary to their friends for doing jack all. The PPP has no shame when it comes to stealing.

I don't know what world you are living in, but 150k is not developed world salary for a large corporation as Guysuco. That being said I reiterate that Guysuco should be divested to private enterprise. Govt should not be in the business of running industry. 

You think so? I suggest that you compare the pay of a cane cutter versus that of this crook. The difference is about in excess of 10000%.

Let's hear what GAWU headman Komal Chand says on this Raj Singh salary issue. Thanks to Churchill for the info on Singh's academic 'achievement.' It makes no sense for poor GUYSUCO to dish out super salaries to its executives. The financially prudent Dr Cheddi Jagan would have raised hell.

Let us see his qualification and then we can justify his salary. Guysuco needs a leader who can pull it out of the current situation. The appointment of a head of Guysuco should not be a political one.

His contract offered by the sugar company stated, “Your annual remuneration while working in Guyana (including salary and pension allowance) will be paid by GuySuCo in Sterling. “Your initial salary (net of income tax and other statutory deductions payable in Guyana) will be at a rate of £74,904 per annum, payable on a monthly basis. Your pension allowance will be paid with salary at the rate of £9,942 per annum.” The Finance Minister was grilled on the ability of Singh to run the Corporation. He responded, “He is eminently qualified and has worked in sugar for a number of years at senior levels.” Dr Singh added that the Acting Chairman of the Board of Directors has worked in areas relevant to the management of large organizations, similar to that of GuySuCo.

 

Why this man wukking in GY and getting paid in British Pounds  

I told him I need my cut in £££

It looks like our friend Komal Chand is now a Crab Louse......so he aint talking.

I remember just after Dr Jagan died ........

De thiefing and Corruption of Jagdeo & Ramotar was exposed by Desmond Hoyte in de Famous Law Book Scandal.

In de law book scandal one Raj Singh along with Jagdeo, Ramotar and Tataram was fingered by Hoyte for thiefing.........

Is this the same Raj Singh? 

Sunil like you brokered the deal

As usual, PPP cronies without any proper credentials or relevant experience are given top jobs ahead of more deserving candidates.

 

No wonder Guysuco is losing millions every year.

Yes Jalil it is the same Raj Singh who was a principal in the New Global Consultants which obtained the contract to print the law books  ....to  date no explanation was given to the Guyanese people why the contract was awarded without open bidding.

 

This is the same Raj Singh who is seen from time to time in the company of  Ed Ahmad. We all know  Ed Ahmad is  awaiting sentencing for illegal activities in the real estate business. Was it Raj Singh, a member of Guysuco board, who helped Ed Ahmad to obtain prime real estate land at Leonora ?

the impunity, then, emboldened the jagdeoites, and inspired a reach for the unprecedented heights of criminality we see today

Dear Editor,

Our Minister of Finance recently declared that Mr Raj Singh currently acting Chairman of GuySuCo will not be receiving a $5 million monthly salary or even a $3 million monthly salary as stated in the media, but a $2.5 million salary. That ought to take care of the concerns of those who thought that he was going to get $3 million. Who exactly does Ashni Singh think he is fooling? Here again is total contempt for the opposition and the citizens of this country, and a betrayal of Dr Jagan.

First Minister Singh was careful not to list what the other costs of being an absentee Chairman of GuySuCo would add to the woes of this cash-strapped corporation. In fact he told us that Raj Singh would be the executive chairman, but clearly this is nonsense since he can’t be executive chairman of anything unless he is living here 365 days a year. Sugar operations just do not happen once a month; it is a 24 hours a day 356 days a year operation.

Secondly, he then tried to obscure the picture and confuse the public by bringing Mr Errol Hanoman into the frame by telling us that Raj Singh, who would functionally be an executive chairman but not resident here, will be earning the same as Hanoman who was a full-time chief executive of the corporation! At that time Minister Gopaul as he is now, was chairman, so was Dr Gopaul getting $2.5 million a month?  But for us to employ this part-time executive chairman at a cost of $2.5 million per month, Minister Singh was careful not to mention that since he is resident abroad, we would in fact incur huge expenses to bring him here monthly to chair GuySuCo’s meetings estimated by the opposition to be a total package of US$25,000 a month. This situation, I repeat, is a completely different situation in comparison to Errol Hanoman who was a highly respected former Finance Director of the corporation and who was working full time in the industry as CEO, not chairman, as Minister Singh wrongly stated at the press conference. In my previous letter I expressed my opinion that the current CEO Mr Bhim is way out of his depth in his present situation.

In view of the above let me say that Mr Singh is not worth this salary. His exposure in the sugar industry was as an industrial relations junior manager whose offices were not even situated in the same building as the other functioning directors/managers of the corporation.

Consequently since CEO Bhim’s comment was that “there was no cane in the fields,” I don’t know which one of GuySuCo’s current directors, especially this absentee chairman, has the competence to rectify the dire situation which the industry finds itself in today, and what workable plans will be formulated to mechanise the harvesting and increase the yield of cane in the fields. He said that President Ramotar had a plan to restructure the corporation, but none of us have seen it. I want to remind the public that Mr Ramotar was on the board of GuySuCo during all of the time when the corporation was being emasculated through political interference, so his plan could hardly be viable. And here we are again putting a person in as chairman whose only apparent qualification for the job is that he is a devout PPP activist overseas.

I would like to remind the public that the two corporations which have brought this nation to the brink of disaster through incompetence and corruption are GPL and GuySuCo. Both were slated by the Desmond Hoyte administration for privatisation, and just before the 1992 elections Dr Jagan torpedoed the privatisation talks by telling the public that if he won the 1992 elections, he would not be honouring any agreements made by Hoyte to privatise GuySuCo or GPL. And I want to quote Dr Jagan from his speech on May 26, 1995:  “I have been faithful to my promise of giving you a government that is fully accountable to its electorate, free from corruption and transparent in all its financial and business affairs and the upholding of all your rights and freedoms won through sacrifice.” I wonder what he would do were he here today to see what he has created.

Thirdly, this press briefing was conducted at Freedom House. Dr Ashni Singh is a member of a minority government which does not control parliament, nevertheless, the PPP has to understand, that they have formed a government of all the people and as such convening meetings outlining government’s positions at Freedom House is an insult to us and should stop. Paramountcy of the party is gone and the PPP must accept it and move on; there are several more appropriate places, GINA for example, where they can conduct these sorts of briefings.  The government of all the people cannot possibly convene a weekly press conference in the PPP headquarters where Dr Singh is speaking in his capacity as a minister of government.


Fourthly, I want to know from Dr Singh’s disclosures, why Raj Singh needs two homes? And in what country/s will these two homes be located?


Fifthly, I am concerned that he told the press conference that he does not want to speak about the other members of the board, he would only be addressing the Raj Singh issue. The media have reservations about the competence of the board since it is failing miserably even when this same Mr Raj Singh was its acting chairman during the disastrous first crop of 2013, so how can he, in a democracy, refuse to answer questions about the current board members and their competence?


Sixthly, he told the press that Raj Singh is eminently qualified, “has worked in sugar for a number of years at indeed senior levels” but neglects to tell them that he really worked in the Industrial Relations Department of GuySuCo in the late ’70s and early’80s as a junior manager under D P Sankar and has no experience of the running of the administrative, factory or field sections of the corporation. So the opposition is right: Raj Singh does not have the qualifications or experience to address the problems of the corporation at this time. The government should release the full CV of Mr Raj Singh; this is our industry which is in a morass of economic difficulties brought on by similar disastrous policy decisions over the past 10 years, and they are asking us to subsidise it with our taxes. We therefore have a right to know who this man is, and what his qualifications are.


Then seventhly, comes the strangest part of this press conference; Ashni Singh tells the media that he had minimal knowledge of the industry! It’s there in the Stabroek News of June 11th on page 12 captioned ‘GuySuCo executive chairman likely to earn 2.5 million a month.’  If the Minister of Finance has minimal knowledge of our largest and most important industry, how dare he ask us in his national budget to put up $5+ billion in 2012 and another $5+ billion in 2013 to bail out the industry through the budget from the perilous state it finds itself in, with all of these incompetent directors and managers.


Surely as Minister of Finance he would have had to find out in the most fundamental and comprehensive way what is going on in this industry before he decided to ask the taxpayers to take their money to bail out GuySuCo. There is much more, Editor, but space prohibits further examination of the matter. However, there was one statement by Ashni Singh which I would like to address: he told the media (I saw this on TV) at the same press briefing that the poor production in the first crop was due to rainfall and strikes. I don’t know where Minister Singh is living, but we had the driest first half year in a very long time in 2013, and as far as strikes are concerned, I want to remind him that in August 1977 to January 1978 the sugar industry went on a 135 day strike called by the PPP’s GAWU, but we still made 241,527 tonnes of sugar which was 74.4 per cent of the annual target.


As far as the copious amounts of information provided by GuySuCo to the 9th Parliament when Mr Robert Persaud came with the GuySuCo team to answer our questions, I, as a member and chairman of the committee was far from convinced that the corporation was pursuing a viable and realistic developmental plan, and in fact they refused to give us the 1998-2008 strategic plan. I believe that they said that they could not find it.
So in my opinion it is wholly unacceptable to spend this amount of money on a chairman who has no experience in cane cultivation, mechanisation or factories; disciplines which would be essential in order to warrant this huge salary in addition to travelling and accommodation expenses which I am advised, will in the end, add up to US$25,000 per month.


GuySuCo's problems will inevitably continue.
< Yours faithfully

I would not like to see GuySuCo (because its workers need the jobs) being sold off to private investors like may be Tony and family. But the benefits to the top management has to be address.  I am not just talking about Raj who lives overseas but the upper management on the estates.  Some of those upper managers got butlers, cooks, nannies, maids, gardeners and drivers working in their homes.  How many of you men here got butlers?. Some of their homes on the estates are like small mansions.  It is unbearable to see East Indian women ( to support their famiies) lift bundles of cane on their heads to take it to the punts while knowing they are working to pay for their bosses butlers.

Think Naiaul is correct in saying we have a disease, an absence of original thought ( being psychologically damaged as Fanon suggested)...we are mimic men?

Originally Posted by Churchill
Stabroek News June 17th,2013

Dear Editor,

Our Minister of Finance recently declared that Mr Raj Singh currently acting Chairman of GuySuCo will not be receiving a $5 million monthly salary or even a $3 million monthly salary as stated in the media, but a $2.5 million salary. That ought to take care of the concerns of those who thought that he was going to get $3 million. Who exactly does Ashni Singh think he is fooling? Here again is total contempt for the opposition and the citizens of this country, and a betrayal of Dr Jagan.
First Minister Singh was careful not to list what the other costs of being an absentee Chairman of GuySuCo would add to the woes of this cash-strapped corporation. In fact he told us that Raj Singh would be the executive chairman, but clearly this is nonsense since he can’t be executive chairman of anything unless he is living here 365 days a year. Sugar operations just do not happen once a month; it is a 24 hours a day 356 days a year operation.
Secondly, he then tried to obscure the picture and confuse the public by bringing Mr Errol Hanoman into the frame by telling us that Raj Singh, who would functionally be an executive chairman but not resident here, will be earning the same as Hanoman who was a full-time chief executive of the corporation! At that time Minister Gopaul as he is now, was chairman, so was Dr Gopaul getting $2.5 million a month?  But for us to employ this part-time executive chairman at a cost of $2.5 million per month, Minister Singh was careful not to mention that since he is resident abroad, we would in fact incur huge expenses to bring him here monthly to chair GuySuCo’s meetings estimated by the opposition to be a total package of US$25,000 a month. This situation, I repeat, is a completely different situation in comparison to Errol Hanoman who was a highly respected former Finance Director of the corporation and who was working full time in the industry as CEO, not chairman, as Minister Singh wrongly stated at the press conference. In my previous letter I expressed my opinion that the current CEO Mr Bhim is way out of his depth in his present situation.
In view of the above let me say that Mr Singh is not worth this salary. His exposure in the sugar industry was as an industrial relations junior manager whose offices were not even situated in the same building as the other functioning directors/managers of the corporation.
Consequently since CEO Bhim’s comment was that “there was no cane in the fields,” I don’t know which one of GuySuCo’s current directors, especially this absentee chairman, has the competence to rectify the dire situation which the industry finds itself in today, and what workable plans will be formulated to mechanise the harvesting and increase the yield of cane in the fields. He said that President Ramotar had a plan to restructure the corporation, but none of us have seen it. I want to remind the public that Mr Ramotar was on the board of GuySuCo during all of the time when the corporation was being emasculated through political interference, so his plan could hardly be viable. And here we are again putting a person in as chairman whose only apparent qualification for the job is that he is a devout PPP activist overseas.
I would like to remind the public that the two corporations which have brought this nation to the brink of disaster through incompetence and corruption are GPL and GuySuCo. Both were slated by the Desmond Hoyte administration for privatisation, and just before the 1992 elections Dr Jagan torpedoed the privatisation talks by telling the public that if he won the 1992 elections, he would not be honouring any agreements made by Hoyte to privatise GuySuCo or GPL. And I want to quote Dr Jagan from his speech on May 26, 1995:  “I have been faithful to my promise of giving you a government that is fully accountable to its electorate, free from corruption and transparent in all its financial and business affairs and the upholding of all your rights and freedoms won through sacrifice.” I wonder what he would do were he here today to see what he has created.
Thirdly, this press briefing was conducted at Freedom House. Dr Ashni Singh is a member of a minority government which does not control parliament, nevertheless, the PPP has to understand, that they have formed a government of all the people and as such convening meetings outlining government’s positions at Freedom House is an insult to us and should stop. Paramountcy of the party is gone and the PPP must accept it and move on; there are several more appropriate places, GINA for example, where they can conduct these sorts of briefings.  The government of all the people cannot possibly convene a weekly press conference in the PPP headquarters where Dr Singh is speaking in his capacity as a minister of government.
Fourthly, I want to know from Dr Singh’s disclosures, why Raj Singh needs two homes? And in what country/s will these two homes be located?
Fifthly, I am concerned that he told the press conference that he does not want to speak about the other members of the board, he would only be addressing the Raj Singh issue. The media have reservations about the competence of the board since it is failing miserably even when this same Mr Raj Singh was its acting chairman during the disastrous first crop of 2013, so how can he, in a democracy, refuse to answer questions about the current board members and their competence?
Sixthly, he told the press that Raj Singh is eminently qualified, “has worked in sugar for a number of years at indeed senior levels” but neglects to tell them that he really worked in the Industrial Relations Department of GuySuCo in the late ’70s and early’80s as a junior manager under D P Sankar and has no experience of the running of the administrative, factory or field sections of the corporation. So the opposition is right: Raj Singh does not have the qualifications or experience to address the problems of the corporation at this time. The government should release the full CV of Mr Raj Singh; this is our industry which is in a morass of economic difficulties brought on by similar disastrous policy decisions over the past 10 years, and they are asking us to subsidise it with our taxes. We therefore have a right to know who this man is, and what his qualifications are.
Then seventhly, comes the strangest part of this press conference; Ashni Singh tells the media that he had minimal knowledge of the industry! It’s there in the Stabroek News of June 11th on page 12 captioned ‘GuySuCo executive chairman likely to earn 2.5 million a month.’  If the Minister of Finance has minimal knowledge of our largest and most important industry, how dare he ask us in his national budget to put up $5+ billion in 2012 and another $5+ billion in 2013 to bail out the industry through the budget from the perilous state it finds itself in, with all of these incompetent directors and managers.
Surely as Minister of Finance he would have had to find out in the most fundamental and comprehensive way what is going on in this industry before he decided to ask the taxpayers to take their money to bail out GuySuCo. There is much more, Editor, but space prohibits further examination of the matter. However, there was one statement by Ashni Singh which I would like to address: he told the media (I saw this on TV) at the same press briefing that the poor production in the first crop was due to rainfall and strikes. I don’t know where Minister Singh is living, but we had the driest first half year in a very long time in 2013, and as far as strikes are concerned, I want to remind him that in August 1977 to January 1978 the sugar industry went on a 135 day strike called by the PPP’s GAWU, but we still made 241,527 tonnes of sugar which was 74.4 per cent of the annual target.
As far as the copious amounts of information provided by GuySuCo to the 9th Parliament when Mr Robert Persaud came with the GuySuCo team to answer our questions, I, as a member and chairman of the committee was far from convinced that the corporation was pursuing a viable and realistic developmental plan, and in fact they refused to give us the 1998-2008 strategic plan. I believe that they said that they could not find it.
So in my opinion it is wholly unacceptable to spend this amount of money on a chairman who has no experience in cane cultivation, mechanisation or factories; disciplines which would be essential in order to warrant this huge salary in addition to travelling and accommodation expenses which I am advised, will in the end, add up to US$25,000 per month.
GuySuCo’s problems will inevitably continue.
Yours faithfully,
Tony Vieira

The PNC used to provide loans with very low repayment rates and long terms so the purchase of property was almost for free. Some jobs were stacked with benefits that included gardener, guard, maid, etc. And they would throw in a firearm to boot.

 

Now what the PPP has done also calls for commentary. I don't know what the corporate structure of GUYSUCO is and how much of a political fingerprint there is for the benefits regime. You also have to ask for the basis of these benefits that befitted a colonial time and when out commodity marketers and management (Bauxite and Sugar), when the personnel was largely British and American expats.

 

Prima facie though what you read in in the beginning post smells stink.

what's "stink" about Churchill's offerings in the beginning post?

that is so many words of nothing. Say what you want to say and avoid the circumlocution. GUYSUCO is a leech source to the PPP and their cronies. Ramorat sat there for 19 years on the board and fiddled while the industry burned.It is on his watch that white elephant that precipitated its demise was delivered still born to us with a third of a billion gone.

 

What the hell is Geeta Singh Knight or Raj Singh's expertise with running anything? CLICO is attached to the former and the latter has no resume yet he is there milking us to the tune of some 200K US a year. The average sugar worker makes less than 4k US a year! GUYSUCO is simply being badly run.

 

You folks need to get some balls or some moral grounding and stop dodging around issues or we will end up like Tunisia or Brazil or any of the places where there are discontents because leaders get fat as people get poor.

circumlocution.  

 

Danny Boy humoring himself....

circum- circumcise

lo      - lolo

cution -lectrocution

 

I think dat word means, circumcision by electrocution.

You mean Danny boy will reveal to us he's a Muslim? 

really kari? "circumlocution" too big a word for u to digest?

Nah Reduxion....it is its use by DannyBoy that got me a chuckle.....like useless BIG WORDS.....

Its use is perfectly applicable to where it was used and given, I hope, the audience is not a bunch of fifth graders, logically a necessary fit.