“Frankly when we did it, it was a mistake. I will tell you that, bluntly, because no bail out money should be made available to any malfunctioning corporation until we can ensure that in fact we correct the malfunction, errors and deficiencies and they give us a plan on how they plan to expend this money provided.”

APNU Shadow Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine

This is according to A Partnership for National Unity’s (APNU) Executive member and Shadow Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine.
He was at the time responding to the non scrutiny that took place when $6B was approved by the Combined opposition with its majority in the National Assembly in the 2014 Budget to bailout the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
Addressing the possible request of a further $6B by the company to buy harvesters in a hope to return the company to profitability by next year, Roopnaraine said that the opposition would no longer agree “to the granting of these large sums of monies to bail out GuySuCo without a specific plan laid out to us stating exactly how it will be applied and how we can anticipate how the improvements will be made.”
Roopnaraine is contending that there are a lot of things happening with GuySuCo that requires investigation and a great sense of urgency.
He is of the opinion that instead of being on the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Economic Services, GuySuCo should be subjected to a Special Parliamentary Committee investigation looking at GuySuCo only.
“We need a complete management over hall of GuySuCo, not simply the board, you have to fix the board but it…is not really as independent as it needs to be. When you talk to management they refer you to the board and when you talk to the board to whom will they refer you,” queried Roopnaraine.
GuySuCo has been recording a string of poor performances, grounding to a 23-year low last year with 187,000 tonnes. This was down from the 260,000 tonnes announced at the beginning of the year. This year, the industry was a little more hesitant, setting a target of 216,000 tonnes of sugar.
GuySuCo will now be asking a new Board which will be appointed shortly, to consider a new strategic plan, to be laid in the National Assembly soon after.
Further exacerbating GuySuCo’s problems, is the faulty Skeldon project which reportedly cost Guyana in excess of US$200M, the most expensive infrastructure so far. It also included opening up new cane lands, conversion of fields to accommodate mechanical harvesters and allowing more private cane farming, with GuySuCo even hiring outside experts, including from South Africa, to fix the issues.
Six major ones remain, including a defective punt dumper, which will cost GuySuCo up to US$4M to fix.
GuySuCo has remained a largely touchy issue for both the ruling party and the Opposition because of the sheer number of workers. The sugar industry remains the largest employer for the country with 16,000 workers, 300 suppliers and about 100,000 persons indirectly dependent on its factories.
When asked if this was a determining factor in the opposition approving $6B in the National Assembly to bailout the ailing sugar company without a proper plan being outlined, Roopnarine said that did not influence their decision to provide support, “there were other things.”