Sugar overhaul… GuySuCo’s Chairman to become CEO – Ramotar
There will be focus to repair GuySuCo’s new factory at Skeldon, Berbice, President Donald Ramotar said yesterday.
Government is moving ahead to name Dr. Rajendra Singh, current Chairman of the state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), the new boss as part of an aggressive plan to turn the industry around. Along with that decision will be the naming of a new Board of Directors, says President Donald Ramotar. The changes are expected very shortly, the official said. The Head of State was yesterday responding to questions about the troubled sugar corporation which last year fell to a 23-year low production of 187,000 tonnes, placing the industry in even more shakier grounds. This year, the industry has set a tentative target of 216,000 tonnes. Kaieteur News, since mid last year has been reporting that the New Jersey, US-based Dr. Singh, a former Board member who became Chairman, was set to be named the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The current CEO, Paul Bhim, is likely become his deputy. However, appointments had been delayed. Ramotar, during the press briefing at the Office of the President, made it clear that significant technical work is ongoing at the factories, and especially at the new flagship Skeldon facility, to correct a number of faults. Issues of agriculture with GuySuCo are also being targeted, he said. Ramotar has been a member of GuySuCo’s Board prior to being sworn in as President in late 2011. GuySuCo, the official said, is also examining technical help. Three such experts, from an Indian company, Casetech, are already in Guyana and working at the Enmore factory. The President confirmed a number of them are due in to address areas of agriculture and other technical areas. The industry, with its 16,000-plus workers, has been a major worry for the administration because of falling production in recent years. This is despite a US$200M investment in the Skeldon project which included the new, Chinese-built factory and expanded lands for cultivation in East Berbice. A US$12.5M packaging plant at Enmore, East Coast Demerara has failed to kickstart the turnaround of fortunes. GuySuCo has blamed the low production on poor workers’ turnout, problems at Skeldon, agriculture and weather. A cut to the price by Guyana’s biggest buyer in the European Union, to an accumulative 37 per cent, has not been helping. There have been criticisms, locally, that GuySuCo needs also to tighten up on spending and drastically improve its agricultural practice. Several Caribbean countries, including St. Kitts and Nevis, have pulled out of sugar or reduced production or privatized, in the case of Jamaica. Yesterday, President Ramotar said that the Government at this time was not considering privatizing GuySuCo and was rather exploring several options. At Uitvlugt, West Coast Demerara, more lands have been placed into the hands of private cane farmers. With a shortage of cane harvesters currently affecting the estates, with turnouts indicating below 50 per cent on average, private cane farmers who supply the estates make sense. At one time the biggest foreign currency earner for Guyana, sugar has slipped to third, behind gold and rice. Gold, which has been buoyed in recent years by high world prices and though dropping to over US$1,100 last year from a high of US$1,900 per ounce, has remained heartening, inching upwards slowly. Rice, because of the Petro-Caribe oil-for-rice deal with neighbouring Venezuela, has been seeing record production in recent times. According to the President, cognizant of the impact of sugar on the country’s economy, GuySuCo will continue to push for the increases mechanization with new lands at Skeldon being designed especially for harvesters. This was after years of the sugar industry being heavily dependent on manual labour for harvesting. In recent years, Government has been forced to help GuySuCo with cash to finance its operations. As at the end of last year, the Corporation reportedly owed over $10B to supplier, banks and other creditors.
