Skip to main content

FM
Former Member

Ramotar explores India’s help to rescue GuySuCo

JANUARY 11, 2015 | BY  | FILED UNDER NEWS 

President Donald Ramotar, who is on the six-day visit to India to attend the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) celebrations, has visited one of that country’s top performing sugar factories.

President Donald Ramotar

President Donald Ramotar

It may be a signal that Guyana would be asking India for help to rescue the troubled Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
According to a Times of India news report yesterday, Ramotar flew in to the Valsad Sugar Factory on an Indian Air Force chopper where he was “impressed with the functioning of the sugar factory and praised the state-of-the-art technology” used to crush the sugarcane in order to make the crystals.
Talking to the management of the Valsad sugar factory and district collector of Valsad, Dr Vikrant Pandey, Ramotar said that the relationship between India and Guyana is very old and that it is going to be further strengthened in the coming days.
The Government of Guyana has been struggling for over five years to make the new Skeldon factory work efficiently.
Built by the Chinese under a US$200M programme the Skeldon factory continuously failed to meet targets. Despite being the newest facility in Guyana and hailed as a saviour to the industry, Skeldon last year went down as the worst performing factory in Guyana. It took almost 27 tonnes of cane to make one tonne of sugar, more than double the industry’s average at the estates for the second crop which ended in late December.

Guyana is exploring the possibilities of Indian help to help fix GuySuCo’s problems.

Guyana is exploring the possibilities of Indian help to help fix GuySuCo’s problems.

Guyana was forced to hire a South African firm, Bosch engineering, and spend over $1B to help fix some of the technical problems. However, the estate, a brainchild of former President Bharrat Jagdeo, has continued to disappoint.
Guyana has reportedly quietly hired a number of Indians already and since last year they have been working at a number of factories.
The industry is in a deep cash crunch, borrowing almost US$20M last year to finance expenses from its crops.
In June, GuySuCo officials met with a Parliamentary oversight committee and reported that millions of dollars more would be needed to buy harvesting machines and improve efficiency. However, it will not be enough to bring down the current cost of production to sustainable levels by 2017.
In June last year, Guyana was producing at over US$0.35 per pound, almost double at what the world price was. In 2017, with interventions, this cost would only come down to US$0.27.
To compound matters, world prices fueled by a glut say the prices tumbling from US$715 per tonne of sugar to US$350 in December.
GuySuCo has remained a major embarrassment for Government with little answers for the myriad of problems.
The industry is the country’s biggest employer…almost 16,000 or more employees.
With significant supporters among the workers, political parties, including the ruling PPP/C, have been reluctant to make any hard decisions.
A number of Caribbean countries have already exited sugar production after Europe announced opening it markets to other players. Guyana lost its preferential price and over a period of five years saw revenues plummeting more than 35 percent.

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Was Surrendra not in controversy to build water pumps, that might still be in India ?

Where does the PPP find these people, they must be flocking to Guyana as easy prey to the taxpayer.

A corrupt government surely attract corrupt companies.   

Tola
Originally Posted by Tola:

Was Surrendra not in controversy to build water pumps, that might still be in India ?

Where does the PPP find these people, they must be flocking to Guyana as easy prey to the taxpayer.

A corrupt government surely attract corrupt companies.   

as long as they can enable thiefin the PPP will attract dem like flies to shit.

 

Ask Anus he attracts a lot of flies.......he is a fly specialist for de PPP.

FM
Originally Posted by warrior:

ramotar was on guysuco board for 20 yrs and he thief it down to the ground

That is correct Ramotar himself has been living off the raping and pillaging at GuySuCo. This is massive theft of state resources.

FM
Originally Posted by HM_Redux:
Originally Posted by warrior:

ramotar was on guysuco board for 20 yrs and he thief it down to the ground

That is correct Ramotar himself has been living off the raping and pillaging at GuySuCo. This is massive theft of state resources.

The corruption and vindictiveness  will continue as Ramotar stall for elections.

I don't believe he will call election this year, because he wants a pension like Jagdeo, on the backs of ordinary Guyanese taxpayers.  

Tola

Add Reply

×
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×
×