Sugar in crisis
With the government-controlled media serving a daily diet about mega-schemes such as the Marriott hotel-casino, Specialty tourist hospital, new Timehri airport and the just dried up Amaila hydro project, attention has shifted from the real base of our economy. Older mega-projects such as the Skeldon Factory and the Sugar Packaging plant have faded into the background. So too has the traditional backbone of our economy. Except for rice and gold, the tripod of sugar, bauxite and timber no longer holds out the great promise for new jobs and the overall growth of our economy. So when it is reported that a vital sector such as the sugar industry is in trouble, then all of us need to show concern, if not alarm; alarm, because over the past five years the industry has reported net losses of some $30 billion. It remains on life support and could only survive on bailout subsidies from the Treasury. For years, many wrongly thought that the sugar industry was too old and too big to fail, but sadly, gross mismanagement has taken its toll. In the Guyana context, when sugar sneezes the entire economy catches a cold. For one, the state of decline of the industry in recent years has sent chills down the spine of the estimated 70,000 workers, their families and ancillary business, who depend on the viability of the sugar industry. On June 16 President Ramotar said on Enmore Martyrs’ Day that the sugar industry is in ‘crisis mode’, a statement which contrasted sharply with the promise of his predecessor, Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo, that he would single-handedly spearhead the recovery of the industry. It was projected that annual production would long have reached 500,000 tons, but that was a pipe dream and as illusory as getting a robust flow of water down the Amaila falls. It appears that the so-called 2009 Turnabout Plan has been scuttled and that a new 2013-2017 strategic plan is being rolled out, in which production is cut back by 100,000 tonnes per year. Low production has been a pattern, falling from 325,317 tonnes in 2004 to 218,070 in 2012 – an all-time lowest production. For this year, the first crop production at below 48,000 tonnes, was the “lowest ever first crop on record”. This has impacted on job loss, since between 1999 and 2012, direct employment in the industry shrunk by some 9,000. The magic pill to restore the industry’s health was touted as the Skeldon factory, on which some US$200 million has been spent, but which continues to non-perform, and production continues to plummet. President Ramotar glossed over the core reasons for the failure such as poor cane husbandry, decline in peasant and cooperative cane farming, poor wages and demoralization of the labour force, and lackluster leadership. Whilst the President stated that he was “ready for all ideas…that will turn this industry around,” it is regrettable that enlightened leadership ideas were unacceptable to him, since his government went right ahead to appoint as the head of the troubled corporation a crony of the ruling party based in New Jersey, USA. . It is time that we build through diversification as well as partnership with private and coop cane farmers, a firewall around the industry. We need to pay sugar workers better to keep them motivated and on the job. In this way we can promote sugar as a value added industry that focuses on mechanized harvesting, ethanol production, packaged sugar and alcohol production. For the next five years, Guyana needs to produce at least 195,000 tonnes of sugar to meet our European Union quota, at preferential price. We hope that this also would not prove to be too ambitious a target, and that we could additionally capture the Caribbean market, with refined Guyana sugar if only we can get our act together.
