President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), Komal Chand, is calling for a restructuring of the Guyana Sugar Corporation’s board of directors to enable that entity to serve in the best interest of, not only the industry, but also the workers and the nation.
In his contribution to the 2011 National Budget debate in the National Assembly last Thursday, Chand opined that the management of the sugar company needs strengthening. He also thinks that the management of the corporation should be given the autonomy to manage, and should be held accountable for their actions.
“At the board level, the debarment of the two sugar unions should cease and a new board with the requisite skills and knowledge must have the clout to independently implement the approved policies of the government,” Chand said.
He also debunked suggestions of privatising GuySuCo in his opinion that if private owners could ensure the viability of the industry, nothing stops the state from doing the same.
The PPPC parliamentarian is also optimistic that the sugar industry would be revived, and would be capable of achieving its 30,000-tonne target set for 2011.
Meanwhile, he said it was unfortunate that pessimists, through the media, aired negative comments on the ailing sugar industry. On the other hand, the GAWU head criticised GuySuCo’s failure to solve the problems at the new Skeldon sugar factory, which he said was once described as the “jewel in the corporation’s crown”. According to him, GuySuCo has said that the Number One boiler at the factory will not be fixed by the Chinese contractor until June this year. “This means that, for the entire 2011 first crop, Skeldon estate’s cost of production could be far higher than it ought to be,” he pointed out. Chand is, nevertheless, hopeful that production costs would not be as high as they were in 2010. Chand believes that if Skeldon performs both at the field and factory levels, then its production target of 400,000 tonnes by 2013, as outlined in the turnaround plan, would be easily attainable.
The US$185 million Skeldon project was financed by three loans – a US$56 million loan from the Guyana government, a US$35 million from the Exim Bank of China, and a US$25 million loan from the Caribbean Development Bank, with GuySuCo contributing US$69 million. But with a problematic factory operation, striking sugar workers and a European Union cut in the price for sugar, the industry has been on a downward spiral.
Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh, in his budget speech, labelled 2010 as a disappointing year for the sugar sector. He pointed to the contributing factors of irregular weather patterns and loss of cane. “Looking ahead, GuySuCo’s priorities are to increase cane availability with expanded acreage under cultivation along with higher levels of participation by private cane farmers,” Singh told the House on January 17.
There are plans to facilitate heightened maintenance and key equipment replacement to increase efficiency of operations at other factories. Singh informed the House that GuySuCo is projected to incur a total capital expenditure of Gy$4.3 billion on these and related endeavours in 2011: “Taken together, these factors should enable the company to recover its production levels and restore its financial performance.”
