Guyana’s sugar industry can be saved

One thing’s for certain: media coverage of the sugar issue is not where it ought to be at this time, and many of the experts I have spoken to have advised me it has much to do with sugar being seen as a rural issue when the media houses are all based in Georgetown. I am humbly calling on the media houses to spend some more time reporting on the sugar issues in the villages of Demerara and Berbice.
But that issue aside, one of the greatest betrayals of our people has taken place over the past two years under Dr Clive Thomas, and I speak directly to the way the sugar industry is being managed under this Granger regime. All humans suffer from dreams, but when politicians like Thomas proceed along a road that sells “false hope” to the poor and the working class rather than practical realities, nothing good can come from such evil. The sugar industry suffered under the poor leadership of Errol Hanoman, then Paul Bhim, and then Raj Singh, all under the PPP. But what is worse is how the intensification of the suffocation was allowed to happen again under Hanoman during this PNC-led regime. These actions by the Granger regime can be compared to “turning the sword in the wound” in some sort of fatalistic game similar to what the narco-traffickers do to their enemies.
Is the sugar belt the enemy of the Granger regime? This damage done over the past two years under Thomas and Hanoman is unpardonable. When one reads of the false hope in an article published on September 7, 2017 in the State Media, one can only find words to the effect that the senior leadership in the industry has done a poor job of executing the solutions for the industry.
In summary, Thomas and Hanoman have taken the industry backwards, But Thomas is proud to pronounce on “promised financing” from the Government of Guyana for diversification works. But why could not the money for this financing be funnelled into an ethanol plant at Wales, rather than a harebrained rice project at the same estate?
We hear of capital investment to clean up the image of Enmore to make it more marketable for privatization. But why could not those sums of money be pumped into the field, factory and packaging plant along with an initiative to conduct a heavy marketing push to make the Demerara Gold the sugar of choice at every coffee table across the Caribbean and even in Starbucks?
We hear of new money being pumped into NICIL to help with the privatization of Skeldon, but yet these boys could not explore joint venture opportunities to fix the factory once and for all with the Indians, build a sugar refinery and a new state-of-the-art Wharf at Corriverton to make Berbice profitable as the producer of refined sugar for the Caribbean.
You see, for years on the sugar belt, it has always been about the personal vested interest of a few, rather than the industry’s vested interest; and that is why it has failed. That is why I can never accept one word from Donald Ramotar on the sugar belt, and that is why I can never accept one word today from Clive Thomas. They are both discredited on the sugar issue.
But even with the destruction caused by Thomas and Hanoman today, I still remain convinced that, with much restructuring, the sugar belt can be saved. But the message has to be elevated to the front pages of the media and into the cabinet meetings. That is why it is extremely important that GAWU ramp up its activism across the sugar belt and in Georgetown to bring this issue to the decision-making table for further deliberations.
I have personally built a turnaround model in 2015, and have even revised it earlier this year after seeing the 2016 draft financial from GuySuCo. From that model, once it is resourced within 5 years, GuySuCo can be cash-neutral; and without shutting down factories. The solution has always been moving upstream to value-added sugar-related products like ethanol, alcohol, refined sugar, agro energy and packaged sugar. Raw-sugar production in Guyana is dead, but value-added sugar-related products is very much alive.
If you observed, Hanoman has done nothing in the last 2 years to move the sugar industry up the value chain. It is as if the plan all along was to destroy asset value in the sugar belt.
Let me make it absolutely clear to all investors who think they want to join the Granger regime in raping the assets of GuySuCo: I have been assured that all of those signed agreements will be reviewed, and if found unfair to the industry, will be reversed and annulled post-2020.
Until the Guyanese people get a fair chance to develop what their fore-parents toiled for in slavery (Afro-Guyanese) and indentureship (Other Groups), those assets will not be allowed to be liquidated.
Regards,
Sase Singh