GuySuCo is not getting out of sugar

Dear Editor,

The Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc. (GuySuCo) wishes to respond to Dr Leslie Ramsammy’s letter titled Pace of sugar industry’s closure is accelerating.

Firstly, the Corporation is disappointed that Dr Ramsammy would write a 798-word letter to the Editor without even bothering to verify that the information therein is accurate. At his level, we find that to be unacceptable. GuySuCo is a phone call away; this is, if Dr Ramsammy is serious about exercising more prudence in his communication on the Corporation.

Nonetheless, the Corporation will repeat for the umpteenth time: GUYSUCO IS NOT GETTING OUT OF SUGAR! Re-organising does not mean ‘getting out of sugar’.

Dr Ramsammy stated that “Wales Estate is closed. The threat of closure in June 2015 has become a reality and 1700 workers and their families are in a struggle for survival”. Dr Ramsammy would be relieved to learn that a key challenge for the Corporation currently is not finding jobs for its employees, but rather convincing them that continued employment is the best option for them, their families and communities.

What he would find even more interesting is that the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) has been encouraging hundreds of employees from Wales Estate, specifically the cane harvesters and cane transport operators, to demand termination of their services for a one-off payment of severance, even though their services are needed to keep the doors of the Uitvlugt Estate open.

In another instance, the very union is encouraging the planters from the East Demerara Estate to refuse to accept work as harvesters, despite the fact that their estate is harvesting its First Crop 2017, and has a very low harvesters’ attendance rate of 59%; and therefore runs the risk of not achieving its target.

With regard to the statement that the Providence cultivation is being closed, the fact is that harvesting is ongoing and the “hundreds of persons employed as cane cutters at Providence have been unemployed since the first crop of 2016”, as Dr Ramsammy claims, and they are actually engaged in harvesting for the Rose Hall Estate.

With regard to closing Skeldon Estate, it is unfortunate that the co-generation plant was deemed as unsafe to operate, based on advice from Skeldon Energy Inc. (SEI). As a result, the first crop at that estate has been suspended. However, this situation, like other aspects in Dr Ramsammy’s missive, has been twisted for the sole purpose of justifying his claim that the sugar industry is closing down, so as to create unnecessary panic and anxiety.

Dr Ramsammy further stated that “the downgrading of sugar has already left a huge vacuum in the country’s foreign currency earnings”. Albert Einstein said: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”, or, “No problem can be solved with the same consciousness that created them”. It would therefore be highly illogical for Dr Ramsammy to expect that things would remain the same but get better. The problems of GuySuCo cannot be solved by using the same thinking or consciousness that created them; so, no doubt, there will be shifts as we adjust to the ‘new normal’.

The sugar industry has to be reorganized, GuySuCo has to be re-engineered. There is no question about that if it is to become, and remain, a competitor in the regional and global sugar industries. The first thing that needs to be done for the survival of the industry — whether in the short or medium term — is that productivity needs to be increased; and in the final analysis, the union, workers, the management of the industry and other stakeholders need to work together. Workers need to embrace the programme for reorganizing the Corporation and ensuring its transformation into a resilient entity.

We urge Dr Ramsammy to leave the company of naysayers, get on board and become a part of the One GuySuCo Team; the Corporation is forging ahead, and will evolve as the ‘New GuySuCo’.

Yours faithfully,

Audreyanna Thomas, Senior Communications Officer