Along with the appointment of a new board of directors at the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), a second round of changes will be implemented at the entity. “As was announced by the president, GuySuCo by the end of the month will have a new board of directors announced,” Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy said.
He has assured that he remains committed to his promise which is to make changes to the board of directors.
“As part of my presentation during the budget, I committed to making changes to the board and the corporation and I will remain committed to this… cannot sit without making changes,” he said.
According to the minister, while it is his ultimate belief that changes to management should happen when things are not going the way they should, he holds the opinion that the weather is a major constraint in the sugar industry.
Apart from changing the board of directors, Dr Ramsammy said there will be a second level of changes to management and daily operations of the factories and fields.
He explained that to overlook a field that may have some 50,000 hectares of crops, managing seven different factories and looking after decision-making is not an easy task.
“Presently, there is an overall director for factory management and an overall factory director… we have agreed that it is too much work for one person to provide that kind of supervision for seven or eight factories,” he said.
He said the aim is to have more than one supervisor and managers in different areas of the factory, production and management process so that it would ease the burden on one person.
This, he believes would make the factories more effective and sugar production would be greater. Dr Ramsammy therefore lobbied for more changes to be made to address other fundamental issues.
There will be field managers, operator managers and to add to that an overall director of the factory who will assist with the smooth running of the operations.
The minister said while there are many critics and persons would questions why managers are not going into the fields every day, this is a huge task, and according to him, this new management process should reflect significant changes. There will be a new chief executive officer at GuySuCo and some of the old board members and staff will be reassigned.
“Clearly, new people will coming in… we are now looking at a package of changes and this will be announced shortly,” he added.
