We need help to save the sugar industry

Dear Editor,

It was disturbing to learn, according to a report in the November 4, 2015 edition of Stabroek News, that GuySuCo’s CEO advised that the Corporation failed to produce about 6000 tonnes sugar arising from the sugar workers three-day protest action.

The goodly gentleman, who has worked for many years in sugar, could not have been truthful as he is fully well aware that the disclosure is misleading. The three-day strike was from Sunday to Tuesday. It is a known fact that even in the best of times, turnout of harvesters on Sundays is less than 50 per cent of a normal weekday turnout. It means that the CEO was alluding to almost 2000 tonnes sugar being produced per day, including Sunday.

Let the CEO point to any Sunday in the life of GuySuCo where 2000 tonnes sugar was produced, or let him point to anytime that 6000 tonnes were produced between Sunday and Tuesday of any week. How could the company fail to produce the sugar given that the canes remain in the cultivation?

Additionally, it is GuySuCo that boasted perpetually in the past about “solid canes in the ground” whenever they could not achieve production levels due to their own mismanagement. However, it appears that the “solid cane in the ground” principle does not apply in the case of protest action. The hullabaloo lacks any basis and cannot withstand scrutiny.

The CEO is also reported to have said that the industry lost a further Gy$38 million arising from stale canes that either were discarded or deteriorated due to the workers’ action. This like his previous assertion cannot hold water.

Can the CEO advise the public whether any canes were discarded and if so where? If there weren’t any discarded canes, he needs to provide empirical data that supports the extent of deterioration that resulted in 438 tonnes sugar being lost.

It is known that the factories process canes which have been burnt for over ten days even though the sugar recovery is not 100 per cent. Certainly canes burnt for about three to four days are still prime for sugar conversion. Is it that the CEO is being “intellectually dishonest” to use the Honourable Minster of Agriculture words?

Why does the top brass of the Corporation’s Management Team submit that the recent GAWU three-day strike was more effective than it was? Such portrayal is not in the interest of the Corporation.

Clearly, the credibility of the Corporation and the genuineness of their statements are under doubt in my view. The GuySuCo, through its reported statements, has inflicted further insult to the injuries already suffered by the sugar workers.

Yours truly,

Alvin Perriera