The Jagdeo regime has failed to give the required attention to the sugar industry

Dec 24, 2008 Letters

Dear Editor,
Reading the article captioned “Expect change in GuySuCo management next year” is a stark reminder that the buck is being passed again on the sugar industry.
Sugar had problems for a long time but the only way that industry can turn around is if all the key performance challenges are identified, the solutions are resourced adequately (enough money is put into the industry to re-tool and re-focus it) and the deliverables are project managed to achieve the intended outcome.
The PPP Government did identify some of the challenges; they did provide some of the resources but they failed miserably from a strategic perspective to project manage the problems and I am disappointed in the Jagdeo regime.
Some of the best minds of Guyana sit on the Board of GuySuCo but as a collective they ill advised Jagdeo and he did not take any action on this situation and thus he must be held accountable for the state of the industry. Blaming GAWU and the management is most unhelpful since all he is trying to do is deflect the substantive issues. Never would we find the Government accepting that it is at fault for not providing the required continuous attention the sugar industry needs.
GAWU is duty bound to its constituents to represent their interest and to date GAWU has done a commendable job representing the sugar workers of Guyana. I call on the Government of Guyana to publish the recommendation of the latest Independent Business Review on this company. Over five years now, we are aware that the EU was cutting the price by 36%. Over five years now we are aware that the industry is deteriorating (Ravi Dev spoke of these matters but no one listened).
Over five years now we are aware that there are management challenges in the company. Over five years now we are quite clear that we need to produce no less than 400,000 to be viable in the medium term.
Over five years ago, GAWU has made its position clear on the workers issues and the wastage in the company, so why all this surprise now? Why this blame game now? When did the key decision-makers in the government wake up?
The problem is not GAWU; the real problem is that the Jagdeo regime has failed to give the required attention to the industry that it deserves.
As we look after our personal agenda, globe trotting as the self appointed crusader from one issue to another, be it climate change to international trade agreements, we have dropped the ball on GuySuCo and by extension Guyana. Jagdeo is busy job hunting for his next job internationally at the tax payers’ expense and he will leave a significant amount of challenges for his successor. Poor Donald!
Ask anyone in Guyana who walks the corridors of power and they will tell you that whenever Jagdeo is out the country, no decisions are made in Government. Ministers just go into a pause mode until he returns. How can we run a country like this?
When Jagdeo returns, he holds a hastily arranged Cabinet meeting that makes swift but sub optimal decisions in an ad hoc fashion and then an equally rushed press conference to cast blame all over the place so that none is placed on the Office of the President. Anyone who has read up on Stalin would realise this is exactly how he ran the Soviet Union as he spent extended periods away from Moscow.
At the end of the day, a people deserve the Government they elect, so I suspect the sugar workers deserve Jagdeo.
No bonus or production incentive for the hard working sugar workers who have to do back breaking work so that we can export sugar and earn foreign currency; the Joint Services are more deserving of annual bonuses.
The sugar workers and their union have to carry some of the blame for Jagdeo’s indecisions. Tough luck, they voted for Jagdeo!
Avinash Sankar

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