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Guyana still imports sugar

Jun 13, 2009 News

Guyana continues to import sugar, even as Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) maintains to record a shortfall in sugar production.
Yesterday, Minister of Agriculture, Robert Persaud confirmed that the decision to import sugar had not yet been reversed. At the end of the just concluded sugar crop, GuySuCo recorded a shortfall by 6,000 tons.
The Minister yesterday said that the decision to import sugar was taken strategically to get much of Guyana’s sugar into Europe, before the end of the sugar protocol, which expires at the end of September.

He claimed that GuySuCo makes more money by importing sugar for consumption and exporting the local sugar, for which it gets a premium price, while at the same time not compromising consumers demand.
But even as the Minister seems to be comfortable with the arrangement, consumers are not happy with the quality of sugar on the local market. “The proposal taken to the board is to import sugar to fill gaps, should there be a shortage of supply on the local market because of GuySuCo export. That gap in local consumption will be filled, so (imports) will be done on a needs basis.”

Based on documentation, the Minister said that the request does not exceed 13,000 tons. In February during the Budget debate, Alliance For Change leader, Raphael Trotman, said that Guyana’s economy is precariously poised on a ‘one-legged stool’. He was referring to the sugar industry.
During the debate, the sugar industry came in for much criticism, in light of the position that the growth of the economy is touted to be solely dependent on expected good performance of the industry this year.
Trotman said that the most frightening aspect of the 2009 budget, is the ‘unreasonable burden’ being placed on the sugar industry to be the ‘bedrock’ of the country’s economic sustainability for development.

Last year was a very tough year for GuySuCo, as the company ended the year with a deficit of more than $3B.
Over the years, GuySuCo has consistently been reviewing its production targets, including last year’s, and among the many excuses proffered were far reaching strikes, weather and loss of opportunity.
GuySuCo has come in for heavy criticisms over the past year, with its problems being compounded when the arbitration tribunal set up to deal with the wages dispute between the corporation and its workers, ruled that the company had to pay $1.3B to its workers.

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