Parliamentarians inspect Skeldon sugar factory

Apr 30, 2010 News

Adviser to the President Gail Teixeira (centre) flanked by Members of the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Economics during Wednesday’s visit to the Skeldon factory

– facility reaching 200 tonnes of cane per hour

The Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Economics, comprising government and opposition member, on Wednesday inspected the US$185M flagship state-of-the-art Skeldon sugar factory which was commissioned last August by President Bharrat Jagdeo.
The committee, which comprised members of the People’s National Congress Reform, Winston Murray, Mervyn Williams, Dave Danny and Jennifer Wade, Adviser to the President Gail Teixeira and Chairman of the Rice Producers Association, Dharmkumar Seeraj, inspected several parts of the factory, and is expected to make recommendations.
This is the first visit the Committee has made to the factory since its construction.
According to the Government Information Agency, Teixeira said that GuySuCo has always been a major concern of the Committee since it is a major contributor to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
She noted that the visit stemmed from criticisms by the media about the functions of the sugar factory.
“Some of those concerns have been expressed by Opposition leaders and even to some extent government officials. But after today’s visit everyone has come away feeling impressed and much more confident with the factory, of its future, and how it is coping to further expand and diversify the industry,” she added.
She noted that one of the impressive areas was the co-generation power plant which is providing energy to the Guyana Power and Light’s national grid. The facility has been designed to further move the country away from the use of fossil fuel, a main objective of the Low Carbon Development Strategy.
The committee will now have to submit a report to Parliament (National Assembly).
Some of the major issues raised included health of the workers and their families; the turnaround plan of GuySuCo and the benefits of land layout.
The functions of the international technology departments of the factory have also impressed PNCR’s Murray, who believed that the current strides in that department augur well for the future of the factory.
The visit, he stressed, was prompted by the need for a first-hand view of the factory and its prospects for the future.
While touring the facility, Murray also congratulated the technical team for the hard work done.
“I believe that the project has a number of very competent technical people manning it and that is good. They have to ensure that they maintain that factory because it is so digitalized or computerized that you really need a high level of technical skills to oversee it and man it but what impressed me was the honesty and commitment of these people who are managing …this project.”
He stated that the factory incorporates some of the best technologies from the world of sugar manufacturing, to provide a high efficiency manufacturing process that makes the best recovery of the sucrose and the energy from the raw sugar cane.
However, he noted, the viability of this project depends largely on the ability to produce 1.2M tonnes of cane per annum to feed it and to optimize the level of production it is capable of.
“But I am impressed by the fact that they are already at the level of utilizing 200 tonnes of cane per hour. It’s good and I wish the project well because it has the capacity to do well,” Murray said.
The factory which was conceived in 1998 as part of the Guyana Sugar Corporation’s strategic review, marks the culmination of 10 years of planning and execution.
The Skeldon factory was constructed with a combination of self-generated funds and loans from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the People’s Republic of China and the Government of Guyana.