Latest update February 6th, 2025 7:27 AM
Key sugar targets outlined as Enmore Martyrs remembered
Government and union leaders yesterday listed pushing sugar production to 400,000 tonnes by the end of 2012, getting a packaging plant running by February, and setting up a refinery as key targets to ensure the survival of the industry facing staggering price cuts from its largest market.
President Bharrat Jagdeo underscored the critical need for partnership to achieve these objectives, and he was clear the government was trying to avoid conflicts with workers, such as taking over health centres in estate communities which have historically been run by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
Prime Minister Samuel Hinds walks towards the Enmore Monument Site to lay a wreath in remembrance of the five sugar workers killed by colonial police 62 years ago.
It was Komal Chand, president of GAWU – the union that represents most of the industry’s 20,000 workers – who outlined the targets the industry must meet when he addressed mainly residents of Enmore yesterday who came out to honour five sugar workers who were gunned down at the estate in East Demerara village 62 years ago.
Chand said that defects preventing the full functioning of the massive Skeldon Sugar factory, hailed as the boon to the survival of the industry locally, must be corrected before the start of the second crop were the industry to get back on track.
He bemoaned the fact that since 2005 the industry has not been able to recover from loss in production. Average production has been at around 246,000 tonnes the past five years, he said.
“Those who manage it have the responsibility to put it right,” Chand declared.
Putting aside the 36 per cent price cut Europe, GuySuCo’s biggest customer, began imposing this year, he said had the targets been realized, significant profits would have accrued to the Corporation and it would have been in a better financial position.
He said that the shortfall of almost 50,000 tonnes over the past two years robbed the Corporation of almost $6 billion in revenue.
But President Jagdeo said that the European price cuts cannot be easily swept under the carpet. He said that with the price cuts from this year means an annual loss of $9.8 billion. Further, he said were one to factor in the fluctuation of the Euro in recent months, then it would amount to an additional price cut of 14 percent, or loss of a further $840 million.
At Enmore, where the Corporation is setting up a modern agriculture industrial complex at Enmore, Chand said the factory will be upgraded to produce another 40,000 tonnes to what it would be producing.
He said the Corporation would be able to profit 45 percent more on a pound of sugar than is packaged rather than if it were sold in bulk.
Chand underscored the important contributions this project could make to the industry and called on management to adhere to the timelines.
Relatives of the five Enmore Martyrs – Rambarran, Pooran, Lallabaje, Surujbally and Harry – were joined by political and union leaders in laying wreaths at the Enmore monument site.
Prime Minister Samuel Hinds laid the wreath on behalf of the state, while Seepaul Narine, as General Secretary, represented GAWU.
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