Is the President not a part of the few people messing up the Skeldon Factory?

Oct 14, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
As the new millennium approached, one thing was very clear to Guyana; it was that the international business for sugar was about to change drastically. Guyana being a major CARICOM exporter of sugar needed to brace itself for the inevitable turbulent times that were to become manifest in the European section of the international sugar market where Guyana traded its sugar at a preferential price.
The European Union (EU) began to make it known as the nineties came to an end, that after 2006 it was going to remove the preferential pricing structure that Guyana and many other African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries enjoyed. Therefore, it would seem that a logical thing for the Guyana Government to do was to reform its local sugar industry in ways that would result in sustained profitability as it adjusted to these new market conditions.
In the early 2000s, the World Bank advised Guyana that the structural adjustment it needed to undertake in order to ensure it profits from sugar was to close the loss-making Demerara estates. The Guyana Government not only ignored that call by continuing to maintain these estates, but promptly announced it was building a new factory at Skeldon.
The capital investment of the new Skeldon Sugar Factory that began at US$110 million and rose to US$200 million is now proving to be a huge white elephant with its now notorious inefficiencies. After a delayed completion, one year has passed and the factory is still to produce its much trumpeted 100,000 tonnes of sugar annually.
The problems at the new Skeldon factory are numerous. The fact that the factory utilizes diffuser technology which should absorb less power, should be cheaper to maintain and result in a factory with a lower HP steam demand, making its HP steam available for the generation of electrical power, one must wonder why Skeldon being a new factory is not operating with optimum efficiency. Remember, Skeldon’s plan was to sell power to Guyana Power and Light (GPL).
Apart from the many technical problems that plague the factory, one of the main reasons for the inefficiencies of the new Skeldon factory is the fact that there is not enough cane to feed the factory. With an inadequate cane supply, it means that the factory will have to stop grinding whenever there is a shortfall in the cane supply, resulting in a huge opportunity cost to restart the factory every time it stops.
In certain sections of GuySuCo there is a saying: Sugar is made in the field not the factory. That might prove true in this situation. If there is not enough cane planted in the field to be harvested and ground in the factory, then one cannot expect significant sugar production, especially when a tonnes cane per tonnes sugar ratio exists.
The Government and GuySuCo should have ensured that the sugar cane cultivation at Skeldon matched the requirements of the factory, before they commissioned the factory into operation.
The hypocrisy President Jagdeo displayed to the people of Corentyne when
speaking recently about the new Skeldon factory by saying: “We’re not going to make that sort of investment to have a few people mess it up…so even if it means personally I have to get involved, I will get involved to ensure that it is fixed…that it’s delivering the kind of results that it should deliver so that we can safeguard the sugar industry”; insults the intelligence of the learned Berbician and other Guyanese!
Is President Jagdeo insinuating to the Corentyne people that he was not personally involved in the conceptualization and further erection of the new Skeldon factory? Is he not a part of the few people messing up the Skeldon Factory? He is behaving as if someone else decided to build this factory and now that it is not functioning properly, he now has to make an entrance in his now familiar ‘Big Brother’ fashion to fix it. I find Mr. Jagdeo’s recent statement repugnant, especially since a year ago when he was expressing his dissatisfaction with the inadequate cane cultivation at Skeldon, and indicating that his government will do all it can to ensure that enough canes are available, he said: “It could be done from all I have heard and we’re not going to work in the business as usual … we’re going to make a serious effort. I want the board to understand that, and the Minister will have to push this.”
Well, just in case Mr. Jagdeo is serious about fixing Skeldon and GuySuCo as a whole, he must begin by ensuring that a national board of directors is selected. Instead of appointing a group of persons who are largely incompetent because they do not understand the business of sugar, he might want to find the best Guyanese minds who can strategically think in directions that can truly turn our sugar industry around.
GuySuCo is a quasi-governmental organisation that serves a very large section of the Guyanese population.  As a result, its Board of Directors ought not to be government affiliated individuals, but technically competent persons regardless of their political affiliation.
Mr. Komal Chand is an authority on labour relations in the sugar industry; wouldn’t it be better to have him sit on GuySuCo’s Board as against being in Parliament?
Richard Francois

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