Vested economic interest and political cronyism are stifling development of the ethanol industry in Guyana

Oct 17, 2010 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
Well, well, President Jagdeo speaks again to save himself from himself. I quote from SN of October 2, 2010, “if Skeldon Factory doesn’t work; sugar is dead – Jagdeo.”
Is our President out of sync with the realities of the world?  World grain prices have been rising again on a long term trajectory and this rise is credited mainly to the shortage of ethanol stocks which can be derived from Cane Sugar.
To further expand the demand for ethanol feedstock, the world’s largest consumers of Ethanol; the Americans have just approved the increase in blending of ethanol into gasoline from 10% to 15% which is on target to increase their demand for ethanol from 14 billion to 36 billion gallons by 2020.
The market has reacted to this by increasing the price of ethanol since neither Brazil nor America can meet this demand and this is where the rest of the world comes in, including our very own GuySuCo. The market feels the rest of the world is not committed enough
To ethanol, so the price goes up.
In addition to improving the agronomical practices on all the estates at GuySuCo and the construction of the now ill-famous Skeldon Sugar Factory; the setting up of a bio-fuel industry to complement the cash flows of GuySuCo was vital five years ago. We are six years late because vested economic interest and political cronyism stifled the development of the ethanol industry in Guyana.
Six year ago a company called Angostura from Trinidad approached this regime to build a distillery in Berbice, but with the caveat that they get exclusive right to all the molasses produced in Guyana.
This Jagdeo regime agreed to this foolishness with no respect for the tried and tested traditional relationship between DDL, Banks DIH and GuySuCo.
That historical relationship always provided access to the best cut of the molasses to these rum manufacturers. Who is this Trinidadian upstart that could have destroyed DDL’s ability to produce its world famous rums?
The Executive Chairman in 2005 at Angostura was none other than Mr. Lawrence Duprey, who was also the Executive Chairman of the CL Financial Group, the main shareholders of the now ill-famous CLICO Trinidad which owned all the CLICO subsidiaries in the Caribbean. Do we see the connection? Well DDL defended their rights and the Trinidadian suitor went away and is now permanently out of the picture.
However, since February 2007, BioCapital (the second largest bio-fuel company in Brazil) has expressed an interest to invest US$300 million in the ethanol sector with a proposal to develop a distillery with GuySuCo but without the caveat that they must have exclusive right to GuySuCo’s molasses.
At around the same time, 10 other global companies from as far as India expressed interest in setting up distilleries to produce fuel ethanol in Guyana.
The IDB even chipped with US$1 million in free money (grant funds) to evaluate these proposals but guess what?
If my financial sponsors cannot get to build the distillery, no one else will get a chance, even if it means adverse consequences for the sugar belt and the sugar workers.
This is the kind of pettiness and vindictiveness we are exposed to at the highest levels in the regime.
One day, I will reveal how all of these activities had connections with the sale of a certain house in Pradoville, nearby Hotel Prado, for multiples of its real value. I will also reveal who the public relations executive in Trinidad is that laundered the payoff for a “big fish” in two locations; Trinidad and Florida.
Can we now understand why the Brazilians were never given the go ahead to the detriment of the sugar workers? Vested interest, relationships and associated payoff of “the big fish” has resulted in GuySuCo now being a drain on the taxpayers of Guyana for the foreseeable future.
The Politically Powerful People (PPP) are not interested in protecting the interest of the thousands of sugar workers anymore and these PPPites have no qualm about forcing the hundreds of thousands of taxpayers to foot the bill from this financial fallout as a result of this singular relationship between a big fish and his financier. If only there is a reason to not vote for the Politically Powerful People (PPP) and their successor candidate come 2011, this is it.
In my next letter, I will venture into why Ethanol production in Guyana is good for Guyana. I will also explain why I have great doubt about the sincerity and seriousness of President Jagdeo by way of the SN article of June 20, 2010, with the caption “Government is looking seriously at ethanol from molasses project – Jagdeo”.
My opinion this is another ploy to deflect blame for the state of the sugar industry from the Politically Powerful People (PPP), as they play politics with the lives of the hard working sugar workers?
Well it is wake up time because the sugar workers are not paying attention to them and their “pagaleeness” anymore.  Why do you think there is an artificial shortage of sugar workers in Guyana?
Sasenarine Singh

---

---