Don’t blame the GuySuCo Board

Dec 19, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
I observed recently that a lot has been written about GuySuCo as result of its unfortunate current situation, in which it has found itself – chief among them the Skeldon Factory debacle – the factory is intended to significantly reduce production costs.
This commentary, more like criticism, has been extended to the current Board of Directors.
I would like to opine that while it can be agreed that GuySuCo does have its fair share of challenges, the current Board Members should not be placed with their backs against the walls in defense of actions they had no control over.
In fact, against the challenges, it can be argued that the current Board has been making and continues to make tremendous sacrifices to ensure that production costs are kept at minimum.
From reports, one can see that initiatives have been taken to reduce expenditure and improve transparency both internally and externally.
For example, information I’ve received suggests that that a number of internal committees – Audit and Central Tender Committees for example – have been very active and, in fact, have identified discrepancies resulting in corrupt staff being dismissed and the implementation of procurement systems (updated manuals prepared and fully computerizing the department).
These actions, it has been reported, have resulted in a half-a-billion dollars savings for the corporation; this is a significant action which needs some credit. Added to that, in reviewing the available information, the Board has also been working with the other factories and this resulted in improved production.
However, lest we forget, I think the public needs to be aware of some of the issues which resulted in the present Skeldon factory situation.
If we can recall, the Government was constrained by a loan arrangement with an external financial institution, which required the bank to construct the factory in question (as lender).
Added to that was the sad reality that the Exxon Bank never constructed a factory of that scale!
Having recognized this limitation, though, an even more heartrending situation was the Government’s employ of consultants – Booker Tate – which did an obviously extremely poor job at supervising the project; the key to the problems being experienced today – from inferior materials quality to actual construction.
Now, while the Board of Directors has changed since the factory was constructed; when one rationalizes the issue there would have been little that the then Board could have done relative to oversight of the actual technical input of the factory’s construction.
As far as I know, Board members are professionals in their own right with vast experience in various aspects of the corporate industry.
While they tender their knowledge and skills to whatever industry they are managing, they are by no means – or should be – experts at factory construction, sugar production etc, to use the current situation as an example.
What happen in these situations are reviews and updates being provided to the Board by the technical persons to guide decisions making.
So, retroactively, even if all the then Directors were construction experts, I can see little being changed as Booker Tate was considered ‘the’ experts, were paid huge sums to supervise the factory construction and advise the Board accordingly.
The latter, sadly, was clearly not done. I believe, therefore, that in the current situation, the Government should sue Booker Tate, as the technical experts, and regain at least some of the money paid for the supervision of the failed project.
Thus, Mr. Editor, the public should not only use Skeldon alone as a benchmark to judge the performance of GuySuCo.
While, I believe that the Board can stand its own in defending whatever actions it took and will take, it is important that the public understands the Skeldon situation and the fact that some of the problems would not be resolved ‘overnight’, so to speak but rather will require our patience before it can resolved.
From my observation, this Board and Management Team are keen to keep the public informed on constraints being experienced, which is admirable and which, in fact, has led to praises even from the main opposition party or parties??.
Against all odds, the least the public can do is not blame the current Board but support the cost-cutting initiatives even as we await the successful operation of the Skeldon factory.
Ron Paul

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