Ramotar’s absolution of GuySuCo is deceitful

Apr 20, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor:
Based on the evidence we in the Alliance for Change (AFC) now have in our possession, the financial mess Guyana is in, is even worst than we thought in December 2010 when we were strategizing on our Action Plan.  It is clearly evident now that the assets of the taxpayers have been significantly diluted and left very exposed by this PPP Government.
Thus the public utterances from none other that the PPP Presidential Candidate Ramotar that “the Board of GuySuCo cannot be blamed for the company’s woes” will find its place in history as one of the most deceitfulness statement ever made by a Guyanese politician.
Let me clarify very early, this is not a personal attack on Mr. Ramotar since from what I know of him, like our own Mr. Ramjattan, he is a very caring father and husband.
I do not know Mr. Granger but what I have heard about him, he is also a good father figure and husband.  So Guyana is fortunate to have three men with strong family values in this 2011 race, unlike the “bamboo wedding concubine” who was in the 2006 race.
This letter however is about Donald’s professional track record at Guysuco.  To talk of 129,000 tonnes in 1990 is nothing but massaging the truth without proper context.
Any skilled analyst will clearly advise his audience that a comparison must always be done with context in mind.  What Hoyte did was deliver a sugar industry to the
PPP that was on the upswing.
What Hoyte did was produce more sugar at the end of his term that this Ramotar Board produced in 2010.  Mr. Ramotar these facts cannot be wished away.
The Donald Ramotar Board supervised a rapid decline in sugar production.  Clearly his economics is muddled since in times of increasing prices, one increases production to expand ones wealth.
Any willing mind, whether trained or untrained, will observe that the PPP Board, in which Donald Ramotar was a principal anchor and participant, supervised the dilution of the people’s wealth in Guysuco over the last 18 years.
This chart shows from one angle how the Jagdeo Government / Ramotar Board clearly abdicated their responsibility to the people of Guyana in managing Guysuco.
I would like to remind Mr. Ramotar of the primary responsibility of the board of directors is to protect the shareholders’ assets and to ensure they receive a decent return on their investment.  Where is the return for the taxpayers of Guyana when billions of dollars are taken from them on a yearly basis by way of the land deals to buttress Guysuco’s cash flows? Where are their returns Mr. Ramotar?
In business jargon, he should have been demonstrating to the Guyanese people how much he and his colleagues on the Board have planned for the taxpayers, monitored the performance of the management team and take corrective actions along the way so that the return on their investment is maximized.
The Board of Guysuco failed to offer quality leadership at sweating the assets to produce cash inflows for the owners (the people of Guyana).
Thus, Mr. Ramotar cannot be absolved of this responsibility.  He is one of the principal architect that “muck up” the sugar belt, Guyana largest source of employment and thus his track record reveals he is not the most eligible to lead Guyana.
If what he did at Guysuco, which is smaller than Guyana, is expanded to the Guyana scale at the Presidential level, can you imagine where Guyana will be in 2016?
Would the voters want to take more risk with this bunch of intellectual ruined that now controls the PPP?
But Mr. Ramotar in addition to being on the Board was a former union man at GAWU and thus to witness how he supervised the uncaring treatment meted out to sugar workers is unforgivable.
His entire political existence is because of sugar workers and yet he shafted them again and again when he was put into a position to help them.
Thus there is a major trust deficit here.  If he shafted the sugar workers, what prevents him from shafting the Guyanese nation?
But what was the most insensitive statement of them all was that the Skeldon fiasco is a “temporary thing”.  How can he as a former Union man tell the workers that their economic stagnation is a temporary thing?  I trust he understands that the PPP tied the economic wellbeing of the sugar workers to the malfunction Skeldon factory and he is most guilty of strategizing in this sub-optimal fashion.
He is one of the most powerful members of the Board with a constituent and thus he sanctioned and approved the Jagdeo hare-brained scheme in the sugar belt.  So why is he in true Jagdeo style trying to pass the buck today?
Is this a case of a wolf in sheep clothing? What will prevent him from passing the buck as the people economic wellbeing deteriorates further if he is elected President of Guyana?
Sasenarine Singh

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