The arrogance of some people

Aug 27, 2011 Editorial

Sugar replaced cotton as the lifeblood of the nation a few centuries ago. In fact, sugar became the dominant crop of the Caribbean. These countries simply could not produce enough for the Mother Country. Guyana with its large land mass became the major producer and soon dominated the region.
This trend saw Guyanese leaving to work in the other Caribbean islands either as cane cutters or as pan boilers. We had developed the skill to produce the best quality sugar in the region. Before long, Demerara sugar became an international trademark. It was not until recently that another producer opted to capitalize on this trademark. The issue is still in court.
The European Union became one of the largest buyers and paid top dollars. But even when the world market price soared beyond what the European Union paid, Guyana remained a faithful EU supplier. There were challenges to our sugar but these petered out. Beet was just not good enough. The dark crystals were like diamonds to the Europeans.
Those who wanted a refined sugar enjoyed Demerara sugar in another form through the efforts of Tate and Lyle. But the dark crystals remained the favourite.
A few years ago the EU slashed the price it paid with serious consequences for Guyana and the rest of the region. The other Caribbean countries opted out of production but Guyana remained. To compensate for the drop, Guyana decided that it would set up a factory that would lower the cost of production and this was done against the best advice. It undertook the largest investment the country ever undertook and constructed the Skeldon sugar factory.
Today that factory is something of a failure. The country is producing less sugar than it ever did using the less efficient sugar factories and the Skeldon factory is still to operate to its maximum. Two years after Skeldon should have reached maximum production it is still experiencing production problems. The authorities changed the management, changed the Board of Directors and just about everything linked to production, but nothing changed.
Today, the sugar corporation has an explanation. “It is no secret that the technology used in this project is the first of its kind in this region and no one expected this transition to be smooth and trouble free. With Skeldon being the largest sugar factory in Guyana it is a fact that a larger percentage of production will be expected and because of its peculiar challenges, including external factors, production has not been as expected.”
The Minister of Agriculture is now saying that Guyanese cannot manage the sugar industry. This is a most remarkable admission coming a few months before the general elections. It is also a retrograde step, because more than two decades ago the government had brought in foreign management, a situation that the present government changed after it took office.
Guyana spent an astronomical sum of money to get this sugar factory going. Most of this money has now gone down the drain. There are those who believe that not all the declared money actually went into the industry, given the level of corruption in the country, but that is still to be proven.
The admission by the Minister of Agriculture has been followed by a level of arrogance that is not unusual in a country where certain people have remained in the seat of power for too long. For some time now, there have been many questions asked of the operations at Skeldon. The management took the media on tours and explained the workings and the failures. Heading the teams on the explanatory tours was the Minister of Agriculture.
After each visit there were promises of improvements. Today there is now the admission that there can never be improvements under the local management. We brought in technology without preparing the people. This is only done in Guyana.
But why the arrogance on the part of the Minister? He has emerged as a person who would have answers to every question about everything under the sun. He has emerged as the most prolific producer of media releases and DVDs on his activities. For him to say that he was unaware of a particular issue, one on which he has been commenting all the time, is mind-boggling.
Fact is that we remained in sugar for political reasons and today these reasons have proven to be costly, much too costly.

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The arrogance of some people

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