Incompetence reeks within GuySuCo

Jun 14, 2013 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Our Minister of Finance recently declared that Mr Raj Singh, currently acting Chairman of GuySuCo, will not be receiving a $5 million monthly salary or even a $3 million monthly salary as stated in the media, but he will be receiving a $2.5 million salary. That ought to take care of the concerns of those who thought that he was going to get $3million.
Who exactly does Ashni Singh think he is fooling? Here again is total contempt for the opposition and the citizens of this country a betrayal of their leader Dr Jagan.
First Minister Singh was careful not to list what the other costs of being an absentee Chairman of GuySuCo would add to the woes of this cash strapped corporation. In fact he told us that Raj Singh would be the executive chairman, but clearly this is nonsense since hecan’t be executive chairman of anything unless he is living here 365 days a year.
He then tries to obscure the picture and confuse the public by bringing Mr Errol Hanoman into the frame by telling us that Raj Singh,who would functionally be an executive Chairman but not resident here, will be earning the same as Hanoman who was a full time Chief Executive of the corporation! At that time the now Minister Gopaul was chairman. Was Gopaul getting $2.5 million a month? Have we started a new series of enrichment?
Since now that we have made Jagdeo’s pals billionaires, are we now in the process of enriching Mr Ramoutar’s pals? Will this cycle of abuse never stop?
But for us to employ this part time executive chairman at a cost of $2.5 million per month, Minister Singh was careful not to mention that since he is resident abroad, we would in fact incur huge expenses to bring him here monthly, to chair the GuySuCo’s meetings estimated by the opposition to be a total package of US$25,000 a month.
This situation is a completely different situation in comparison to the competence of Errol Hanoman who was a highly respected former Finance Director of the Corporation and who was working full time in the industry as CEO, not chairman as Mminister Singh wrongly stated at the press conference. In my previous letter I expressed my opinion that the current CEO Mr Bhim is way out of his depth in his present situation.
In view of the above let me say that Raj Singh is not worth this salary. His exposure in the sugar industry was as an industrial relations junior manager whose offices are not even situated in the same building as the other functioning Directors/Managers of the corporation.
Consequently since CEO Bhim’s comment was that “there was no cane in the fields” I don’t know which one of GuySuCo’s current directors, especially this absentee chairman, has the competence to rectify the dire situation which the industry finds itself in today.
What workable plans will be formulated to mechanise the harvesting and to increase the yields of the canes in the fields?
he says that president Ramoutar has a plan to restructure the corporation but none of us has seen it. I want to remind the public that Mr Ramotar was on the board of GuySuCo during all of the time when the corporation was being emasculated through political interference, so his plan could hardly be viable.And here we are again putting a person whose only apparent qualifications for the job, is that he is a devout PPP activist overseas!
I would like to remind the public that the two corporations which have put this nation at the brink of disaster through incompetence and corruption GPL and GuySuCo were slated by the Desmond Hoyte administration for privatisation.
Just before the 1992 elections Dr Jagan torpedoed the privatisation talks by telling the public that if he won the 1992 elections, he will not be honouring any agreements made by Hoyte to privatise GuySuCo or GPL.
And I want to quote Dr Jagan from his Independence speech in May 1995 “I have been faithful to my promise of giving you a government that is fully accountable to its electorate, free from corruption”. I wonder what he would do were he were here today to see what he has created.
I want to know from Ashni Singh’s disclosures, why this man Raj Singh needs two homes? And in what country/s will these two homes be located.
He told the press that Raj Singh is eminently qualified,”has worked in sugar for a number of years at indeed senor levels” but neglects to tell them that he really worked in the Industrial Relations department of GuySuCo in the late 70’s early 80’s as a junior manager under D.P.Sankar and has no idea about the running of the administrative, factory or field sections of the corporation.
So the opposition is right. Raj Singh does not have the qualifications or experience to address the problems of the corporation at this time.
GuySuCo’s problems will inevitably continue.
Tony Vieira

 

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