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Skeldon Factory will perform ‘very soon’- Dr. Gopaul
The problem-stricken Skeldon ‘Modernized’ Sugar Factory will perform “very soon”, said Minister of Labour, Dr. Nanda Kishore Gopaul, recently.
He was delivering the Feature Address to graduates of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) Port Mourant Training School on the Corentyne.
Dr. Nanda Gopaul makes a presentation to a potential sugar worker.
The Skeldon Sugar Factory has been problem-plagued from its inception. Dr. Gopaul said that like any new factory, the Skeldon Factory has problems and “it will be fixed—we know where the problems are—it’s just a matter of time.”
He said that the government was “cursed and abused” for opening the factory “and we were told that we were pumping money in our support area by some of those politicians and we were only doing so because we wanted to protect our interest and our votes…but it is far from the truth.”
He stated that despite the fact that “we [in the sugar industry] are going through hard times which have been caused by a number of factors; the importance of the sugar industry cannot be underestimated.” The government, he stated, continues to “pump billions of dollars into this industry because we have faith and we know that this industry can, one day very soon, bounce back to life.”
Dr. Gopaul served as Chairman of the GuySuCo Board and helped pilot the Strategic Plan for the Blueprint of the Resuscitation of the sugar industry.
“We believe that this industry can bounce back to life and be the beacon industry of this country.”
He said that the challenges of the sugar industry “are many.”
Dr. Gopaul opined that a major problem being experienced by GuySuCo is getting the canes from the fields into the factory.
The management team, he stated, is one of the finest and he praised them all. He underscored the importance of having a heavily mechanized industry especially as it relates to “growing sugar under many difficult conditions” such as weather factors and work force. Work- force problems, too, are hindrances.
“The mobility is so great that many leave the industry at a moment’s notice to go into the gold fields and different areas of activities, and so, there are a number of vacancies especially in the agricultural areas…which we have to look at.”
He appealed to workers that for the industry to rebound and do well, their sacrifices will be necessary “and that we must be able to show some of the militancy which we have seen over the past few years and resort to more dialogue.”
While there are good shop stewards, workers and union leaders, Dr. Gopaul said that “sometimes we get emotional as workers and sometimes we try not to see things objectively.”
The Minister said that it pains him a lot to see a lot of canes going to waste “and left to rot in the punts; spoiled—already cut and we can’t grind….we are a poor country—This is not a Capitalist master we are serving…we must never allow that wastage to occur.”
He alluded to the world markets which “took away our preferential price for sugar, costing us billions of dollars. Many persons, he stated, have called for the privatization of the industry but this is not in the workers’ interests. The government, he added, is doing everything possible “to resurrect the industry.”
Dr. Gopaul praised the investment the company has made into the Port Mourant Training School which will see a spending this year of over $173M with about $80M for improvement of infrastructure alone. The School, he stated, is one that trains and equips young men and women for a career in the sugar industry.
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