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Skeldon Sugar Factory slated to restart operations tomorrow
By Rehana Ahamad
After several months of rehabilitation, the US$200M Skeldon Sugar Factory is slated to be up and running tomorrow, with a target of 400,000 tonnes of cane (36,000 tonnes of sugar) to be processed.
According to Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, should it rain in Berbice over the weekend, the commencement of operations will have to be halted, as the fields would be wet and the machinery would not be able to function effectively.
Shortly after it was commissioned, the problem-plagued facility was labeled as a “let down”, since it required that several aspects of the factory be repaired.
An aerial view of the problem-plagued Skeldon Sugar Factory.
The recent rehabilitation was done by South Africa’s Bosch Engineering at an additional cost of US$3M.
But like several other projects undertaken by the state, the construction of the Skeldon factory project saw questions raised as to whether Guyana had received value for its money.
Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), Paul Bhim told Kaieteur News that while the facility will soon be operational, work on the problematic punt dumper is still continuing, and may not be completed until the next “out-of-crop” season, during December/January.
Financing for the factory came from a mixture of state funds, grants from the European Union (EU) and loans from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and World Bank.
It was reported that even if the factory never begins producing sugar to its optimum, as is currently the case, Guyana still has to repay the loans.
The Skeldon factory, one of Guyana’s most costly projects, was the effort made by the Guyana government to salvage what is left of the suffering sugar industry which has, over the years, been seen to be spiraling downwards.
During the first crop of this year, production plunged to approximately 23,000 tonnes or more below the target, and despite prices offered by Europe – Guyana’s biggest customer – being almost double on the world market, poor production has continued to threaten the viability of the industry, which barely managed half of its projected target of the 38,000 tonnes planned for the week ending August 9, last.
It has been duly noted that large groups of GuySuCo workers have also been leaving to take up jobs in either the construction industry, or the interior.
Those who remain employed with the Corporation are worried about the outcome of the approaching crop, since it would determine whether or not they would receive bonuses.
Nonetheless, after years of bad production, fingers were pointed at the GuySuCo Board of Directors. Thus, a decision was taken to have the board be restructured. This, Dr. Ramsammy said, will be done by next month.
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