This report invites further enquiry of Guysuco’s strategic plan

Oct 18, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,

The report under this Headline (Guysuco to spend $19.4B to revive sugar under new strategy – (Stabroek News October 13, 2013) is most confusing, resulting from the obvious unfamiliarity with the subject involved. Nor does the loose mix of tenses facilitate easy identification of past and projected plans.

Notwithstanding, the report includes some insights which invites comment on, and further enquiry of, Guysuco’s Strategic Plan of 2013-2017, as follows:

Report	Comment
a) “The previous plan has been described as a failure” – para 2 of Report”	Hopefully some attempt would have been made to identify the causes and/or architects of failure – e.g. Minister, Board, Senior Executives?
b) “The plan stated that $11 billion was invested over the course of 2010 to 2013 as capital investment”	Could clarification be provided of the nature of the ‘invested’ ‘capital investment’?
c) “Earlier in 2013 Guysuco projected that 18,000 hectares of land would be converted. However only 14,724 hectares have actually been converted.”	– The actual time of completion of conversion was omitted, but the figures do suggest 81.8% of hectares converted. Does this in fact translate into 26% of all fields? – According to the above Report the completion of a further 10,000 hectares – totalling 28,000 would represent only 50% of full land conversion – indication that eventual target would be 56,000 hectares.
d) “The corporation has planned the conversion of 2000 hectares in 2013; and 2,000 hectares in 2014”	If this is in fact the rate of conversion, would the remaining 6,000 hectares be completed by 2017?
e) “…an increase of private cane farmers’ partnerships will be needed…over 16% of total land will be owned and operated by private cane farmers – an increase of 6% of total land.	This is very obfuscatory language. What is meant by ‘total land’? Where? Have the projected private farmers been yet identified, and at what rate of annual development? How will private farming development be funded? There is a forgotten legal requirement (the National Cane Farming Committee Act) under which ‘partnerships must be forged.
f) ‘only $20M was outlined for agricultural research’	It would be interesting to learn of the qualifications and experience of the human resources who allegedly staff the Agricultural Research component of Guysuco’s operations

New sugar plan slashes projected yearly output by 100,000 tonnes – (Stabroek News, October 14, 2013)

The report is long on space, but the text is as unorganised as the previous day’s report, suffering from equally poor editing.

Nonetheless aspects of the SWOT analysis reproduced make interesting reading.

Weaknesses	Threats	Remedial Activities of Plan
i) Unresolved technical difficulties at Skeldon Factory	¾	ii) Factory Improvements
ii) Skeldon farmers’ reluctance to come on board	¾	vi) Increased partnership with private farmers
iii) Inability to consistently achieve projected grinding hours	¾	NIL
iv) Inability to procure key inputs in a timely manner	i) Additional inflationary pressures on key material inputs…	NIL
v) Higher than anticipated wage increases	¾	NIL
vi) ‘…decreases in private farmers cane supply.	vi) Reduction in production from private farmers…due to financial difficulties	vi) Increased partnerships with private farmers. Are farmers’ lands to be converted for mechanisation?
vii) Low production levels (Ref. iii above)	ii) Inclement weather would hinder timing and sequence of all operations	NIL
ix) sub-standard work practices and poor supervision	¾	iii) Human Resources Initiatives
x) Inability to attract and retain contractors	¾	NIL
xi) Non-achievement of tillage/replanting/ conversion programmes	¾	i) Increased mechanisation No mention of EU’s funding of €23.35M ($6.3B) to ensure conversion of land for mechanisation.
xii) High level of absenteeism/ poor labour turnout…	iv) Unpredictable industrial relations climate	ii) Human Resources Initiatives
xiii) Inability to attract workers due to better and TAX FREE pay elsewhere??? (reference above)	v) Loss of skilled and experienced staff to migration…	As above
		Unrelated
¾	¾	iii) Improvements to Accessibility and Cane Transport
		iv) Increased production of Value Added Sugar
		vii) Improved drainage

Hopefully the obvious disconnects obtaining in the above Matrix speak adequately for themselves. Interestingly, no strengths or opportunities were published.

The disjointed report referred to states as follows ‘within the next five years the Corporation hopes to attain almost 350,000 tonnes of sugar, a 60% increase from its current production’ (which is?)

With great respect, the double talk about the EU arrangements with the ACP, of which Guyana is a member is essentially background information, which admittedly would have influenced the formulation of the Plan, as all previous plans. At the same time it should not be construed as a substantive part of the Plan, which, incidentally, appears to have indicated the ineffectiveness of similar preceding documentation.

One must allow for the limited extracts published of the Plan itself; and hope that the latter contains more specificity of each location’s capacity to address: i) the overwhelming number of identified weaknesses,

ii) the related timelines for successful execution

iii) the relevant management and operational units responsible for effecting targets.

In short, will there be a Strategic Plan Implementation Task Force?

This submission may, however, be subject to correction on examination of the actual Strategic Plan.

With respect to the programme for improved partnerships with private farmers, the continued neglect in administering the relevant legislation must be resuscitated, and certainly from the farmers’ perspective, their interest in the EU’s disbursements should be carefully examined.

E.B. John

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