Somebody is lying at GuySuCo

Dec 11, 2013 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I am forced to respond to a letter from one Raymond Sangster the General Manager, Agricultural Services of GuySuCo, which was published in the Kaieteur News of 7th December 2013 and captioned “Mr Vieira’s letter is riddled with inaccuracies”.  He was responding to Vieira’s letter of December 5.
This man is implying that his Chief Executive Officer Paul Bhim and Komal Chand are seeing visions when the say that there are “no canes in the fields”, that the Bank of Guyana is publishing phantom statistics when it keeps showing us precipitous drops in production in the sugar industry annually.
I am now very sure that we have uncovered the type of thinking,or lack thereof, which exposes GuySuCo as a corporation which produces less and less sugar,because we have people like Sangster who do not see that very much is wrong with the industry. Nowhere in his long repudiation of what I said, is there any admission that he as General Manager of Agricultural Services whose responsibility it is to influence Agricultural policy.
He is not doing his job since he is not growing any cane in our fields, only grass, and offers no indication as to why that is so. As far as he is concerned all is well in GuySuCo! In the real world Mr Sangster should be standing on the road looking in at GuySuCo from that vantage point, instead of writing this diatribe from inside, telling us how wonderfully well the company is doing.
Well Mr Sangster it is not acceptable. And much of what you say does not agree with what I wrote. The proof of the pudding is that the results of the annual productions of this ailing corporation tells us that I am right and that you are wrong to cover the incompetence, the inexperience and the optimism which permeates every failed estimate, every failed developmental plan and every failed strategy produced by GuySuCo over the past 15 years. Not one has been on target!
It is an old adage that fools venture where angels dread to thread. Here is a perfect example. By his own admission we can see the mind-set of the senior managersof the corporation, since as the Manager of Agricultural Services, Sangster is telling is that all is well and that my letter has inaccuracies.
I should not even go any further than this, but since we have to show the public what kind of people are running one of their biggest industries, I am now forced to highlight one or two elements of nonsense contained in the letter he wrote.
He, for example alleges that they have built an agricultural tool locally to undo the huge ruts and the damage that comes with it,which the Mechanical Harvesters make when they are reaping cane in the same soft badly drained clay soil I have referred to. This did not form part of my earlier letter but GuySuCo’s drainage is today the worst it has ever been.
Sangster tells us that they are using a spacing of 1.7 meters [5.77 ft.] my information tells me that the wider tracks which would reduce the ground bearing pressure of the Cane Harvesters and therefore not destroy the field with these huge ruts being experienced at present,require more like a 6 foot spacing. And at the field visited [no date, time or place will be identified since I want to protect the person/persons who took me to see it from fear of victimisation since whatever else this country is, it is not a democracy] I saw the Cane Harvester tracks walking on the row which it had just harvested to the left of the machine to reap the row it was on, I saw that myself  so Sangster is either not familiar with his own field or he is lying. Perhaps Sangster would be interested in the following found at: http://www.guysuco.com/tenders/tender_documents/Mechanical%20Harvester.pdfand I quote part of it “The soils within GuySuCo cultivation comprise mainly cohesive/adhesive clays.
Operational requirements dictate operating in wet conditions where soil build up on components can be a significant issue. Under some anticipated field conditions, the soil may be reduced to liquid mud, which can penetrate axle seals, etc. on equipment of inadequate design.
Therefore Chopper harvesters fitted with tracked undercarriage and configured for operation under wet field conditions in green or burnt crops with minimal row spacing of 1.8 to 2 meters” end quote,2 meters not 1.7 meters.
This is this sort of attention to detail which separates the high level performing manager from one who only gives excuses and blames the rain when it is impossible to show that today the rainfall ishigher than it was 50 years ago.
And no one in the industry I have spoken to knows of any situation where Harvesters worked for 16 hours in any one day,and reaped 40 tons per hour.
I and I believe the media and the oppositionwould be happy to turn up at any location when Sangster is prepared to demonstrate that this is possible.The harvesters in Guyanareap around 150-200 tonnes in an eight hour day.
Perhaps Sangster will also be kind enough to direct us to a location where they are working 16 hours a day! Also 16 hours harvesting cannot be conducted without heavy lights with generators, but we do not know of any location where there are heavy lights and generators.
The public must now decide if you are competent to hold the office you do. And ask the opposition to do something about it, since I have said that this industry cannot turn around not with this chairman, this board or these managers, and that includes you.
Tony Vieira

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