Latest update April 1st, 2025 5:37 PM
No free pass for GUYSUCO $6B bailout
…APNU calls for viable plan, forensic audit before any vote
….Minister must account for how previous billons were spent
A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) has demanded that Agriculture Minister, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, present a viable plan for the turnaround of the sugar industry and allow a forensic audit of the accounts of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO) in the past five years before there can be any vote on the $6B bailout allocated in the 2014 Budget.
This is according to the Shadow Minister with responsibility for the Agriculture sector, Dr. Rupert Roopnarine, of APNU when rebutting the Substantive Minister during the 2014 Budget Debates on Thursday last.
APNU’s Dr. Rupert Roopnarine as he makes his presentation to the 2014 Budget Debate
According to Dr. Roopnarine, what needs to be squarely faced is that the sugar industry is in deep crisis and will require better management and less wishful thinking.
He repeated APNU’s call for a Commission of Enquiry into “this malfunctioning organisation, specifically in relation to the complexity that is Skeldon.”
According to Dr. Roopnarine, “there needs to be an official inspection of the basic issues involved.”
Dr. Roopnarine is adamant that GUYSUCO requires “a root and branch overhaul and refitting.”
In welcoming the announcement by Dr. Leslie Ramsammy that there will be a new board of directors taking over the helm of the industry come July 1, Dr. Roopnarine said that tried and tested people of proven competence and expertise, loyal only to the resurrection of the industry must be put on the board.
“There must be no sacred cows…The substantive utility of the most recent strategic plan must be subjected to detailed scrutiny, including the related implementation programme.”
According to the APNU representative, there must be an identification of the specific management and operational resources involved, complemented by an audit of competencies, particularly of the management cadre.
Dr. Roopnarine reminded the House, that in his 2011 speech the Minister told the nation that GUYSUCO would be injecting $4.3B in capital works that would enable the company to recover its production levels and restore its financial performance; “we need to know how these $4.3B were spent and if they were spent properly.”
The APNU Member of Parliament said that one of the major measures announced by the Minister in this year’s Budget is the $6B subvention for GUYSUCO which will undoubtedly become a major flashpoint during the consideration of the estimates by the Committee of Supply.
Dr. Roopnarine pointed out that, given the deep troubles facing GUYSUCO, senior government spokesmen have gone on the offensive defending the subvention on the grounds that sugar has historically given to the country far more over the years, “that GUYSUCO is too big to fail, that the livelihood of 18,000 workers and the families would suffer, and so on.”
According to the APNU parliamentarian, as compelling as the arguments made are, it is not sufficient to give the subvention a free pass.
The APNU representative said that if the Agriculture Minister is desirous of gaining support for the expenditure, he has to present to the Committee of Supply a viable plan for lifting the industry out of its indebtedness and production rut.
He told the House that the problems facing the industry are well known but neither the Government nor GUYSUCO project any real command of them.
“The omens are not positive and the Government appears frozen in the politics of sugar and unable to take the right decisions even in relation to the composition of the board and management.”
Dr. Roopnarine was adamant that before any vote is taken on the $6B bailout, there should be a forensic examination of GUYSUCO’s accounts over the last five years, an assessment of its indebtedness and the scrutinizing of its present recovery plan to evaluate whether there is risk of continuing in the present direction.
According to Dr. Rupert Roopnarine, “the Government will have to explain what about the industry’s circumstances in 2014 necessitates a whopping $6B compared to $1B in 2013, and whether there is any certainty of recovery in the short to medium term.”
He said too that the use of recent subventions to GUYSUCO and the large tranches from the European Union in accompanying measures since 2007 must be explained thoroughly.
“If we are serious about salvaging the sugar industry, we must go beyond putting plaster on the sores…We must go to the root of the disease,” according to Dr. Roopnarine.
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