DECIDING GUYSUCO’s FUTURE

Nov 19, 2016 Editorial, Features / Columnists

It is time for the government to be serious and make a decision on whether to continue to subsidize GUYSUCO or to privatize it. The reality is that GUYSUCO is sucking Guyana dry. How much longer will the taxpayers be forced to keep the insolvent sugar industry afloat? It beats the imagination as to why the government continues to pump billions of dollars into the sugar industry to save a few thousands of jobs while tens of thousands are struggling to put food on the table.
Some say that the government is penny wise and pound foolish. Others have claimed that the government does not have the political will to act on any issue, not even on the audit reports that found many in the last administration culpable of corrupt practices and other illegal activities. It has not even published the Commission of Inquiry (COI) it commissioned on GUYSUCO.
As reported in the media, GUYSUCO is $80 billion in debt and yet the government is hesitant on what to do with the industry.
The COI has recommended that GUYSUCO be privatized and that the government should divest itself of all assets, activities and operations currently associated with GUYSUCO. The problem is that the government procrastinates on most issues. Since taking office, it has commissioned several COIs but has not heeded the advice of any of the recommendations.
Lest we forget, the President had commissioned a COI into the death of the two brothers, Joshua and Antonio George, who perished in a fire at the government Drop-in-Centre on Hadfield Street, Lodge, last July.
He had promised to discipline the Minister in charge if found negligent. Headed by retired GDF Colonel Windee Algernon, the COI found that officials from the top to the bottom were negligent and yet no one was disciplined as promised by the President. If the authority cannot make decisions on small issues, then how will it tackle the larger ones such as developing the economy, creating jobs, reducing unemployment, solving crime and improving the lives of the people.
It is true that the government inherited an ailing GUYSUCO from the last government therefore, for Mr. Donald Ramotar to blame the government for the problems at GUYSUCO is complete dishonesty. It is also true that change is never easy and it is obvious that the sugar workers and their families will be affected by the changes needed at GUYSUCO.
However, pumping billions of dollars into the insolvent sugar industry in order to gain votes is the equivalent of pouring water on the backs of ducks. Most sugar workers are hardcore supporters of the PPP. The government should use its scarce resources to improve health care, education, social services and the lives of the poor.
Talking without follow-up with action is in itself a failure. Further, in regards to the sugar industry, the government gets what it deserves. In the first place, it was silly and perhaps downright foolish to place the same people who ran GUYSUCO into the ground at the helm to manage and turn it around. Many brilliant minds with plans to make GUYSUCO solvent were rejected by those in authority.
Owing to past neglect by the former administration, GUYSUCO and the country have entered into a period of danger. The era of procrastination, of half measures, of baffling experiments and delays must end, or else the nation will enter into a period of consequences. After a year and a half in office, the socio-economic policies developed by the government, be they short term or long term have proved ineffective and have not yield much results.

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