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South African engineers working to bring Skeldon’s boiler up
-Harbhajan, Regional Chairman differ on future of estate
The Skeldon Sugar Factory has gained much attention after it was reported that the estate will not be grinding for its first crop due to a technical issue with the boilers attached to the estate. Sugar workers of the estate are
somewhat skeptical that this might be a ploy that will eventually lead to the closure of the sugar estate.
Regional Chairman, David Armogan, told Kaieteur News that the administration has been informed that the Skeldon Estate is set to be privatized. “We have been told that two groups of investors have indicated an interest in the estate. One group is from Trinidad and another is from India.”
He stated that with the estate not grinding for the first crop it is likely being prepared for privatization or closure. “It’s gonna be bad for Skeldon and Berbice in general. The fact that it is not grinding means that people will not be offered work; not much is happening in the fields”.
With the factory not grinding, workers, particularly the cane harvesters are said to be moving to other estates already.
Right now some of the cane cutters have been moved to Albion and Blairmont because they are short of cane cutters, there,” Armogan said. The private farmers who would have invested in the harvested cane may also feel the squeeze.
“This is a big issue for private cane farmers on the Corentyne because these are people who would have invested large sums of money. The fear is they will have overrun cane; what you will find is a lot of the cane will be run over and farmers are likely to make a loss”.
Meanwhile, Regional Representative and former Board of Director of the Skeldon Estate project, Gobin Harbhajan, disagreed with what was said in the Press about Skeldon first crop for 2017.
According to him, “Because of the poor condition of the boiler and failed tubes it is not safe to operate for the first crop of 2017.”
He stated that the estate General Manager and Staff at Skeldon are working with a team of Boiler Engineers from South Africa to make it safe for the second crop which is expected to begin in August 2017.
“However there is still a lot of work that needs to be done in order to get the boiler reliable and efficient. At the Co-Gen, safety is priority because the new Administration inherited this problem in 2015 from the previous Government. There was always a red flag with the boiler and safety,” Harbhajan posited.
“I had recommended that at my last Board of Directors meeting that the boiler be replaced with a new one. For years now we keep servicing the boiler which is costly; it is more feasible to replace it,” Harbhajan said.
Over the past 18 months, Harbhajan stated, he had visited the site and was met with complaints from the workers about the state of the boiler and their safety.
He also denied that workers being moved to the Albion and Blairmont Estate is an indication of closure and privatization of the factory.
Over the years the Skeldon Sugar Factory has been a sore issue that seemed to have developed numerous problems. The previous government who have been blamed for the estate’s problems is still in denial that this was so.
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