Exposed: Bloated GuySuCo senior staffers were receiving ‘fat cat’ pay

Mar 25, 2018 News

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-remuneration was not linked to productivity

In the last decade or so, the slide of sugar has been highly evident with consecutive administrations pounding the dirt in frustration to reverse the tide.
In 2009, the Bharrat Jagdeo administration gleefully commissioned the Skeldon modernization project, with the new factory alone costing over US$110M and the rest of the monies, almost US$80M, plugged into field expansion and other projects.
However, the country’s biggest project then, never realized its potential with the state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) forced to plug billions of dollars annually to keep the industry alive.
Skeldon was sucking the lifeblood of GuySuCo and to compound matters, Guyana had to contend with a price cut in Europe, in keeping with announced measures by that EU bloc to free up the trade and do away with quota from which this country was benefitting.
The cost of production, corruption with procurement, aging factories, strikes, absenteeism and poor agriculture all led to the industry producing at a cost almost three times more than what it could sell for.
In late 2016, the Coalition Government started its plans to stop the bleeding, first closing the century-old Wales, on the West Bank of Demerara and then last year, GuySuCo went ahead and shut its new factory at Skeldon, the iconic Rose Hall, and Enmore, the one remaining estate in the East Demerara area.
Throughout it all, consecutive senior management has been accused of drawing down on all the perks while the industry slid to new, record-breaking lows.

Until now, there has been little information on what exactly the senior staffers were getting.
What is known is that the former Chairman and then Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr. Rajendra Singh, was taking home at least $2.5M monthly, plus a host of benefits. Some critics tagged his salary and monthly benefits, including car, driver, housing, travelling and entertainment to total more than $5M monthly. He was let go in 2015.
Errol Hanoman, who replaced him as CEO, was said to be benefitting from the same things.
It appeared that the salaries and perks were expected without any correlation to performance.
In fact, according to GuySuCo’s records, in 2006, the industry produced almost 260,000 tonnes. It then started a steady slide to 186,755 in 2013, rising temporarily to 216, 358 tonnes in 2014; 231, 071 tonnes in 2015 and in 2016, it was a record low of 183,000 tonnes.
It worsened last year to 140,000 tonnes.
The conclusions by assessments were that GuySuCo was top heavy with the industry bloated.
In fact, last year, despite the closures of the four estates within a year, GuySuCo’s wage and salary bill was still a staggering $16B. It had reached $21B at one time for its 16,000-plus workers.
That work force has been reduced to over 10,000 now.
In 2015, following a change of leadership of the corporation, an Interim Management Committee (IMC) comprising of Hanoman, as Chief Executive Officer and Paul Bhim, as Finance Director, was in effect from June 3, 2015.
The then Human Resources Director, Jairam Petam, retired in May, 2015 and a Human Resources Management Adviser, Earl John, was appointed in December, 2015.
Bloated
According to figures seen by Kaieteur News, GuySuCo’s total salary and wage with allowances expense was over $16.1B.

The basic salary and wage bill by the end of December was $8.74B with harvesters and other labourers down the pay scale accounting for $5.77B.
Of the $8.7B, the salaries for senior staffers were $1.45B or 16 percent of the total basic salaries. Those figures are, of course, without the benefits and allowances.
Salaries for supervisors were significant at just over $1B or 11 percent of the total basic wage and salaries.
According to information, Bhim, who is current Chief Executive Officer (ag), following the departure of Hanoman in December, and Earl John, as the Human Resource Advisor were receiving significant benefits and salaries. Their salaries ranged between $983,000 to almost $1.7M monthly.
John was reportedly released recently during the ongoing restructuring.
Their benefits, which would have added up to hundreds of thousands of dollars more, include entertainment and overtime allowance, company vehicles, leave passage of over $785,000; passage assistance for children in college; pension; crockery and linen allowance, medical assistance and examinations and membership fees. There would have been security too.
The two top officials were also benefitting from six weeks annual leave, six days casual leave, and up to six months paid sick leave, less NIS benefits.
There is also a housing and furnishing allowance.
The Corporate Planner, Estate Managers, and heads of Agricultural Research and Information Systems were getting up to $900,000 monthly with allowances similar to the Finance Director and Human Resources Advisor.
Cooking Gas
However, these were also entitled to cooking gas and something called disturbance allowances.
Other senior staffers, including agronomists, analysts, Senior Communication Officer, Operations Manager, Purchasing Manager, and engineers were placed between a range of salary starting at $221,000 and $379,314. The benefits and allowances are similar to the others.
While there are others, the senior staffers would have also included the Administrative Assistants, Training Administrators and Customs Liaison Officers. They were being paid up to $177,000 monthly, and were entitled to overtime allowance, leave passage of one month salary, pension, mandatory medical examination and medical assistance.
With the cash-strapped, smaller-sized GuySuCo and its three estates expected to produce just over 100,000 tonnes this year, Government has transferred the corporation to the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) with Colvin Heath-London recently appointed Chairman.
Heath-London has reportedly met with senior managers and Government is expected to release financing, taken via loans, for the operations of the industry.
Government is hoping to raise much needed cash from the sale and divestment of its four closed estates to make GuySuCo more competitive.
Heath-London, a financial expert who has wide management experience, was brought in last year to head NICIL’s Special Purpose Unit, which is overseeing the privatization and divestment process of the four estates.
Heath-London and his team have been insisting that three of the closed estates- Skeldon, Rose Hall and Enmore should remain open to produce molasses for the Demerara Distillers Limited and as a going concern for investors.
There are over 70 expressions of interest already submitted for the four estates.
DDL has expressed an interest in Enmore.

 

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