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

Mar 30, 2018 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
On behalf of my ‘exposed’ colleagues, I am taking responsibility to respond to the captioned article in KN of Sunday, March 25, 2018.
A first reaction must be to enquire of the aim of this precipitation, and how it is intended to enhance the future performance and viability of the sugar industry. For much of the subjects of this misinformative piece were addressed in very comprehensive detail in the Commission of Inquiry Report into the sugar industry.
A second reaction is to ponder on how current management will respond to the new leadership environment, against the background of their own involvement in what was demonstrably an experience of constructive teamanship over recent years.
En passant, they will wonder how/why other substantive technical operational areas were exempted from the pungent performance evaluation.
Then perhaps there is also the less than nuanced implication of the deficiency of the stewardship of the relevant Board of Directors.
Structurally, as a piece of journalism, it is clear that there was a primary interest in sensationalism, rather than objective connection of facts. But it is difficult to blame a misinformed reporter who may not have read before any of the contemporary history of sugar, or the aforementioned COI Report, and more latterly the State Paper.
Together he/she would have learnt of the Government’s policy to (re)construct, if you will, the sugar industry. In any case, logic would indicate that it would have been a rather capricious act if, as reported, ‘GuySuCo went ahead and shut its new (?) factory at Skeldon, iconic Rose Hall and Enmore…’
With great respect, the official records would show that the final and irrefutable instruction regarding the closure of the named estates by not later than December 31, 2017 was given by the very providers of this misinformation.
This pattern is a feature of the article, which generously, or perhaps ingenuously, refers to an admixture of allegations of behaviours at distinct periodicities in GuySuCo, in a risky attempt to apply blame for the current state of the industry on specific individuals.
See the following daring attempts to make connections, which must surely be subject to forensic examination:
a) “The cost of production”– of which there has always been a consensus, even with Unions.

b) “Corruption with procurement”
It has to be assumed that the current decision-makers have read neither
i) The minutes of the present well established Procurement Management Committee of GuySuCo, nor
ii) The Review Report on the Procurement Process in GuySuCo by no less than the well-recognised Mr Anand Goolsarran.

c) “The other contributory factors to production costs being triple the selling price of sugar” i.e. ageing factories, strikes, absenteeism and poor agriculture’
How then there is no reference to the historical behaviour of the Union, GAWU in particular?
d) The convoluted connection is made to executive salaries – reported as follows:
“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.”
Presumably, the reference to a former CEO in a prior dispensation is intended to insinuate that the persons photographed are of the same ilk.
This is at least an unwitting exercise in the defamation of character – which requires the burden of proof.
For one thing, if the Corporation’s articulate Manuals, including the Human Resources Management Manual, were examined along with the scrupulously recorded submissions to the monthly Board meetings, and the decisions thereon, discretion would have better informed the reported impetuous pronouncements.
In this particular regard, the complainants could not deny being voluntarily provided comprehensive information on the long established compensation structure in GuySuCo. The following excerpt should provide reasonable confirmation, addressed as it was to at least three Ministers, as well as the Head of NICIL (to whom this is being copied).
“Compensation Structure
The current compensation structure was derived from a comprehensive Job Evaluation Exercise conducted by international Consulting Firm – Hay.
The job hierarchy and related values as of 2013 are shown in Annexe A hereto.
The Grades and Scales have been scrupulously observed to this day.
Of note must be the fact that Management has never awarded any salary increases since then. In other words, no increments have been awarded despite the implementation of annual Performance Evaluation (including evaluation of performances of acting appointees.)
The fact is that the Corporation simply could not afford to implement across-the-board increases of any kind.

Allowances
Related to basic salary as composed, the range of allowances depicted in Annexe A was the product of the aforementioned Job Evaluation Exercise, the outcomes of which were all approved by the Board of the day.”
So that it is not as if there was need to conduct any exploration of well-establis

hed facts – for ‘exposure’. In any case, such information was part of a more comprehensive submission to the Economic Services Committee of Parliament in early 2017.
Apart from the above, there is also the curious non-sequitur, which reads as follows: ‘…, despite the closure of the four estates within a year GuySuCo’s wage and salary bill was still a staggering $16B’.
In obvious haste, the commentary overlooks the fact that three estates already mentioned were closed at December 31, 2017.

In the milieu, informed persons would know that all employees below the level of ‘senior staffers’ are unionised, the bulk being of course in the field, and factories, where an unavoidable proportion of earnings is as a result of overtime hours that must be worked – more often than not to achieve targets.
Opportunity is taken here to reproduce two eloquent tables extracted from the aforementioned COI Report.

For the further benefit of patient readers, it should be mentioned that GuySuCo is the only business in the world that provides free health services to all employees, their spouses and unemployed children up to age eighteen years; in addition to pensioners – consider the thousands involved.

This is supplemented by a Contributory Hospitalisation and Maternity Scheme for all monthly and weekly paid employees. Additionally, the Corporation hitherto was probably the biggest contributor to NIS.

All this is supported by a well-staffed Occupational Health and Safety Programme.

It follows that there are both contributory pension schemes for monthly paid employees; and an industry-funded ex-gratia scheme for other time and piece-rated workers.

The industry also boasts of long established education training and development programmes – technical and academic – involving sponsorships to the University of Guyana, and the Guyana School of Agriculture, over the long years past.

Not to mention the extensive bursary awards to employees’ children; and of course the sixty year old Apprentice Training Centre at Port Mourant.

All these costs are included in what is loosely described as the Wage and Salary bill.

So back to the issue of allowances, most of which were established across the industry as far back as the 1950’s. In fact, the so called ‘perks’ have been reduced since. More directly a number of those attributed to various levels of staff, including Directors, have not been implemented for some time now; or they have been refused by the latter. Indeed managers and staff on estates can legitimately complain about the comparably reduced standard of accommodation – possibly not acceptable to several commentators.

But in the final analysis, these exchanges may very likely be seen as merely quibbles – in terms of the more important future viability of the industry.

What profoundly needs to be considered, is how such indiscriminate forays would impact on the sensitivities of witnessing managers. Should they be apprehensive of a new leadership whose positive mission has yet to be constructively articulated, and to whom they look forward to lifting morale? After all, they would reflect that they too could have been seen as partly responsible for the dereliction complained of so vociferously.

The final concern must be that of prospective managers, who may be left to hesitate as to whether they would wish a career in an apparently belligerent environment, as may be interpreted.

In the final analysis governance and accountability in any organisation is the cumulative reflection of individual character; and has no room for ad hominem defamation.

E.B. John

 

PS: Those of us who have worked in the industry since the days of Bookers Sugar Estates and have only known the highest standard of integrity, and experienced prompt and precise accountability, sincerely hope that we do not witness the portentous degradation of the moral character that must inform leadership at all times.

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