GuySuCo should be divested or diversified to hemp

Apr 17, 2018 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
In the week before Easter, GuySuCo was in focus in the news again. It was reported that Colvin Heath-London – the new NICIL, Special Purpose Unit CEO – was able to reopen Enmore Estate with a mere 10 million to facilitate the production of molasses for DDL. Why go into production of molasses at Enmore for DDL when that Company is interested in purchasing the Estate? Rent or sell the Estate to DDL!
Local companies with interest should be given priority to rent or purchase GuySuCo’s assets. There was an article about the “Exposed Fat Cats” (Managers) collecting high salaries while the fortunes of the Industry were drifting in the red zone. An EB John, who took the responsibility to respond for his “exposed” colleagues, described the “Exposed Fat Cats” article as a “misinformative piece.”
John said, “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.” So, according to John, Whistle blowers and Journalists gave the “final and irrefutable instruction” to close three of GuySuCo’s estates.
On March 30th, there was an article by a Mike Persaud Sr. saying that,” The current Administration has had setbacks when it entrusted the Interim Management Committee (IMC) with G$32B of the taxpayers’ dollars to chart and navigate the course for privatization, but who failed them miserably, along with a people, nation and a country. The resultant closure of estates was inevitable, given the IMC’s failure to generate G$52B in the fiscal years 2016 to 2017. To keep Albion, Blairmont and Uitvlugt operable, the Administration had no alternative but to close the ‘less productive estates’.
I would hope that it wasn’t intended for the IMC to generate G$52B as profit for the fiscal 2016-17 – given GuySuCo’s high cost of production relative to the present price of sugar. I am at a loss to imagine, where that $52 billion was expected to be “generated” from?
I could recall that Dr. Clive Thomas, in the time of the PPP, was in the habit of pontificating on the woes of GuySuCo weekly in the media. I guess Granger hired him to be the Chairman of the IMC, because Granger thought that Thomas had the GuySuCo ‘plague book’ at the back of his hand.
Clive Thomas’ reign at the helm is reminiscent of someone watching a card game – when you have the luxury of seeing two hands you see all the moves. Get in the game and instantly you realize that you are as mediocre as any other player. Clive Thomas’ stint as Chairman of the IMC is disappointing – he seemed to have lost the GuySuCo plague book – the articles about GuySuCo disappeared from newspapers and GuySuCo closed half of its factories in December 2017, only to contemplate reopening four months later with a new or two management teams – Heath-London at the SPU and Clive Thomas still as Chairman of the IMC.
Presently, the Coalition, by entrapping itself with two boards – SPU and IMC- has laid bare its incompetency to the Nation, in handling of the affairs of GuySuCo. There has to be a misconception in plans to reopen the closed estates – just to keep alive for some 76 prospective possible investors. Any Agronomist will tell you if the closed estates’ lands are left uncropped for a while the soil will become more fertile – an incentive for any investor. As for the aged factories, any investor familiar with sugar production will consider those old equipment as being outdated or suffering from metal fatigue, consequently of little significant value. Hence consuming billions to keep the estates viable for investors is hogwash – a planned criminal misuse of taxpayers’ dollars.
GuySuCo is State-owned – meaning that the 30 billion in syndicated bond acquired by the SPU to return the three estates that the Govt. decided to keep, to profitability, will be squandered in a lost cause and will have to be repaid from the State’s Purse.
What magician can turn the fortunes of a commodity-producing Company (GuySuCo) whose cost of production is more than twice the selling price of that commodity and has a 60% of its cost of production, as labour cost?
One of the objectives should be for workers to keep their jobs. The factories are mechanized; to mechanize further means to get machines to plant, manure and cut cane. That will take the bulk of the jobs away from workers. Where is the logic?
A letter by Seepaul Narine on April 5th in KN in which he quoted a Dr Davis saying “[what] we cannot go back to is a labour intensive sugar industry,” is a clear indication of what the SPU is planning. Field mechanization had been attempted before and failed because of our soil type and weather conditions.
What can make GuySuCo profitable again is essentially slave labour. That is the sad reality and we must face it.
The SPU is nothing more than a patronage organization of the Coalition on a mission to assault the State’s purse. In their quest for jobs, sugar workers will not see the anomaly. GAWU knows the truth, but will continue to pretend like they have been doing since the era of the PPP.
The PPP should take the blame for hiding from the sugar workers the realities of the state the Sugar industry was in since their time in office. Sadly, sugar workers only believe in the leaders of the PPP, whom for political expediency, continue to fool them that they would bring back sugar (make GuySuCo profitable again). Sugar workers in their state of betrayal, will never see the irony of the PPP’s failure to make GuySuCo profitable in the last ten years of their reign, versus their promise to do so now, as a ploy to garner their allegiance for 2020.
I am in solidarity with the sugar workers. I believe that the 30 billion borrowed would be better spent to pay sugar workers their severance and continue to pay workers who had been earning less than $120,000 per month, one third of what they were accustomed to earn over a three-year period. This will help to alleviate the hardships in the communities.
In the meantime, GuySuCo should be quickly divested or diversified. Hemp is a crop that offers unlimited possibilities and is easy to grow; it should be the crop of choice, if the powers that be are interested in diversification. The powers that be are hooked like a puppet on a string to the DEA because that organization recommends US aid to fight the illicit drug trade.
The DEA pretends not to recognize the scientific study done on hemp and continues to dissuade the Govt. from allowing Guyanese farmers from planting hemp – a crop that can be a greater life changer than oil – with regard to the current PSA with Exxon.
It is ironic that while the DEA is against the cultivation of hemp in Guyana, the US is preparing to re-grow hemp on home soil. The Guyana government should be aware of this.
Hardships in the sugar dependent communities will make people gravitate more to the use of illicit drugs and the social degradation that comes with that. In this light, 30 billion in syndicated bond spent on people in the sugar communities over a three-year period will do more justice than spending it on a lost cause trying to keep GuySuCo alive. Guysuco should be divested or diversified to hemp.
Rudolph Singh

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