And any country which disregards its own history has no future

Jun 10, 2019 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
In 2004 Guyana produced 325,000 tonnes of sugar. At that time Booker Tate was running our industry on a management contract, then Robert Persaud became Minister of Agriculture in 2006 and shortly thereafter he terminated the Tate contract in 2009. He told his reason “they were too expensive” but as a result of this action by 2013 the industry was producing only 186,643!! In 10 years our industry’s production dropped by 58%!! Tanks, Lambada!! Now it is a fact that money which was supposed to go for the maintenance of the industry’s other assets were gobbled up by the Skeldon project, which started some time in 2003/4, so the total collapse of the industry can be blamed on two facts, 1. Robert Persaud not comprehending the incompetence of the local GuySuCo managers or the importance of the Tate management team to the industry and his own limitations to make these important determinations and 2. The very expensive Skeldon project. Since it not only cost a lot to build it (US$150 Million) but it gobbled up a lot of money which GuySuCo was forced to give it, but which was badly needed to finance important upgrading and maintenance to other important infrastructure of the industry. So the Skeldon project had, not a ripple effect but more of a tsunami effect on the rest of the Guyana sugar industry, and so its cost in real terms, was very much more than just 150 million US dollars.
In today’s context, as irrelevant as this may seem to a causal onlooker, what I am stating here is that in 1989 it became clear to Mr. Hoyte and Dr. Kenneth King, that our local managers were not up to the task of running the Guyana Sugar Corporation, since the output had been steadily declining from 321,000 tonnes in 1972 to 131,000 in 1990; so they hired Booker Tate to operate it on a Management contract; by 1999 Booker Tate turned the industry around and produced 321,000 tonnes of sugar in that year. Editor they took a rundown cultivation producing 131,000 tonnes in 1990 and made 321,000 tonnes in 9 years.
It is very sad when a country did not learn anything from its own history. And any country which disregards its own history, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, has no future.
There is no, we or them situation in this matter, all sides are involved in GuySuCo’s demise, and I want to state again that GAWU was part of the process of killing the golden Goose with these wild cat strikes and unreasonable demands motivated mostly by politics. So the workers must also take some of the blame. Poor governance caused this, no one side is to blame; both have to take the responsibility.
We are making exactly the same mistake again, but in a much more lucrative situation for this nation’s survival, we need to hire a management team of highly qualified people in the petroleum industry on a management contract, [which will be structured on if we make money they make money, if we make more they make more] to manage our oil industry. We need to do it NOW. We also need to seek a competent management team to manage GuySuCo.
I again have to ask what is going on in GuySuCo? I see in the media that the Special Projects Unit (SPU) a subsidiary of NICIL which I, for one, think that the S should stand for another word entirely, because nothing about this group can possibly approach Special. I had predicted in previous correspondence that the SPU is not properly manned and will yield nothing.
Time is telling us that I was right. Its costing a lot to maintain this unit and apparently there has been no progress in identifying what will be done with the closed estates and cultivations.
Finally I want to ask a few questions about Skeldon Estate, now this estate and the new factory there, was, up to the time of rebuilding the airport at Timehri, one of the most expensive national projects in our history. In the media GuySuCo now operates Albion, Uitvlugt and Blairmont, and this year will produce only about 100,000 tonnes of sugar! It’s a long way down from the 325,000 tonnes we made in 2004! We are being given periodical updates from GuySuCo. I only have one observation, because our 2019 first crop ripened and was harvested under one of the driest conditions possible in Guyana, I would have expected a better performance in terms of the TCTS/TSA.
But what is the position with the Skeldon estate? Have we allowed the SPU to operate Skeldon as a going estate? Which is what we expect it should be doing, to keep the cultivation alive in the unlikely event that we can find a kamikaze investor to buy it? If it is operating, is the SPU running it below the radar of the people of Guyana who are the real owners of it? If it is closed, we should be told, if it is operating, we should be informed about its performance, but if we are running it, why is the corporation which is running the rest of the industry not running Skeldon? Why should the SPU pay a completely different pack of ‘skeople’ to run it? Or is that too logical?
I never liked the way NICIl is run, it’s out there not really legally accountable to the Parliament and the people of Guyana, I did not like it when we were in opposition and I still don’t like it now that we are in power.
But then I am not the sort of man who doesn’t like the situation when I am in opposition but love it when I am the one controlling it and benefitting from it when in power, with no intention of changing it, even though I promised I would.
Tony Vieira

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