This is not the time for dishonest leadership

Oct 27, 2019 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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The more things change, the more they remain the same; and so it is with the People’s Progressive Party- PPP. It is another elections season and the PPP are once again making empty promises. One example is that party’s dishonest promise to reopen all of the closed GuySuCo sugar estates. This dishonesty cannot go unchallenged.
Lest we forget, it was the PPP government that operated GuySuCo as a political organisation for their supporters and not purely as a business. In 1990, the sugar industry wages were 980 million dollars. The PPP after getting into power in 1992 began a series of increases to sugar workers, which raised the industry wage bill to 12 billion dollars by the year 2000.
As early as 2002 GuySuCo Chairman warned the PPP, that employment costs were so high that the viability of the industry was threatened, but that warning fell on deaf ears and the escalation continued. The industry wage bill in 2006 climbed to 16.6 billion and since 2001, the sugar industry wage bill has amounted to over 63% of total cost.
Under the PPP, GuySuCo financial and human resources were poorly managed. Estates were not given the resources they needed to do capital works. Several factories like Albion in 2005 requested 529 million dollars to do its capital works and were only given $183 million; Rose Hall requested $414 million and was only given $193 million.
This pattern of management forced estates to become less productive and the industry as a whole, less competitive. The production figures and the cost of production tell the story, GuySuCo announced in 2007 that in order to stay competitive they would have to keep the cost of production at 12 cents per pound, but they failed miserably at this; Skeldon 30 cent/lb. Albion 19 cents/lb., Rose Hall 19 cents/lb., Blairmount 18 cents/lb., Enmore 17 cents/lb. LBI 26 cents /lb., Wales 23 cents/lb., ICBU 41 cents/lb.
With the huge wage increases and the failure to keep the cost of production down, the PPP was forced to reduce the work force by 10,000 workers between 1998 and 2008. What is amazing and defies economic logic, is that even though they reduced the work force from 28,000 in 1992 to around 14,000; plus an estimated 4000 casual workers, the wage bill still kept rising while the price of sugar was falling.
Guyanese must never forget that it was the PPP’s nominated GuySuCo Board that wrongly predicted that the sugar protocols and the preferential price for sugar could not be removed by the European Union. This was the first of many PPP mistakes that led to investments like the Skeldon expansion project, which were based on faulty predictions of the industry and market trends.
So, while Trinidad, Jamaica and other APC countries that read the situation right were diversifying and right-sizing or minimising their industries, the PPP was expanding ours with money we did not have; over $200 million (US) for the new Skeldon Estate and another $12.5 million (US) for the (Project Gold)
History will show that it was the PPP that used the sugar industry in Guyana for political gain. President David Granger and the Coalition Government were forced to make the tough decision to right-size GuySuCo and are working to save our 300-year old sugar industry. President Granger was clear when he spoke to sugar workers earlier this year at Albion Estate: that this (APNU+AFC) government will build up the sugar industry to protect sugar workers’ jobs.
In contrast, for twenty-three years, the PPP used the sugar industry (GuySuCo) to line their own pocket and enrich their cronies. In 23 years, they took a profitable industry and destroyed it. Now they dishonestly promise sugar workers that all sugar estates will be reopened.
We must not forget that under the PPP, protests on sugar estates were met with violent crackdowns on workers. One such example was the unrest at Wales Estate, where protesters were met with force, tear gas and 14 people arrested, simply for making a plea for investment into a factory that was no longer fit for purpose.
This is not the time for dishonest leadership. We must continue to improve efficiency and make sure Guyanese sugar remains of a high quality and priced competitively on the global market to protect ordinary sugar workers’ jobs.
Under the leadership of President David Granger, Guyana is already developing a world-class mineral industry and a diverse agricultural industry that will produce value added products, and new well-paying jobs. Better management of the sugar industry and the production of value-added products along with the co-generation of power to improve profitability would place a right-sized GuySuCo in a competitive position.
We must not forget that it was the PPP who started the process of closing sugar estates down. Their dishonest, reckless mismanagement and pilfering of the industry cost Guyanese $12B each year in subsidies, with tens of thousands of people losing their jobs. This is not propaganda; this is a fact!
At the next election, the choice is clear: a return to the past under the dishonest PPP, or continuing moving forward under President David Granger and the coalition.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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