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NICIL sleeps while the country suffers

Dec 21, 2019 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

It has now been two years since more than 7,000 of our brothers and sisters collected their final pay cheque from the four closed Sugar estates in Guyana. Further it has been two years of punishment and misery for many families in rural Guyana. While many has sought and found employment elsewhere, others continue to suffer. On a pure business perspective it was a good economic decision to close the estates and divest them since sugar is a dead business.
I supported the thought from the beginning and even today I still believe it was the correct thing to do. My concern is that after two years not a single estate has seen significant business. Not a single individual or company has closed a deal with the SPU other than at Wales. I kept asking myself why? After much thought I decided to investigate. My finding is as unpalatable as my loss of confidence in NICIL, SPU and its sidekick PriceWaterhouse Coopers. Before I describe then, let me share with you some of my findings.
i) NICIL is steadfastly holding the interested parties to plant cane and produce sugar while NICIL itself through SPU has moved away from sugar at Wales and is now planting rice and coconuts, among other things. If they themselves do not see the economic advantage of sugarcane production how can they force the investors into cane production?
Further, when I researched the sugar industry worldwide, it is quite evident that sugar is a dead business under the Guyana scenario. The Indians have closed down 13 factories in the last two years, Jamaica closed down one, Malaysia has closed down seven. The Chinese have stopped buying sugar from the Indians causing millions of tons of sugar to be stockpiled in warehouses across the world and now forcing the world market price down to under 254 USD per ton and NICIL is still holding on to sugar.
ii) NICIL is asking for an exorbitant premium to be paid up front. For what? Scrap tractors and factories that are falling apart? This leaves me to wonder which investor will be so stupid to want to make that premium upfront and be saddled with refurbishing an entire estate at close to100 M USD in five years under the current sugar prices and quota limitations.
iii) NICIL refuses to allow the Investors to use the assets of the estate as collateral. Well this one blew me away especially since they are only leasing the land for 25 years without mortgage rights.
iv) To top it all off the investor is not allowed to compete in any market that GuySuCo is selling its sugar.
These are only but a few that I have highlighted for space and readers comfort.
There are a number of other issues attached to this SPU privatisation scenario but the whole divestment business has shifted my focus to NICIL itself, which I think is the real problem. When I took a closer look at them, I cannot come across a single divestment that they have concluded in the last five years. The estates are running down further while our people suffer, GNSC is falling apart while scores of companies are banging down its doors to invest, LINMINE is dead, SEI is limping while GPL is struggling to supply power to the grid, Guysuco is in a Judo Lock with the 30 billion dollars and Colvin Heath London is having a blast at all the estate clubs and Watooka House among others while the Guyanese people suffer. And as a little diversion, why is it that NICIL’s only consultant is PriceWaterhouseCoopers?
It is critical to note that it was the PPP who brought London to Guyana at the behest of Jagdeo and the opposition is deafeningly silent on the ills of NICIL. Further at this juncture when the government needs to attract every vote it would seem that London has done everything within his powers to drive them away. I wonder why?

Sincerely,
George Louis

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