Cost cutting measures at Uitvlugt

Nov 04, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – There is a massive cost saving exercise implemented by the Chief Executive Officer of GuySuCo, who is a proven financial analyst, at Uitvlugt Estate and which is expected to be implemented at the other estates shortly. This is about using chain saws to cut Jamoon trees to feed the boilers.
At the surface this would look inexpensive but when an analysis is done it will be seen that this does not only go directly against the President’s Low Carbon Development Strategy launched a few days ago, but is very costly and does not produce the intended results. I would like the CEO to repudiate this.
Let us do the analysis. The CEO himself is involved in supervising this firewood gathering exercise. On Saturday last, 11 workmen with 2 chain saws cut a half-filled truck with about 5 tons of green Jamoon wood. The labour cost is 11x$4,000= $44,000, the truck hire cost is $20,000. This gives a total cost of $64,000. An average of $12,800 per ton of firewood. On the market, an 8-ton truckload of firewood costs $48,000 (trucking cost inclusive), an average of $6,000 per ton. The capital investment of 2 chain saws costing $400,000 and the CEO’s high cost supervision are excluded. The skills and competence is very much costly and any economist will tell you that the theory of opportunity cost does not warrant a CEO supervising firewood cutting. This Monday, 2nd November, 14 persons were involved in this firewood cutting.
Jamoon is a highly healthy and beneficial fruit and its green branches cannot provide the high quality of heat needed for a boiler. So much for the LCDS. This is scarce money wasted and a most wanton destruction of nature.

Yours sincerely,
Hemraj Singh

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