Bookers’ nationalization by Burnham, considerations for the PPP as Guyana is prostituted to Exxon

Sep 04, 2023 Letters

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Dear Editor,

In December 1975, Bookers made me the Manager of their factory and estate at Versailles, West Bank, Demerara. Yes, my family had land at Versailles, but the factory was owned by Bookers and there were many cane farmers taking their canes to the Versailles factory.

At that time, my father Joe Vieira was a director of Bookers and in fact, he was their Mechanical Field Operations Director for more than 20 years at that time.    Joe Vieira was also a director of Guyana State Corporation [GUYSTAC], so Forbes Burnham depended on him to advise on the sugar industry.

What I am going to disclose today is firsthand knowledge of the nationalization of Bookers in 1976 and why and how, I understood why Forbes Burnham did it.

Sometime in 1974, Mr. Burnham informed my father that Bookers were committing some very sharp practices i.e. they were, for example, the owners in England of Fletcher and Stewart a well-known sugar cane factory parts manufacturer, and it came to Forbes’ attention that along with other enterprises owned by Bookers, [all parts of the Bookers conglomerate bought what it needed almost exclusively from itself] were charging Guyana more for factory parts and other things than what they were charging other people for the same items.

For those who do not know, Bookers was the largest privately owned conglomerate in this country for almost a century, which, according to Lord Jock Campbell, their chairman at the time, they owned ships, shops and sugar estates. Bookers was a British company which straddled Guyana like a colossus, very much like what EXXON is seeking to do today.  Unlike GuySuCo and other major government businesses in Guyana today which contracts out everything to facilitate corruption in the contract awarding system it employs to do everything, Bookers owned and controlled everything they needed to operate the sugar enterprises they owned here, they had absolutely no contractors, they imported their own fertilizer, chemicals and other raw materials in their own ships and took out the sugar in them, they owned the agency in Guyana for international harvester agricultural machinery, they owned the Bookers Universal building where they sold everything from a spanner to a shirt, they were the agents in Guyana for British Leyland and also the  agents for Land Rover, Morris, Wolseley even Jaguar.  Understanding what this integration did to efficiency. I look around me in total disbelief at what is happening in Guyana today with everything the government is building and contracting out. As far as I can determine, EXXON owns not even one square inch of land or property in Guyana. Everything they do is contracted out, so when EXXON decides to leave Guyana, there will not be one square inch of fixed assets which we can seize in case they don’t keep their guarantees to us. It is my opinion that this is a very serious carpet bagger practice. Especially since everything they spend on any infrastructure is deductible as EXPENSES.

But back to the Bookers situation, my father was dead against nationalizing Bookers, since notwithstanding everything, his opinion was that they were very efficient producers of sugar, and he was right as I have shown in a previous letter, since just about 10 years after nationalization, the Guyana sugar exports dropped from almost 300,000 tonnes per year to about half that amount, but Forbes was intent on showing them who was boss and so he decided not to nationalize them, but to instead impose on them a Sugar levy which he announced in his new year message in 1974, the levy he imposed however was so onerous, that in very short order, the Bookers executives sought to meet him sometime  in 1975 and informed him that with such an onerous Levy they were not in a position to continue operations here economically.

Apparently, that was exactly what Forbes wanted, so he allegedly asked them how much compensation they wanted for the entire company.  And that was the end of Bookers. I wish to say here that at least he offered to pay them compensation, when in fact, in the parliament, Dr. Jagan was not in favour of paying any compensation.

This is a sovereign nation Mr. Editor, with a parliament which makes the law, I advise EXXON to remember that, there would be no necessity to renegotiate anything. If attracting foreign investment means that we have to prostitute our country and allow the pillage of our resources then we must not allow it.

I want to end by presenting Sir Jock Campbell’s entire statement since the 1970’s “People [of Guyana] are more important than ships, shops, and sugar estates” and I may add EXXON!

Yours sincerely,

Tony Vieira

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• Dr. Jagan, Forbes Burnham, GUYSUCO, Joe Vieira, PPP, Tony Vieira

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