Rose Hall Estate workers complain of substituting old parts to fix machines

Jan 29, 2024 News

The excavator at the Rose Hall Sugar Estate

…says monies budgeted for parts going elsewhere

Kaieteur News – The workers attached to the Rose Hall Sugar Estate workshop are wary of the practice of stripping parts off of old machines to fix the operable ones, even though they are aware that monies were approved in previous budgets for the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) to purchase parts.

The workers, who asked not be named fearing victimization, provided photographs of excavators and tractors which they noted have broken down in recent weeks although they were acquired less than a year ago.

“Four new state- of- the- art tractors down and they have we cannibalising on one to fix the others. One down for four wheel discs, one down for fuel pump issues which they collect the money for and use it for other purposes,” one worker said.

Another member of the workshop team explained that, “”Three of the four tractor not working right now and they have us take parts from them to fix one. This is not just the tractors alone, the excavator too. They doing land currently and we suppose to use everything at once, but with the cannibalizing only two working.”

A tractor at the Rose Hall Estate. Workers at the estate complained that parts are being stripped from older machines to fix the new ones

According the reports, the excavator at the Rose Hall estate only needed a fuel pump and instead of replacing the part, the management of the estate brought an old excavator from Skeldon. The parts from the old machine are being used to fix the new one, the workers said.

Government has been boasting of the capacity of the estate since grinding recommenced there last year when the estate was reopened. The factory was closed in 2017 by the previous government, in a move that was termed as “right-sizing the sugar industry.”

The recommencement of the canes grinding at the factory will add to the significant economic contribution, as well as employment in Berbice, Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha said at the time. “We have seen a number of punts of canes being crushed at Rose Hall. To date, they have produced just over 130 tonnes of sugar,” stated Minister Mustapha at the time.

Mustapha said he was optimistic that the factory will continue to grind and crush sugar cane despite some mechanical concerns, which are being fixed as they occur.
In the 2023 national budget, a sum of $4B was injected into the operations of GuySuCo by the government.

In the 2024 budget, $6B was set aside to improve the operations and production at GuySuCo estates. Of those sums, a significant portion of the budgeted allocation was set aside for the operational capacity of the Rose Hall estate.

Approximately 1,100 workers were employed at the estate when it reopened.
Rose Hall Estate was expected to make a positive contribution in terms of realising the production target of 60,000 tonnes of sugar that GuySuCo set last year.

Estate, Rose Hall, sugarcane, tractor, workers

Latest News