Gov’t, GuySuCo avert possible wages, salaries crisis …company unable to account for $154M employees savings …union instructs cease/desist order on deductions
Agriculture Minister, Noel Holder, (centre) meeting yesterday with GuySuCo CEO, Dr Rajendra Singh (right) and other officials
Agriculture Minister, Noel Holder, (centre) meeting yesterday with GuySuCo CEO, Dr Rajendra Singh (right) and other officials

A WIDE-SCALE crisis in the nation’s sugar belt has possibly been avoided following a meeting yesterday with newly appointed Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) Dr Rajendra Singh, over the possible failure to pay wages in the near future. Minister Holder provided the Chronicle with a brief update following the meeting and said the two sides have come to a possible compromise on the way forward. He did caution that it was too early to pronounce definitively, since the CEO would still have to submit more information to the minister.
Holder explained that during the course of the meeting, the GuySuCo CEO did seek to explain a number of the parameters within which the industry operates.
He said some of what was explained to him as minister with responsibility for the sector, by the CEO, did sound plausible but will have to await receipt of the requested information before a determination is made.
Minister Holder told the Chronicle last evening that he is now awaiting the requested information in relation to GuySuCo, so that a determination could be made and a proposal submitted to the Finance Ministry, before any bail-out could be extended to the industry.
Dr Singh recently informed stakeholders in the industry that salaries could not be paid beyond the end of this month, given the industry’s financial straits.
Efforts to contact the GuySuCo CEO following the meeting with Minister Holder last evening proved futile, as Dr Singh refused repeated calls by this publication.
Minister Holder had earlier in the day indicated to the Chronicle that Government may in fact have to provide some sort of subsidy in the short term.
He did caution that the Agriculture Ministry would only be able to make a recommendation to the Ministry of Finance, as it relates to the level of subsidy to be provided to the cash-strapped sugar industry, in order to meet its shortfalls.
Minister Holder did point out to this publication that the final determination will have to be made at the level of the Cabinet.
According to the minister, the new administration is currently still in the process of ascertaining the books of the various state agencies in order to get a better understanding of the resources available, along with constraints and areas to be addressed among other critical areas such as debts and debt repayments.
But the sugar company’s woes despite the intervention by the minister continued to escalate yesterday as the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) Co-operative Credit Union Society Limited also announced to its members that it has requested GuySuCo to cease deductions from workers’ earnings and credit union savings, effective tomorrow.
“The Society’s regrettable, but unavoidable decision is occasioned by GuySuCo not remitting workers’ savings to the credit union contrary to the extant Agreement between the credit union and the corporation,” according to GAWU, which claimed that GuySuCo is now unable to account for in excess of $154M
According to the union body, as at the end of April, 2015, the corporation failed to provide the sum of$154,410,525, which it says “represents workers’ savings for five (5) months.”
It reported too that GuySuCo had promised to the credit union some payments not later than the third week of this month (May, 2015) “but same did not materialize.”
As such, the credit union is now unable to continue to facilitate savers’ withdrawals in light of the non-payment of the workers’ savings by the corporation in accordance with the relevant Agreement.
“Additionally, the credit union has taken consideration of the fact that it is now unable to secure further loans to satisfy savers’ withdrawals.”
The union further pointed out that the sad decision if it is not urgently redressed by the corporation “will cause the jobs of the credit union’s employees to be in jeopardy.”

By Gary Eleazar

 

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