Dear Editor,

I AM submitting our recommendations for salvaging GUYSUCO. Mind you, the thinking of the top executives reached saturation point many years ago, when their only thoughts were about the production of ethanol, electricity from bagasse, etc.

They have created and presided over the demise of a once profitable industry, and if they were worth their salt, they would have diversified the industry decades ago. Now they are still in place to give the final rites to the industry, and they are touting the cultivation of rice at Wales. What a shame! Or are they now washing their shame and drinking it?

Any action taken as regards this industry must consider that we are dealing with human beings and human happiness. Below are our suggestions for treating this man-made disaster:
1: First and foremost, replace all those top executives who presided over the deterioration of the corporation over the years, and whose thinking has been embedded in ethanol production, sugar packaging, aquaculture, cattle rearing, etc. They have all outlived any useful purpose they might have, and are just warming seats and accumulating enormous fat in their pockets.

2: Sell some of the troubled malfunctioning/non-functioning Skeldon Factory units as scrap metal to Chinese and others in the recycling business, so that this national festering sore can be excised from GUYSCO.

3: Appoint an Executive Chairman and restructure the Board of Directors, appointing the General Manager/CEO of each estate as a Board Executive Director. In this way, the Board will gain hands-on information on the happenings of each estate at any point in time.

4: Appoint one non-executive director from the sugar unions.

5: Urgently, keep politicians in dark rooms, where they can dream dreams and see visions. Hold the Board of Directors accountable for the Corporation’s performance.

6: Have each estate execute staff succession plans. Implement and audit these each year.

7: Pursue relationship marketing at functional and strategic levels.

8: Develop strategic partnerships with companies, businesses, etc that produce value-added products using sugar and its by-products.

9: Cease all colonial-type services offered to Executive Staff at each estate — free housing, guard services, school children transportation, payment for utilities, etc.
10: Sell or rent to Executive Staff members the houses they occupy, or sell them to members of the public.

11: Integrate the medical centre at each estate with adjacent government hospitals and clinics.

12: Redesign all offices with cubicles so that high borders are removed. Have managers type their own correspondence, bag their own letters, etc. and reassign support staff to relevant productive sectors.

13: Employ more multi-skilled staff at all levels, and redesign jobs to cater for these changes.

14: Employ retired experienced employees at lower-level jobs as training facilitators, advisors, etc.

15: In a civilized culture, one generation must replace another. Therefore, stop putting retired persons in substantive positions and let there be succession.
16: Start diversifying agricultural production on low-yielding land.

17: Lease or sell uncultivated lands to farmers for cultivation of non-traditional crops, giving first preference to former field operations staff.

If GUYSUCO is serious about doing better, all matters should be put in the public domain, and it must be recognized that no one has a monopoly on wisdom. As such, people with relevant knowledge and technical know-how must be invited to contribute their two cents to treating the man-made diseases affecting the Corporation.

Moreover, Government should appoint more competent and experienced people to oversee agricultural activities at GUYSUCO and the country as a whole, for there are too many misfits masquerading in the industry. Hence the decision of rice cultivation at Wales is simply adding insult to injury. If the present top executives have any decency at all, they would leave the industry instantly. How much more hogwash must we take as a people?

Regards,
DOODNAUTH SINGH
Executive Chairman, Jan and Joy Carew Education Centre