THIS is the final piece on this sugar series and I have been most privileged to have shared some of my humble thoughts with you.This sugar series was the foundation work for a TV interview I was invited to do in New York City.  This sugar series was written for the primary benefit of the field and factory foremen and the workers, in general, to better empower them to take the industry forward.
I am most humbled to have added value to the process. Please feel free to share any feedback since we can never stop learning.  There are tonnes of people in the industry who know a million times more than me on this subject of sugar, but if we add our knowledge together I am convinced that the sugar belt can be saved.
I am also convinced that once the people on the sugar belt have His Excellency President Granger and Prime Minister Nagamootoo in office, they can expect a fair deal.  Hon Moses Nagamotoo has the unenviable record of advocating for the sugar belt for more than 40 years and thus he has the ability to offer skilful political leadership on these very difficult issues.
So I want to conclude with two issues – visioning for the industry and the critical need for us all to be more inventive.

Visioning
If one reads GuySuCo’s vision it says: “Working together to produce half a million tonnes of sugar”.  Do you understand why this industry has collapsed?  It has been visionless for decades. The new board has to offer a compelling vision for the future.

Can we understand why the workers are so preoccupied with how much they can get as fast as possible out of the industry?  Can you understand why across the industry there is a perceptive feeling of isolation and abuse?
Visioning is a core competency that is essential for this industry to turn around. The leadership, starting with Dr Clive Thomas has to articulate a clear position and paint a picture of what future possibilities exist. No games, no politics – level with the people in the industry. Where can we be in three years time if we work together?  What can happen to the industry if we do not work together?  Clear language and communication pieces with conversation around issues such as “This is our expectation from you and this is what you can expect from us.”
It is time for the leadership and GAWU to find common ground in partnership to move this industry forward.  The core values of the industry have to be fixed and fast.  The quicker this kind of messaging percolates across the industry, the better.

CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS
Conversations about how we are going to change the way people work have to start, but these conversations can never happen if the leadership themselves are clueless as to where they want to take the industry.  Are we going towards more mechanisation?  Are we going towards more packaging?  How are workers going to be up-skilled to manage and service these new machines? How soon?  What exactly will happen by the end of 2016? These conversations are critical.
We have to change the way people think in the sugar belt from cutlass men to a people with skills who are prepared to up-skill and become sugar technicians. We have to change the way people see themselves.  If people see themselves as cane-cutters all their lives, they will always think at that level.  We have to identify leaders within the gangs and up-skill them for the future as machine operators, mechanics, auto electricians, service attendants for the machines and so on. It is a broader vision of moving to mechanisation and lifting everyone in the sugar industry to higher-value jobs that pay more and contribute to a more efficient production process.

CoI Report
Most importantly, we have to reinforce the urgency of now.  This whole idea of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) Report was promised by the end of September 2015 and to date it cannot be laid in the National Assembly.  This is unacceptable. The public who forked out G$12 billion in 2015 is not interested in who has to travel, they want timely results and they are not getting that. And all our thinkers and decision-makers have to stop wasting so much time and start acting more.  It is most disappointing that the end of November is swiftly approaching and we are still “dilly-dallying” on delivering this report to the legislature – the National Assembly has approved G$70 million to fund the cost of this report.  Are we setting up this CoI Report to be another National Census, which became out of date and irrelevant?
What did Martin Luther King say?  “Now is the time to get people to see that there is a need for action.”  If people observe what has happened since September 2015, it is a most lacklustre performance at the highest level in the sugar arena and this has adversely affected progress on the larger vision of turning the industry around.  I will not be surprised because of this slothful performance the Treasury will have to find about G$9 billion in 2016 to pump into the sugar industry.
The leadership has to be absolutely clear about what we have, what we need to do and where we want to be and by when.  It is imperative that Dr Clive Thomas advocate strongly for a conclusion of this process because he has a big job in 2016 to go down into the industry and get the thousands on board with the roadmap.

Let Us Invent The Future
I am also a strong advocate for the setting up of a decision-making vehicle across the industry (transition vehicles or turnaround laboratories) that draws on skills from all parts of the estate to re-engineer each process and create new processes to move the organisation toward a more innovative system.  Remember we spoke about the small team in the factory to review the work processes.   Case in point, we may need to close two factories (NOT ESTATES) to bring greater efficiency to the process and thus free up more real cash for payroll for example in 2016. That is fine but all these decisions have to be driven by hardcore analysis. The Government of Guyana cannot continue to be pumping G$12 billion every year into GuySuCo.  That is ridiculous.

So What Do We Do?
Right now we are processing all the canes from Enmore, LBI and Diamond estates at the Enmore factory.  The model works.  It can be done.  It is time to get the analysis on the West Demerara Estates and then drive the process using the facts and commonsense.  This is survival time.

Conclusion
Let me make it clear, based on the number I have crunched — no estate needs to be closed.  However, two factories – Rose Hall and Uitvlugt have to be merged into Albion and Wales respectively.
Keeping these two factories alive and also holding on to that ‘White Elephant’ at Skeldon is the death knell of GuySuCo.
Secondly, it is TIME FOR DISTRIBUTIVE LEADERSHIP.  People from all levels within GuySuCo have to be identified and motivated to take the industry in a new direction even in these tumultuous times.  Head office exclusively does not have all the ideas.  The best ideas to fix this mess lie deep within each sugar estate and that is why I am saying GAWU has to be a partner in this turnaround process.
Good luck to the team in GuySuCo.  Please share your comments with me at sasesin1@yahoo.com.