The sugar industry is the largest among the local industries employing over 25, 000 workers directly while creating indirect employment for about an equal number and has a share of about 20% of the GNP. It is easily among our oldest industries and historically and on to today sugar is an integral part of our economy and culture.
Therefore, the socio-economic health of this nation is integrally linked upon the health of the sugar industry which is managed by the state owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo). And the health of the industry to a large extent is dependent upon how well it is managed.
However, in recent years, after bouncing back from the bad decades of plummeting production and closure of three estates the industry has been faced with some uphill challenges include the end of the preferential markets and a 35% cut in sugar prices. This combined with poor weather and poor management further complicated its difficulties resulting in heavy financial losses for GuySuCo for several years.
But the government has moved swiftly through its strategic plan for the industry to return its viability and profitability. One of the moves, of course was the building of the state of the art Skeldon factory which has the capacity to produce over 100, 000 tonnes of sugar per annum at a cost of about 20 US cents per kiliogramme. In addition, GuySuCo has moved towards greater mechanization and value-added production. Consequently, it is envisaged that the corporation should return to viability by 2012 and all Guyana would hope so because the national economy and the welfare of sugar workers are dependent on the success of the industry.
A very disturbing development recently though, has been the revelation of massive corruption among the management of GuySuCo resulting in already the former Materials Manager being given the boot while appropriate disciplinary action will be taken against the ring of accomplices.
According to the Chairman of the corporation, Dr. Nanda Gopaul, the board and management have had concerns about the functioning of the Material Management Department of GuySuCo for a number of months.
“We thought that we were going to get value for our money when Mr. Shaw came to that department, but when we examined what had happened over the period of time, in fact, the department deteriorated, the corporation lost substantial sums of money because of the splitting technique deployed by Mr. Shaw and some members.
Dr. Gopaul revealed that the corporation has an audit report which indicates the numerous infractions committed by Mr. Shaw and some of his team members.
He said over the period of time, GuySuCo had to conduct several audits.
“And we found officers culpable, and we have invoked disciplinary actions against them,” he stated.
He recalled some expatriate employees were dismissed, and this was subsequently followed by the replacement of a Chief Executive Officer, after which other senior staff were dismissed or faced disciplinary actions as a result of audits conducted in the corporation.
He noted that the corporation did not only conduct audits on procurement and GuySuCo’s accounting system, but several audits were done in cultivation to examine whether there were neglect on the part of senior management and several cases of neglect over the years were found.
Such types of corruption has to be eradicated from its roots or else the corporation will never be able to return to viability and glory days which will result in harm to the entire industry, national economy and suffering of workers who are the wheels of the industry.
And who knows, this may only be the tip of the iceberg. If other such instances of massive corruption are unearthed they must be dealt with in the same swift and condign manner in which the case of the Materials Manager was handled. The GUYSUCO board must be commended for its systematic and methodical exposure and unearthing of corruption of such huge proportions.
On this note,  it would be appropriate to recall that the major trade union in the industry the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union  (GAWU) had warned earlier the problems of the corporation to a large extent had to do with poor management and corruption at the high levels of management.
Those who are familiar with the sugar industry would be aware that indeed corruption is prevalent within GuySuCo. One of the very common daily corrupt practices is where middle level management is paying for work which has never been done or paying workers extra and collecting their drawback at the end of the week.
Corruption eats at the very sinews of any organisation, industry, business and society and when it becomes cancerous it will wipe them out.
Therefore, no effort must be spared to stamp out this cancer that is raising its ugly head within the sugar industry.