…in wake of calls for industry’s privatisation
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday defended government’s investments in the sugar sector and knocked Opposition Presidential Candidate David Granger for contemplating its privatisation, saying that private investors will never stand by and watch the company make losses without shutting shop.
Jagdeo was at the time addressing the 51st Delegates Conference of the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE) at the Umana Yana, Kingston.
“Most of your union members come from three [companies]: Guyana Power and Light, Guysuco and BOSAI. Now, two of those are fully owned by the Government, while with BOSAI, we have shares there. So, a significant number of your membership comes from state entities,” he said.
“Let us look at what the government has done in these areas. Just to give you an idea of future possibilities in these sectors,” he said.
Taking a swipe at an earlier speaker, General Secretary of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union, Seepaul Narine, President Jagdeo said that it was not the lack of progress at the New Skeldon factory that caused a setback to the financial fortunes of the sugar sector.
He said further that had it not been for the Government of Guyana’s investment in the sugar sector, “then there could not have been a setback.” This investment, he said, represented a serious commitment to the industry in the face of doom and gloom on the horizon.
“We could have gone in the other direction, could have gone the route of Trinidad and Barbados in shutting down the industry. Had we shut down the sugar industry, like they did, then you would not have had any discussion, because you would have lost your jobs and your union membership would have dwindled significantly,” the president said.
“[These countries] made policy decisions to exit sugar because the cost of production was too high. [The] the European Union caused the biggest setback to the industry when they cut the price by 36 percent on the prices that we get for sugar. We would have earned per annum $9 billion more had it not been for that cut,” he said.
He said that the second major impediment to the industry is the weather. “Most people know that if it rains or you have unseasonal weather patterns, given the peculiarities of Guyana – a low-lying coastal area, a network of canals to take our water out, we live in a valley between the conservancy and the seawall – if you have excessive rainfall, drainage systems designed at its best to take off two inches of rainfall in 24 hours, when you get seven and eight inches in 24 hours, then you have a problem,” he said.
“You know this will have an impact not just on the sugar content, but on our ability to take cane out of the field, we use mechanised loading, and these cannot work in these conditions.
The third problem he identified with the sugar industry is the turnout or lack thereof of sugar workers. “Imagine you are running a business and to work at a maximum, you need ten persons, and only four and a half of them come to work every day, then you are going to have problems,” he illustrated.
“This government decided to keep the sugar industry alive. The investment at Skeldon, the packaging plant, the move to mechanise and modernise the industry [all testify to this],” he said.
“We could have gone the easy route as Granger said – to privatise the industry. And one year after, if the industry does not make profit while in private hands, what is going to happen? They will shut the industry down because private people are not going to inject large sums of money to keep the industry alive, or make a US$200 million investment in Skeldon, when the prospects of getting that back is on the edge,” said the president.