CERTAIN political forces and parties in Guyana leave you baffled and bewildered as to what really are their objectives and goals because they can be so contradictory and confusing ever so often. A case in point is the hullabaloo being made with respect to the proposed foreign management of the new Skeldon Sugar Factory. The opposition forces are behaving as if this is something new or a crime is being committed by the government. But what is the reality?
When the PNC government brought Booker-Tate to manage the sugar industry there was no noise about it. Where were those who are now attempting to make a storm in a tea cup? It is obvious that they are doing so for political propaganda. It is sickening and unfortunate to note that a matter of serious national interest is being used by some, who are aspiring to govern this country, as a political football.
It is normal for huge technical projects such as the Skeldon Factory to experience initial teething problems and this point was emphasised by the head of the China National Technical Import and Export Corporation (CNTIC) team during the construction of the factory.
The fact of the matter is Guyana does not have adequate technical resource personnel to properly manage the facility. Hence the logical and common sense thing is to bring in foreign management with the requisite technical capacity. This is standard procedure, so it is most baffling what is the noise being made by opposition parties about.
One opposition party in its weekly column last Sunday peddled a blatant lie when it claimed that CNTIC had no experience in building sugar factories. The truth is that the company built sugar factories in Africa prior to building the Skeldon Factory.
However, the substantive issue is that there are technical glitches at the factory which is hampering it from reaching its optimum production capacity and this has to be fixed, which the government is trying to do. If it did not take action it would have been criticised and now that is taking action it is being criticised. So it is a clear case of damned if you don’t; damned if you do.
What these opposition elements need to tell this nation is, what are their alternative plan to foreign management at the Skeldon Factory. The opposition has voluminous record of making criticisms but if their alternatives were equally voluminous then perhaps this country would have been better off.
The transformation of the sugar industry rest heavily on the optimum production capacity of the Skeldon factory and therefore the government has no choice but to fix the problems by whatever means in the shortest possible time and this is exactly what it is doing.
Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud correctly pointed out: “Everyone recognises that it is a new, complex, state-of-the art, one-of-a-kind facility in this part of the world. We all recognise that we have to develop the local capability and we require help in terms of developing that capability.” He added: “There are private sector companies in Guyana which, when they introduce new technologies, new plants, they have some element of getting the necessary skills from wherever the technology was derived.”
He said that with some of challenges that may arise, “that is what we are seeking to do. It is not a new effort, but an ongoing effort.”
According to the minister, from time to time there have been persons working at the plant who were from Europe, China, and India, “and it was in that context that we are seeking to look at the arrangement and see whether or not to explore the possibility of enhancing that existing arrangement.”
So the detractors could continue beating their tantrums as the government continues in its relentless efforts to fix the problems at Skeldon.