– GTUC proposes each sugar factory becoming separate companies

THE Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) has proposed that Government take some radical steps to ensure survival of the sugar industry amidst its deepening crisis, including making each factory and attending estate a separate company with a $13B support package and a two-year weaning period.

GTUC, the local ILO-recognised umbrella trade union movement, submitted the proposal to the Government of Guyana on Friday, saying it is open to engaging key stakeholders in further discussing the proposal.

Government last month tabled in Parliament a report on the future of GuySuCo, and has promised to have countrywide consultations on the way forward for the industry. Government’s report stemmed from a Commission of Inquiry which the administration established shortly after taking the reins of power last year.

A consortium of private cane farmers from West Bank Demerara communities have indicated their willingness to take control of the Wales Estate, which is slated to be merged with Uitvlugt Estate on the West Coast of Demerara, and run same as a private enterprise venture, provided that Government would continue to operate the Wales Estate factory for another two years, giving them time to come up with the capital needed to fructify this arrangement. They have indicated an intention to lobby Government in this respect.

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE AND SCOPE
In the preamble of its proposal, GTUC acknowledged that sugar — as an industry that takes on board GuySuCo as a company, together with private cane farmers — has a significant impact on communities and sugar workers’ welfare scheme, given its historical significance and scope. The union has said that recognizing the impact of sugar, and conscious of its precarious economic state, it becomes necessary to arrest the decline of sugar and find alternative measures not only to sustain it, but to build an economic prowess that can impact positively on the nation’s development.

MARKETING COMPANY
In addition to the proposal of making each estate a separate company, the GTUC has also proposed that GuySuCo be made a developing and marketing company that can give financial and technical assistance to individual estates. Further, the union says, during this transition, the State should provide a $13B support package for the estates, and at the same time sustain GuySuCo for the duration of two years.

The GTUC proposal suggests that each company should develop its own plan with a view to breaking even in two years’ time. At the end of the two years, each company needs to be at the level where it can be placed on the stock market and be converted into a public company like Banks DIH, DDL etc.

SHARES
Additionally, the union stated, by agreeing to a principle of reconfiguration, all workers should be paid their severance benefits, and the assets of the industry should be converted into shares that ought to be distributed among the stakeholders, including cane farmers.

Regarding the $13B support, GTUC proposes that this be distributed among the companies, and be converted into shares in each entity, which the state would own.

“The issue of the land and its future should be considered as a special lease, thereby ensuring it remains as State property,” the GTUC proposal said, adding that the unions currently representing the workers should be given automatic recognition in each estate.

“As the President speaks of a green economy, sustainable development, national unity and social cohesion, it gives the nation an opportunity to make these thoughts and pronouncements a reality using the platform that is made available through Article 13 of the Constitution, which states: “The principal objective of the political system of the State is to establish an inclusionary democracy by providing increasing opportunities for the participation of the citizens and their organisations in the management and decision-making processes of the State, with particular emphasis on those areas of decision-making that directly affect their wellbeing.”

The GTUC said it is for these reasons that there is need to bring together all stakeholders with a view to discussing the situation and arriving at a process of examining the challenges the industry faces; and moreso, coming up with ideas which are not aimed at only reducing the loss, but making the entity profitable.

NATIONAL CONSULTATION
President David Granger, in a recently televised interview, said the question of the state of GuySuCo has been in the public domain for several years because of the decline in production, problems with the factory at Skeldon, poor labour turnout, high production cost, and low international market prices for sugar.

Despite these, he said, there is no immediate plan to privatise GuySuCo. He pointed out that the CoI report would be discussed in the National Assembly, followed by a national consultation on the state of the sugar industry.