GuySuCo under scrutiny

Dear Editor,
THE Kaieteur News of January 23, 2017, carried a news item titled “Sugar industry should not be a burden to Guyanese taxpayers- Pres Granger.” In this article, the impression is that His Excellency, President David A Granger, is keen on dialogue with all sections of society for ideas and solutions for GuySuCo to stop its dependency on taxpayers. Editor, I agree and support this thrust from His Excellency.

As a taxpayer contributing to subsidisation of GuySuCo, I was very optimistic in June 2015, having learnt that Government had installed an Interim Management Committee (IMC) to manage the company without any political interference. Subsequently, this IMC employed a team of technical experts and consultants to reverse the trend of poor performance in agriculture and factories and this is understandable, because the IMC is far from being competent in these areas.

With this fresh team, GuySuCo advised the nation that it has put together the “best minds” in sugar to handle the situation in one of its missives from the communication department. Then, came the salaries & benefits of the IMC, experts and consultants which sent shock waves across the land, because no bankrupt company in this world would pay those rates. However, Guyana affords it despite the slave-like wages paid to the ordinary workers.
All my optimism vanished in December 2016, when GuySuCo dropped a bombshell production of 183,652 tonnes for the year 2016. After having this team of “best minds” in sugar for 1 ½ years, paid them better than any country would, they delivered the second lowest production since 1990.

From their own performance, one can conclude that GuySuCo’s biggest burden at this point is the IMC, experts and consultants, whose remuneration amounts to GS14.1M/month. That is, GS253.8M over that last 18 months. They are akin to a millstone around GuySuCo’s neck. The President has the power to remove this burden from GuySuCo and taxpayers.
With this millstone management team at GuySuCo, production for 2017 may be bleak again. GuySuCo may wish to dispute this as they typically do with vague statements and no details. In the meantime, what is GuySuCo’s production target this year? This is the first time that it is not yet known, though we are approaching the end of January, 2017.

Regards,
Sookram Persaud

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