I MANAGED to get my hands on an interesting and informative document produced by GuySuCo, titled “Reorganisation Plan” dated May, 2016. Going through its pages I was amazed to see that the sugar corporation was advising the State, at that time, that in wooing private buyers to take over Skeldon Estate it was suggested that potential investors be told about the lucrative opportunities to set up a refinery to produce white sugar for the Caribbean market. Worst yet, I saw that the authors of that plan recommending that the Government support the investors to get Common External Tariff (CET) protection in CARICOM as a means to secure their investment.
For me, editor, I was dumbfounded to see a state-owned enterprise taking such a stance. While publicly we are told by GuySuCo officials that the estate is a time bomb, the private interests are being told seemingly a different story about the windfall they would have should they purchase the estate. Editor, I am tempted to believe the latter than the former and it seems the wool is being pulled over all our eyes.
It is disturbing for me as a proud, patriotic Guyanese that rather to seek to have the ‘windfall’ benefitting all our men, women and children we will allow seemingly a foreigner to come in and repatriate billions of dollars outside of our shores to the benefit of their shareholders. Any sympathetic and caring Government would not adopt such a position which is not in the interest of its people. It is a most bitter pill for me to swallow that the Government being aware of such information is pushing ahead to sell such a prized national asset. It seems to me Editor, that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
Regards
Patricia Persaud