— close to 700 regain employment at shuttered estates

AS efforts to resuscitate Guyana’s ailing sugar industry continue, the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) in ramping up its activities at one of the three shuttered estates, the Rose Hall Sugar Estate, will be hiring over 100 persons on Thursday.
In 2017, the former A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) coalition government had announced the closure of several sugar estates across the country. The move saw four sugar estates being closed, and 7,000 sugar workers losing their jobs.

But, it was reported that plans were afoot to not just rehire persons, but to return the industry to viability through coordinated and prudent management, which is expected to come from both private and public stakeholders.
The Rose Hall Sugar Estate will be the first of the three estates to be reopened and is expected to begin grinding in 2022.

Ahead of this, GuySuCo will be conducting a massive recruitment exercise for various categories of field and factory workers on Thursday, commencing at 07:30hrs, in the compound of the Rose Hall Estate.
Head of Human Resources (ag) at GuySuCo, Vemen Walters, was quoted in a statement as saying: “This exercise is the largest one thus far to be undertaken as GuySuCo intensifies its activities both in field and factory at the Rose Hall Estate for the commencement of sugar production in the second harvesting and sugar production season of 2022. The corporation is hoping to attract more than 200 applicants from this exercise.”

Persons who are within the ages of 18 and 59 years and desirous of joining GuySuCo are encouraged to apply in person on the day of the recruitment exercise.
The management of GuySuCo will be providing free transportation using lorries, which will leave the No. 19 Village, Gangaram, Lochaber and Hyberary, respectively, at 07:00 hrs, on July 22, 2021.

Applicants are asked to present their Birth Certificate and National ID Card or Passport when presenting their application. Further, persons selected will be subjected to a pre-medical examination.
Already, some 301 persons have been hired at the Rose Hall Estate and are assisting with the revitalisation of the industry.

Aggregately, some 695 persons have been hired at the shuttered estates, with 226 being employed at Skeldon and 168 at Enmore.
In 2020, the corporation was allocated a sum of $7 billion, of which $3 billion was used to recapitalise the Rose Hall, Skeldon, and Enmore sugar estates, while the remaining $4 billion was allocated to support rehabilitation works at the Uitvlugt, Blairmont and Albion sugar estates. As it is now, some 8,200 persons are employed in the sugar industry.

It was only in June that the government secured some $1.5 billion in supplementary funds from the National Assembly to offset critical capital works at various estates.
To ensure the continued development of agriculture and support services at six sugar factories, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, had said some $40 million will be pumped into the Skeldon and Enmore estates, respectively.

Another $292 million will advance works at the Rose Hall estate and rehabilitation will continue at the Albion Estate to the tune of $718 million. The Blairmont and Uitvlugt factories will also receive $149 million and $259 million, respectively.
Some of the items listed to be procured to enhance the restructuring process are horse power tillage tractors, crusher run, harrow ploughs, cane punts, long reach excavators, paddle tug and drainage tubes.

With the most recent injection of funds, the government’s financial investment in GuySuCo now stands at $10.5 billion since being elected to office on August 2, 2020.
The vision of GuySuCo, as outlined by the company’s management, is to focus on expanding the sale of packaged sugar in CARICOM, North America and the local markets.
GuySuCo’s overarching plan for 2021 is to produce 97,000 tonnes of sugar, a high percentage of which is expected to be packaged.

“We have to diversify, we cannot produce raw, brown sugar and survive… we have to produce value-added products like refined sugar, ethanol, improve on molasses, improve on the co-gen facility at Skeldon… those are the things we have to do and we have to bring down the cost of production,” Minister Mustapha had said.