— recruitment drive saw over 200 applications

SOME 113 persons from 220 applications received have been recruited at an employment drive held at the Rose Hall Estate on Thursday, geared towards the reopening of that estate for the second crop in October 2022.

The 113 employed include 11 females. Persons between ages 18-59 were eligible for employment. They made their way to the site from as early as 06:30hrs to be registered and among the applicants were retrenched workers, first-timers seeking employment and the unemployed, seeking a stable job.

Human Resource Director (ag), Vemen Walters said by Monday a number of persons will commence work.

He highlighted that 463 persons are currently employed at the Rose Hall Estate, but by the end of 2021, 880 persons will be employed based on the work that needs to be done for the reopening. He further noted that overall, 1844 persons are required when the estate becomes fully operational. As such, by October 2022, the estate will hire another 1381 persons.

CANNOT WAIT

“We can’t wait until October 2022 to employ those persons, so we have decided that we have to embark on this massive employment drive. We are employing severed persons and new persons, skilled persons, unskilled, general labourers; any category of course, we will need to have persons with the requisite skills set in the factory and other technical areas,” he said.

While skilled persons will be assets for the factory and other technical areas, Walter said they are committed to train and develop persons to enhance their abilities.

“We know for a fact we will not have what we really want, so what we have to do is train these people and that is why we will employ them as a porter/cleaner. However, we are going to train them, we are going to develop them to make them craftsmen, to make them fitter-machinist, to make them welders, electricians. We are going to utilise our training centre at Port Mourant to facilitate these trainings. We have been providing to other companies so why is it we cannot provide training to our own people. So we are not too bothered about the skills set. Yes, we would like to have trained people coming into the system, but the reality is that we don’t have them, we will have to train and develop them and we will be putting a programme in place to
facilitate those types of training and to have Rose Hall equipped with the necessary skills set to ensure a very successful reopening in October of 2022,” Walters said.

WILL BE TRANSFERRED
He further explained that even though harvesting will commence until October 2022, harvesters who are employed will be engaged in harvesting operations at the Albion Estate and will be transferred to the Rose Hall when harvesting commences.

Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Sasenarine Singh, stressed that a job is dignity and the government is committed to bringing dignity to the lives of people. He noted the objective of the exercise is to commence building human capacity to facilitate the reopening of the Rose Hall Estate, to create employment in communities and ignite the local economy.

“GuySuCo is committed to bringing economic energy to the Canje, New Amsterdam, the Lower Corentyne area; this Rose Hall Estate is committed to bringing economic energy. This is our corporate social responsibility but more importantly, this is us sending the clear signal that the work plan that we have in place is working, is being implemented and we are working towards delivering on an objective that was set to us by our shareholders, which is to reopen the Rose Hall Estate as the first of the three sugar estates to be brought back to life. GuySuCo is open for business and is working hard towards restarting in the second crop of 2022,” he said.

Meanwhile, Rose Hall Estate Manager (ag), Balraj Dhanraj said the employment drive can be described as a one-stop shop and that the reopening is going full steam ahead. The reopening, he noted, will bring hope to the community.

“The people that [sic] are working here are giving hope to this community and when that hope is realised, you will see a rejuvenated community, flourishing business, people will have more spending power and the standards of life will be improved,” Dhanraj said.