WORK on the Rose Hall Sugar Estate factory is 41 per cent complete and approximately 500 workers have been rehired at the facility.

This is according to Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha, who was responding to questions from Opposition Members of Parliament (MP) during the consideration of the budget estimates for the Ministry of Agriculture on Monday. That ministry has been allocated $22 billion in the 2022 budget.

He also noted that work is being done on the estate’s fields to commence cultivation and reiterated that the government remains optimistic about returning the sugar industry to profitability.

Mustapha explained that there are several factors affecting a definitive date for the reopening of the estate, particularly the dilapidated state that the facility was left in when the former government left office.

“We have to have enough cane in the cultivation before we can start Rose Hall. I know, in fact, that we are about 41 per cent in the factory,” Mustapha said.

He added that: “We have to ensure we rehabilitate the entire factory. We have to ensure that we have enough punts, that we rehabilitate the mill duct, and ensure we rehabilitate the field equipment department. All those parts are work in progress that we are doing continuously. And I am very sure that the PPP/C will reopen Rosehall Sugar Estate.”

The government is currently reopening the closed sugar estates in a phased approach, with Rose Hall being the first estate that will reopen. Rose Hall, Wales, Enmore, and Skeldon estates were closed by the former APNU+AFC Government between 2016 to 2017, placing thousands of Guyanese out of work.

Defending the government’s $4 billion 2022 investment to get the industry back on track, Mustapha reported to the House that when the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) assumed government in 2020, it found that only $3.8 billion remains of a $30B bond that GuySuCo had received from the National Industrial and Commercial Investment Limited (NICIL).

“Whatever it takes to bring back GuySuCo, the PPP/C Government will ensure that we make the resources available,” he said.

He reminded that the government is focused on the bigger picture and looking at GuySuCo beyond sugar, given the vast impact that the industry has on the wider society and economy.

“GuySuCo encompasses many other things than sugar. Today, GuySuCo is the largest single employer locally; GuySuco makes a lot of contributions socially; we have the various sports ground that GuySuCo used to look after; we have the D&I services in the communities; the village economies; thousands of persons who indirectly depend on GuySuCo,” Mustapha said.

Pointing to one example, he noted that it costs the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) approximately $1.8 billion in some areas to cover drainage and irrigation services previously provided by GuySuCo.

The minister noted that the government is working towards having the industry at least break even and then become profitable. This is particularly being done through the investment in increasing the production of value-added products.

“We are moving to ensure we add value-added component to the production. Eventually, GuySuCo will make a profit. We are enhancing packaging plant at Blairmont. Looking to build a new packaging plant at Albion. We are looking at ethanol production, looking to produce high grade molasses. These are the value-added production that will help GuySuCo to break even and eventually make a profit,” he said.