IT is appreciated in the world of journalism that an editorial is essentially an opinion piece which attempts to influence policy. That is a newspaper’s right as the Fourth Estate.  However, with rights comes the responsibility to impart a balanced opinion. The Stabroek News editorial of September 3, 2022 captioned “GuySuCo – a ward of the state,” fell short of what a true editorial should be with respect to a balanced position.
It is a fact that since September 2020 to June 2022, the National Budget has allocated some G$20.1 Billion to the sugar industry which comprises both the GuySuCo-owned and managed grinding estates at Albion, Blairmont and Uitvlugt and the NICIL-owned, non-grinding estates at Skeldon, Rose Hall and Enmore (vested estates).  The empirical evidence shows that Skeldon, Rose Hall, Wales and Enmore Estates were vested and transferred in 2017 to NICIL by way of Vesting Order No. 45 of 2017 signed by the then Hon Minister of Finance Mr Winston Jordan on the 29th of December 2017.  If it can be recalled, the Wales, Rose Hall, Enmore and Skeldon estates were closed between 2016 and 2018.
In September 2020, when the current Executive Management of GuySuCo examined the stock of standing canes, it found that some 30 per cent of the fields were left in bushes by the previous team under the previous APNU+AFC government. To compound that situation, it was also found that in September 2020, there was a deficit in the tillage fleet on the grinding estates totalling 27 machines. Any sugar expert will advise that GuySuCo as per practice should have been ploughing 20 per cent of the land every year. But this was not done since 2016 and we were advised that this situation can only be remedied if the tillage is accelerated.  But it takes functioning tillage machines to prepare the land and what the new team found in September 2020 was an inadequate and old stock of machines that were out of service more often than not.
This situation was further complicated when the 2021 national flood occurred, causing a mortality rate at Albion computed at 30 per cent of the standing canes.  The fact remains even today that since the APNU+AFC administration closed four fully functional estates, Albion was saddled with the production responsibility of producing 50 per cent of the sugar.  The direct impact of this flooding significantly reduced the stock of standing cane and production at all three of the remaining grinding estates.  Every cane cutter is aware that sugar is not made from “panicum maximum” (guinea grass), but actual standing sugar cane stalks.
What is also a fact is that since September 2020, G$8.6 Billion of this G$20.1 Billion was allocated to the financing of the projects associated with the vested estates owned by NICIL.  Included in that is some G$0.98 Billion allocated to cover the payment of  over 3,000 pensioners left with no sure source of financing as a result of the 2017 Vesting Order.  Upon assuming office in August 2020, one of the first acts of the incoming government was to release funds to meet the pension obligations of the thousands of retirees at these shuttered estates.
While it appears that the Stabroek News is attempting to chronicle events which it asserts contributed to the current status of GuySuCo, that newspaper failed to take the following into account:
·         The failure of the past APNU+AFC administration to professionally de-commission fully functional estates following the highest of agricultural, mechanical and engineering standards between 2016 and 2018 which resulted in billions of dollars in lost state-owned assets at Wales, Rose Hall, Skeldon and Enmore.
·         The past APNU+AFC administration under the former Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder and his team oversaw the shaving of G$80 Billion of assets from the books of GuySuCo and returned only G$17 Billion in cash by way of the “Sugar Bond” from a prominent bank.
·         In September 2020, we are advised that the corporation found two functional tillage tractors at these four shuttered estates when the records will reveal that over 18 were left on these estates when the APNU+AFC administration came into power.
·         In September 2020, over 150 cane punts were found rotting at Skeldon from lack of use when all of these punts were fabricated under the PPP/C government to support the sugar industry.  We have been reliably informed that the corporation has been able to repair and recover some 80 of them since then and they are now actively in use at Albion and Blairmont.
·         The socio-economic implosion that occurred across the sugar belt when approximately 7,000 workers were sent packing by the APNU+AFC administration.  The most important fact remains the callous disregard for the human beings at the micro level and the urgency of the need in September 2020 to get these human beings back to a life of productivity and in work.  Since then, some 1,200 former sugar workers were offered jobs at all of the estates with the biggest group gaining employment at the Rose Hall Estate.
·         When the PPP/C administration took office in August 2020, the objective of all the sugar stakeholders was not to put chains on the gates at these four estates, but to invest in the life of the ordinary man, so as to convert a human tragedy created under the APNU+AFC, into a human development opportunity. An ILO report revealed that immediately after the closure of these estates that the suicide rate increased by 100 per cent at both Rose Hall and Skeldon (Study of the Socio-Economic Impact of the Closure of GuySuCo sugar estates on sugar workers in Guyana – January 2021).
GuySuCo’s current reality is that it employs some 7,477 persons and funds the pension benefits of an additional 7,000 pensioners.  The corporation in its quest to reduce costs cannot divorce itself from this reality and while every effort is being made to rationalise its workforce, since August 2020, every single one of these beneficiaries of the corporation has had their benefits being met on time.  For the first time in years, GuySuCo is now up to date with its NIS contributions.
Why does the Stabroek News assume that the corporation has not conducted meticulous strategic planning with the objective of charting a course for the industry to return to a state of viability?  The facts will reveal that the corporation does have a Five-Year Strategic Plan that is actively being implemented to recover from a situation where sugar estates were shuttered and no meaningful investments were being made.  For example, in 2019 only G$0.076 billion (only G$76 million) was invested by the corporation in capital equipment as a result of lack of funding. Since September 2020, an average of G$4.1 billion in capital equipment was plugged into the industry to push this Strategic Plan forward.  When last was the vitally needed cane punts fabricated in the industry?  In 2022, over 100 were fabricated and commissioned on the waters at the Albion and Blairmont Estates.
Why does Stabroek News assume that the sugar stakeholders are not actively pursuing public-private partnerships to bring down the cost of production and ramp up its production? This is actively being pursued at Uitvlugt and from a newspaper advertisement, some 25 per cent of the land is being re-positioned for productive use by the private sector in sugar cultivation.
In closing, the challenge in the sugar industry is real. This can be highlighted by a report from Stockholm Environment Institute which stated that climate change will “dramatically impact agricultural production all around the globe,” and will reduce crop yields in certain areas. In their report, the researchers concluded that “global sugar cane yields could fall 59 per cent in the last three decades to 2100, compared to yields in the period 1980-2010.”