–Agriculture Ministry reports in review of 2022
IN further fulfilling the government’s commitment to “breathe life” back into Guyana’s sugar industry, the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) hired some 1,479 persons from 2020 to 2022, the Agriculture Ministry said.

The ministry, in a press release over the weekend, said that with the reopening of the Rose Hall, Enmore, and Skeldon estates, 1,091 previously severed persons and 388 new persons were hired by GuySuCo between the period August 2020 and September 2022.

Meanwhile, the release said that mechanisation is progressing at the Blairmont Estate, where the first phase of expansion of the packaging plant is ongoing. This will facilitate more employment opportunities in 2023.

In December 2022, Vice-President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo had announced that employees of GuySuCo will also receive the eight per cent retroactive salary increase for 2022.

In 2021, the government began reinstating salary increases for GuySuCo workers who had laboured in the fields and factories in Guyana’s sugar industry for five years prior without any increase in remuneration, or other incentives to acknowledge their hard work.

The workers had not received any incentive from 2015 to 2020, while the APNU+AFC was in government. Last year, the workers received a seven per cent retroactive pay under the current government.

The increase came as a welcome reward for sugar workers, whose relentless efforts to get a salary increase under the APNU+AFC administration were futile.

In 2017, the APNU+AFC closed four sugar estates, leaving some 7,000 persons without jobs or sources of income.