PLEASE allow me to return my attention as a Guyana Agricultural and General Worker’s Union (GAWU) former field secretary to a very topical problem and, that is the question of the new Skeldon Sugar Factory for India or China to manage. Let me say clearly that I am not against any new management which will bring much benefit to the workers in creating jobs, improving skills and advancing both workers and the country’s welfare. I welcome that. The forecast for this factory has not been bright since the modernization; production was expected to be bountiful so as to yield a production in the vicinity of some 300,000 tonnes.
Revenue and further losses were recorded of the Skelton factory, employment cost accounts for about 56 percent of this factory.
The corporation and government must now understand the situation and act responsibly or else there could be job losses if the factory is closed down.
That would mean unemployment, and social problems such as an increase in crime. Retrenched workers would have difficulties finding jobs and to survive with their families. The factory has already come a long way since the modernization; the corporation and government have pumped billions of dollars literally, to keep it operable over the past years.
GUYSUCO’s management made colossal blunders when problems started to develop for there seems to have been no feasibility study on the establishment of this factory. Managers were aware that they have to cut down the high cost to produce a pound of sugar and production increases at a lower cost will make the factory viable.
A source said that the management also blundered in contracting the work-force under conditions prevailing in the factory. Thus workers, consultants and engineers from China have been enjoying super salaries. It is sad, for what should have been a lucrative, model sugar factory in the Caribbean, is now a decrepit; what a colossal blunder.