$1.1B of GuySuCo’s $4B budget for reopening Rose Hall Estate

…$452M for Albion Estate, $300M for packaging plant
…$287M for Blairmont, $56M for Uitvlugt

The Government’s efforts to reopen the Rose Hall Estate will see a whopping $1.1 billion being expended. This sum represents more than 50 per cent of a $2 billion allocation from Budget 2023, under a line-item titled contribution to local corporation, Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
On day two of examining the budget estimates, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha was quizzed about the $2 billion earmarked as contributions to GuySuCo. He explained that of this amount, $1.1 billion has been allocated to Rose Hall Sugar Estate, which the former A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government had closed.
“I have here the disaggregation. One semi mechanical trailer, four fix frame tractor, fertiliser application, boom sprayer, 200 drainage tubes, 260 cane punts. And we could have saved these monies.”
“When they closed the estates, they left the punt to rot. Now we have to build back those punts… 400 slink chains, five bell loaders. These are the things for Rose Hall,” Minister Mustapha further explained, also pointing out that 75 per cent of work on the Rose Hall factory is completed and almost 3000 hectares of cane is ready for harvesting in the second crop.
Also included in the $1.1 billion is a $539 million allocation that will go towards completing works in the factory and $50 million on road works in the surrounding area. According to the Minister, $452 million has been allocated to Albion Estate and $300 million to start construction on the packaging plant, $287 million for Blairmont and $56 million for Uitvlugt Estate.
Mustapha further emphasised that the Government will return GuySuCo to profitability. He noted that GuySuCo was much more profitable in 2015, when they first left office. That is until the APNU/AFC entered office.
“The honourable member is talking about profit. GuySuCo will become profitable again. We have to work. They ran down GuySuCo. I mentioned it, that when we came out of Government in 2015, GuySuCo was producing 231,000 metric tonnes of sugar. And in 2019, GuySuCo gone down to 91,000 metric tonnes. So that’s the point they took GuySuCo,” the Minister said, even as the Opposition heckled.

In response to questions from APNU Member of Parliament Vinceroy Jordan, Minister Mustapha also revealed that the Government is making and will continue to make changes at the managerial level at GuySuCo.
“This is one of the plans, as I said, and when you have plans you have to continue to update plans. And one of the plans is to ensure we have packaged sugar. The management of GuySuCo, yes.”
“We are looking… we’ve made changes recently and we will continue. We’ve moved managers, we’ve replaced managers and we’ll continue to do that. That’s a work in progress. And we’ll continue to bring new managers into the system, with new ideas,” Mustapha also said.

In his budget presentation, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh had made a number of predictions for the year. These include predicting that real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will grow by 25.1 per cent in 2023, as oil production increases.
Growth in the non-oil economy is meanwhile projected to reach 7.9 per cent this year, driven by continued expansion in construction, other crops, and wholesale and retail trade and repairs, alongside a rebound in gold mining.
Major developments are expected in the sugar sector, including higher performance from existing estates and production from the reopened Rose Hall Estate. An output of almost 61,000 tonnes of sugar and the growth of the subsector by 29.3 per cent, are expected in 2023.
After taking office in 2020, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government had also announced in the Emergency Budget presented in September 2020, that some $5 billion would be injected into the sugar industry for the phased reopening of the closed estates.
GuySuCo was allocated a further $2 billion in Budget 2021 by the PPP/C Government for capital works to be undertaken at the various estates to help in the turnaround of the sugar industry. Last year GuySuCo received $1 billion in supplementary funds from the Government.
And in Budget 2023, $4 billion was allocated. According to Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh in his budget speech, the Government remains committed to the revitalisation and restructuring of the sugar industry to support a diversified and modernised sector, ensuring its sustainability and economic viability. (G3)