Cabinet overturns subcommittee decision on new Board

…Clive Thomas still Chairman

Contrary to paid full page advertisements that were carried in the daily newspapers and a Cabinet subcommittee’s decision, there is no new Board for the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and consequently, no new Chairman.
This was related by Finance Minister Winston Jordan during a press conference on Friday. Asked by members of the media whether Special Purpose Unit head Colvin Heath-London was Chairman of GuySuCo, Jordan replied in the negative.
“He is not the Chairman of GuySuCo. The Chairman of GuySuCo is still Dr (Clive) Thomas. The Board of GuySuCo ends this month, in keeping with his

responsibilities, Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder has to bring to the Cabinet a new Board to be in place when this old one is finished.”
He added that there was a subcommittee that met and discussed the issue of GuySuCo and its Board.
“That subcommittee was chaired by Vice President (Carl) Greenidge and it included me, Ministers Harmon and Holder,” he further clarified. “That committee decided, unanimously the life of the GuySuCo Board comes to an end and a new Board will be put in place headed by [Heath-]London.”

Overturned

Jordan denied there was a political split between the Alliance For Change (AFC) and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) on the issue. He acknowledged, however, that the subcommittee’s decision died a swift death when the full Cabinet overturned the proposed appointments.
Stressing that this was within the Cabinet’s right, Jordan related that the full Cabinet deferred the decision until it could get more information on the nominees and thus rendered the appointments null and void.
“… all subcommittee decisions have to be carried to the full Cabinet. It is when it went to the full Cabinet that the full Cabinet said no, we need to look at this more closely. They want to be sure where GuySuCo is going and who are these people.”
Asked whether Holder, an AFC member, was part of the dissenting voices, Jordan said even if he knew, he would not say. He noted that there have been several instances where the subcommittee’s decisions are vetoed.

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According to the advertisement, which was published on March 14, 2018, the new Board was approved by Cabinet on February 26, 2018, and the appointments were supposed to take effect on March 1. There had long been rumours of a split at the executive level over the decision, however.
The old Board of Directors had comprised Economist, Dr Clive Thomas as the Chairman and Frederick Singh as the Secretary. The Directors were Louise Bouyea, Fritz McLean, John Browman, Nigel Cumberbatch, Sharon Roopchand-Edwards, Nazim Ali and George Jervis.
A list of the newly proposed Board was circulated in sections of the media. On that list were Komal Singh, Verna Adrian, Fritz Mc Lean, Rosh Khan (Jr), George Jervis, Arianne McLean, Vishnu Panday, Annette Arjoon-Martins and two GuySuCo executives.
One of the main stakeholders had called for more industry insiders to sit on the decision-making body. A senior Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) official related that the Board should have included multiple persons with actual first-hand knowledge in the sugar industry.
“We would like to see more people who understand sugar agriculture to be placed on the Board. Even from the last Board, it wasn’t so and from what it appears from this Board, it might not have enough people with that understanding but of course, Panday is very knowledgeable but he is just one person,” the GAWU official had told this publication. (Jarryl Bryan)