Decision was made by GuySuCo – Govt

LBI shutdown

… willing to meet with workers
The decision to close operations at the La Bonne Intention (LBI) Sugar Estate was not made by Government

but by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
This is according to Natural Resources and Environment Minister Raphael Trotman who said on Wednesday that the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change Government inherited a plan that was already

laid out by the previous Administration.
“As it relates to LBI, it must be reminded that the new Government inherited a plan that was already in place by the former Administration and it is not Government’s plan that is being executed but the management of GuySuCo,” Trotman said.
He was responding to questions by Journalists on Wednesday as he chaired this week’s post-Cabinet press briefing at the Ministry of the Presidency.
GuySuCo recently announced that the gates of the LBI Estate would be closed by May month-end.
Some 125 of the 846 workers are set to lose their jobs with this move to shut down LBI, the second sugar estate within a year.
Trotman, however, said that Agriculture Minister Noel Holder could soon meet with the affected workers. He said every effort would be made to ensure every person was transitioned into the Enmore operations – a plan that has been rejected by some workers.
Trotman added that the integration of the LBI and Enmore Sugar Estates was to rationalise the duplication of activities of staff, thus lowering the cost of production.
He advised the media that Cabinet was briefed at its last meeting by the Agriculture Minister on the merger of the Sugar Estates into one production entity.
Holder, outlining the rationale for the merger to the Cabinet, pointed out that it was necessary to prevent sugar production in East Demerara from going out of existence in the near future.
“It was also pointed out that the closure of the LBI Factory in 2011 resulted in the retention of many workers who were rendered redundant. For example, GuySuCo has been paying 58 workers to operate a mill dock facility at LBI for the past five years while the facility is no longer being required,” Minister Trotman explained.
The Minister disclosed that at the LBI facility, of the 846 employees, approximately 125 of them are carrying out duplicate functions that are being undertaken by employees at the Enmore Estate. These include mill dock operators and workers at the field workshop, field laboratory, field office and stores.
“The integration of the two Estates will therefore rationalise the duplicated activities, thus rendering the cost of production lower,” the Minister stated.
Providing an update on the Wales Sugar Estate closure, Minister Trotman said that Cabinet was advised that the management of GuySuCo had a number of meetings with the various stakeholders, including staff and cane farmers to explain the situation and plans for the location.
The most recent consultations were held on April 4 and 6, 2016 and included the high-level managers of GuySuCo as well as other managers, senior staff, foremen and other relevant stakeholders.
“Discussions were held on the non-viability of the Estate, the necessity of allocating funds to a more viable location and the arrangements to utilise the more expanded facility at the Uitvlugt Estate,” Minister Trotman said.
During the meeting, the vision for the future and related projects for the Estate such as aquaculture projects were discussed. Issues such as retention, training, pension, severance pay and transferability of staff were also discussed.
The LBI factory was closed under the former Administration in 2011 and the merging of those operations was expected to commence immediately; however, the integration process had been stymied for various reasons over the years. This led to two operational departments at the Estates.
Earlier this year, GuySuCo announced the closure of Wales Estate by yearend and that some of the workers would be deployed to the Uitvlugt Sugar Estate while others would be redundant.
GuySuCo and the Agriculture Ministry are yet to devise a plan for the future of affected sugar workers.
Notably, the closures of both Estates follow assurances by the Government that no estate will be shut down anytime soon.
In fact, following the announcement of the closure of Wales Sugar Estate, Government promised that no other estate would be shut down.
The closures also come on the heels of a multimillion-dollar Commission of Inquiry report which advised against the closure of any sugar estate or operation at this time.