The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) has paid off almost $900 million in debt to its urgent trade creditors and unions, in the process clearing its longstanding debt to the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU).
GuySuCo CEO Sasenarine Singh reported that the Corporation has been able to pay off its debt to GAWU
During an interview with Guyana Times, GuySuCo’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Sasenarine Singh spoke of the strides the Corporation has made in clearing its debts. He explained that GuySuCo has sought to tackle its most urgent debts first and has paid out almost $900 million over the past few months.
“GuySuCo has different kinds of debts. It has urgent debts. And urgent debts are those debts that if we don’t pay, the whole operation grinds to a halt. Like BACIF, Brass Aluminum Cast Iron Foundry, the people who make bearings and cast-iron parts for the estate,” he explained.
“If they withdraw their services from GuySuCo, then GuySuCo is in trouble. So that kind of urgent debt is about $1 billion. That is now reduced to about $750 million. Now while we’ve paid $700 million down, it’s a combination of everything.”
Included in the amounts GuySuCo has paid down over the past nine months is money owed to GAWU – the Union representing the sugar workers, and the National insurance Scheme (NIS).
“NIS, the trade creditors who are urgent, GAWU, the foreign creditors like the people who we buy the fertilisers from, the agro chemicals from. So, it’s a combination of many factors. But what we’ve seen is the trade creditors have come down.
“We’ve started paying NIS. We’ve seen that GuySuCo does not owe anything to GAWU to date. We’ve paid off every single dime we owed to GAWU in the past. GuySuCo has paid off all of its agro-chemical debts, and has paid for all its agro-chemicals for 2021.”
Singh said that while GuySuCo has taken care of its core debts, it would struggle financially with the Albion Estate. Albion has been inundated with floodwaters brought on by the torrential rains that have battered Guyana over the past few weeks.
“We’re in a good place when it comes to our core needs. Where we will struggle is how we’ll pay for the employment costs at Albion when there’s no production. That’s the challenge. But I presume in a month’s time, we’ll have a better idea how that will crystalise,” the CEO explained.
Albion is GuySuCo’s largest estate and has also been the worst hit by flooding. The CEO had explained that Albion experienced 74 per cent more rainfall in the first half of the year than the 66-year annual average of 736 millimetres.
This has resulted in the entire cane cultivation at Albion being inundated with water and even if the rain stops now, the situation will still result in Albion falling short of its production target for this year.
“The sugar industry has been hit by rain and more rain. The authorities have declared a category two national disaster in some areas. And Albion Estate is one of those areas… if the rain stops today, Albion will have a shortfall of about 12,000 metric tonnes of sugar across this year,” CEO Singh had explained.
“While it looks very good on the East Coast of Demerara because of two things, the Hope Canal project has done a fantastic job, as well as GuySuCo and NDIA [National Drainage and Irrigation Agency] having all their pumps on the seawall functioning, the situation is not the same in central Corentyne.”
Guyana has been inundated by heavy rains since May, which has caused widespread flooding. The devastation includes submerged buildings and vehicles with adverse effects on crops, livestock and health.
It has been noted that the rainfall experienced in May alone was recorded as the second highest level of rainfall across the country in the last 40 years. Last month, President Irfaan Ali formally declared the flooding a national disaster.
