GuySuCo spending millions to maintain 4 closed estates

…contracting workers to clean is admission GuySuCo erred – former Minister
…says company could have retained maintenance staff

A recent ‘Invitation for Bids’ published in the local newspapers by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) for excavator operators to undertake works at the four closed sugar estates is an admission that the sugar company, and the Government by extension, erred by failing to preserve a crew for maintenance work at the estates.
This is the view of former Agriculture Minister Leslie Ramsammy, who said that the total severance of all sugar workers was short-sighted and reckless.
“It exposes the ineptitude of the Board and the Management of GuySuCo and the Ministry of Agriculture for not recognising that certain staffing had to be retained for the closed estates. The closed estates are expensive and valuable assets which still remain properties of GuySuCo and the Government and, are assets that belong to the people,” Ramsammy asserted.
The bid invitation is asking for suitably qualified and experienced bidders to undertake the provision of labour to operate GuySuCo’s excavators at the Wales, East Demerara, Rose Hall and Skeldon estates; a move which Ramsammy said angered him because when the estates were closed, there were experienced excavator operators who were dismissed. These operators, he stated, were among thousands of sugar workers who lost their jobs and are now experiencing difficulties providing for their families.
“It would appear to me that at this time when GuySuCo realises it needs these experienced operators, GuySuCo would seek them out, rather than be tendering for bidders to provide operators. It is a continued demonstration of disregard and disrespect for workers who served GuySuCo in the past,” he posited.

Abandonment of valuable property
According to the former Agriculture Minister, the closure of the estates was handled likened to that as an abandonment of valuable property.
“Closure should never have meant abandonment. Maintenance work had to be preserved for more than one reason. Firstly, the closed estates represent properties which have value and that value can only be preserved if the properties were maintained. Instead, the Ministry of Agriculture and GuySuCo’s Board and management walked away from the estates, with a posture of abandonment. This is not just another example of ineptitude and mismanagement, this is misconduct in office,” he stressed.
Further, Ramsammy pointed out that even drainage and irrigation (D&I) workers in these estates should have been kept because while the estates were closed, the drainage and irrigation canals had to be fully maintained since they also represented part of the overall agriculture D&I and residential drainage network.
In fact, he noted the dam system was not exclusive to sugar and was used for other community needs, which is one of the reasons he had argued that GuySuCo’s high cost of production was also caused by obligations to provide for non-sugar services.
The former Agriculture Minister went on to outline that shortly after public outrage over the closure of the estates, Government, through the Special Purposes Unit (SPU) established by the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), announced that all four of the closed estates would be offered for divestment to the Private Sector.

“So how could these estates attract the best price if we are offering abandoned properties for sale? In the first place, we would be able to attract a better price for the estates if they were ongoing operations. But since the factories were closed and the fields were not used for cane cultivation anymore, the very least GuySuCo could have done, if there was a serious privatisation effort, was to ensure the properties were maintained,” Ramsammy contended.

Costly mechanism
Now three years later, he added, GuySuCo realises that maintenance work is needed. The former Minister said the haste to find excavator operators at this time seems to be catalysed by two important motives – first, another mechanism for sweetheart deals, that is, giving contracts to Government’s “favourite contractors” and, second, the impending elections which have forced the Government into ensuring signs of economic activity are visible.
“I find it curious and worrisome that GuySuCo is presently seeking “experienced bidders” to provide labour to operate excavators owned by GuySuCo for work in the four closed estates… My curiosity has become worrisome because this advertisement appears as a strategy to hand out a contract to someone who will provide persons to operate these GuySuCo excavators. Upfront, I am suspicious because this appears to be another example of using GuySuCo’s scarce resources to distribute yet another sweetheart transaction,” he asserted.
According to Ramsammy, GuySuCo is not trying to hire persons who are experienced in operating excavators, but is seeking to contract a bidder who will then provide operators for GuySuCo’s excavators. This, he pointed out, would mean a more costly mechanism for excavator services in the closed estates.
Since the closure of the four estates, leaving more than 7000 sugar workers jobless, Government has moved to divestment the facilities. United Kingdom (UK) company, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), was subsequently contracted to carrying out valuations of GuySuCo’s assets up for sale and has since invited expressions of interest from potential buyers.
Initially, 10 expressions of interest were submitted in November but only five companies eventually entered bids. There are Guygulf International Trading Development Industrial and Financial LLC (Nand Persaud and Co Ltd) for Enmore, Skeldon and Rose Hall estates; Liberty Investments Inc for Enmore Estate; Industrial Equipment Sales and Services Incorporation (IESS) for Rose Hall Estate; Kadem Sugars Inc for Rose Hall Estate, and D Rampersaud and Co Ltd for Skeldon Estate.