Dear Editor,
The multimillion-dollar, Interim Management Committee of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) has completed two years in office and it will be remiss of me not to enumerate its many achievements that the committee recorded. My fellow citizens and taxpayers can use it to deduce their own conclusions. The achievements include:
(1) Production of 150,000t sugar in 2nd crop 2015 using canes planted in 2nd crop 2014 to deliver an overall production of 231,000t sugar for 2015.
(2) Increased salaries and benefits in 2015 for IMC and later amounting to approximately G.7 million/month.
(3) An enlarged executive structure with platoon of pensioners costing millions/month in salaries and benefits.
(4) Record low sugar production in 25 years of 183,652t in 2016.
(5) Closure of Wales Estate at the end of 2016 taking the unemployment number up by some 1700 and no plan to address the challenges of the jobless workers.
(6) A lopsided model for estate diversification at Wales.
(7) Relocation of East Demerara Estate office staff to Enmore and refurbishing a building at La Bonne Intention (LBI) into a state-of-art office with all modern amenities for Head Office Executives despite the Corporation’s financial state.
(8) Closure of LBI Estate
(9) Suspension of operations at Skeldon Estate for 1st crop 2017.
(10) Announcement of closure of East Demerara and Rose Hall Estates and sell-out of Skeldon Estate at end of 2017. Pushing thousands more onto the breadline.
(11) Record low production in 1st crop 2017.
(12) Receipt of G billion from the Treasury in exchange for record low production in 2016 and 2017 to-date.
(13) Packing of industrial bulk grade sugar for direct consumption.
(14) Irreparable damage to trust between employees and employer influencing in poor work attendance, low productivity, and uncaring behaviour. Industrial relations climate is at its lowest point ever in recent memory.
(15) Promoting the demotivation of the workforce with their rates-of-pay stuck at 2014 levels.
(16) A short changed Annual Production Incentive (API) in 2015 and no API in 2016.
(17) Arbitrarily abandoning long-standing work practices and norms.
Editor, the list with this pattern of achievement is getting bigger with each passing day. The normal taxpayer is left to believe that performance of this nature is accepted by the political directorate as monies from the Treasury continue to pay this clueless group of executives.
Sincerely,
Sookram Persaud
