New management team for GuySuCo

…Guatemala, India & Cuba to provide specialists

A new management team will be appointed to run the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), with the assistance of external partners, coupled with the soon to be made announcement of a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for the company.
This was revealed by President Dr Irfaan Ali, during a side interview on Tuesday. It had previously been revealed that current GuySuCo CEO, Sasenarine Singh, would be taking up a new job posting.
When asked for an update on GuySuCo, President Ali said that, “so, we’ve been working aggressively at modernising GuySuCo. And part of what we’re doing is a new structure. The current CEO will move into a new capacity. And we have a whole team that is coming, with external help. We were talking to Guatemala. We were talking to India. We’re talking to Cuba.”
“We have to address factory. We have to address agriculture. We have to address human resources. We have to address modernisation. We have to address the supply of labour. We’re now in the process of bringing all of this together, because sugar must be made viable. And we’re making the investment to make sugar viable. And it will be viable.”
Asked how soon the public can expect to see the new faces, President Ali noted that some have already been privy to those new faces. He further explained that they are working with Cuba and India for them to send their specialists.
“We’re working on the modernisation side, that has already started with technical support from Brazil. So, a lot has already started,” he said, adding that the announcement of a new CEO will be made “very shortly”.
Last year, GUYSUCO accomplished a noteworthy milestone by exceeding its yearly sugar output target of 60,000 tonnes. In the sugar sector, a 28 per cent growth was recorded last year. This was as a result of GuySuCo having produced 60,204 tonnes in 2023, compared with 47,049 tonnes in 2022.
With the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government having injected over $17 billion into the sugar industry and currently supporting close to 8000 workers, President Ali has for some time made it clear that his Administration will continue to invest in the sector to bring it up to viability.
Between 2016 and 2017, the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) regime closed several estates across Guyana – an action that displaced more than 7000 sugar workers, who were not only without jobs but who had no means to support their families and contribute to their village as well as the national economy.
Meanwhile, since assuming office in August 2020, the PPP/C Government has undertaken a slew of measures to revive the sugar sector and rehired some 2000 of those dismissed workers.
The PPP/C has promised in its manifesto to revive sugar and reopen these estates.
However, after it was found that the assets at Wales Estate were sold out by the previous regime, the PPP/C Government announced plans to establish a Development Authority, where several major industrial operations would be undertaken. Similarly, the Enmore Sugar Estate is also being transformed into an industrial area.
Meanwhile, the Government’s efforts to reopen the Rose Hall Estate saw a whopping $1.1 billion being expended last year to have the facility up and running. A summary of the major works included both civil and structural interventions – including rehabilitation of the cane gantry, pre-milling, milling, boiler and process house roofing. (G3)