Guyana’s economy is flat-lining in 2018 amid poor economic management practice being conducted by this Granger Team. Such action has accelerated the deterioration of an already weaken domestic investment climate.
Almost every decision today in Guyana has turned political, without adequate financial and economic analytics to bring at least common sense to it. Such 
political immaturity has contributed to short-term political visibility for the PNC leader, but will by and large result in long-term damage to the productive capacity of the nation, because the expected reforms to put the nation on a firm foundation are being deliberately delayed.
A clear example of how Team Granger have messed up can be found in how they mismanaged the transition in the sugar industry under the tutelage of the failed troika of Noel Holder/Clive Thomas/Errol Hanoman.
No one with any sanity would deny that urgent reforms were needed in the sugar belt after Hurricane Donald Ramotar and Raj Singh. But Tsunami Noel Holder and Errol Hanoman did exactly the opposite. But the imperative in 2018 is not what hurricane Donald and Raj did to GuySuCo, but what the current Granger Team would have done after those pre-May 2015 hurricanes. Rather than repairing the sugar belt and moving it up the value-added chain into the realm of alcohol production, agro-energy production, ethanol production and so on, Team Granger are actively pulling down the damaged industry, and have left more than 5,000 families exposed to the elements of poverty without any alternative plans.
As I said in 2015 — and I will say now — the appointment of Errol Hanoman was the worst possible decision any Government of Guyana could have made. This man is a Bookers man with a colonial mentality, who has zero loyalty to the plight of the sugar families. His mission all along was to serve an elite few, both locally and the sugar barons internationally, and when placed in the position, he delivered the surgical blow that would do irreparable damage to the sugar industry.
After the PNC/AFC actions in 2017, I am now convinced that GuySuCo will never be the same again, since the beginning of the end has commenced.
But the wound to the heart of GuySuCo was inflicted at an extremely high financial cost to the sugar workers if one were to analyze the cost of the Office of the CEO under Mr. Hanoman.
The figures above were sourced directly from GuySuCo, and they tell a horrible story of one man in the Office of the CEO burning close to half of a billion in 2017 on himself and his executive outfit. While most of the headquarters’ operation illustrated a decline in cost, Mr. Errol Hanoman’s cost went up by 10% over 2017 when compared to 2016. Here we have this same Hanoman claiming that he has no money to pay the Wales workers their severance package, but he could have found close to G$800 million in cash just to service himself, his first-class flights, his super salary, and his residual upkeep.
In 2017, the cost of service for the operations of one man was more than the entire severance package for the hundreds of Wales sugar workers.
The sugar industry remains important for the economy, irrespective of the untruths that Mr. Holder is trying to peddle. It is estimated that even after the retrenchment without severance pay, more than 75,000 people in Demerara and Berbice are still directly and indirectly depending on GuySuCo to make a livelihood. Even as the share of sugar in the GDP has declined significantly since the 1990s, the fact remains that a significant amount of real human beings derive their economic sustenance from sugar.
The truth remains: RAW SUGAR IS DEAD, BUT A VALUE-ADDED, SUGAR-RELATED INDUSTRY IS VERY MUCH ALIVE.
Additionally, Team Granger imposed a failed sugar executive from the 1980s as its new factory executive, and he used his position on the Commission of Enquiry to cop a super salary to do almost nothing for the sugar belt today. As the evidence above illustrates, his upkeep cost has expanded by 20% over 2017, and he has charged the nation just under G$300 million over 2 years. This is a clear case of another Granger fat cat drinking most of the milk and leaving very little for the industry.
Alfred Montapert stated, “Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving, but does not make any progress”. This is exactly what we are witnessing today in GuySuCo under Team Thomas/Holder and the now dearly departed Hanoman. Is the glass half filled or half empty after 2 years of the failed troika of Holder/Thomas/Hanoman?
