President stands firm on decision to downsize sugar industry

Despite the closure of four estates, the Coalition Government remains adamant that while there is a future for a sugar sector in Guyana, the only way forward is a downsized industry.
This is according to President David Granger, who told a media conference on Friday that the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and the sugar industry as a whole are important to this administration. Hence, he noted, Government has not entirely shut down the sugar industry, but has reformed it into three larger estates – Albion (East Berbice), Blairmont (West Berbice) and Uitvlugt (West Demerara).
“So there is a future for sugar, a very clear future. We’ve put out a [White] Paper and it’s gone to the National Assembly. We’ve had meetings with the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) and NAACIE (National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees). We want to see the sugar industry survive; a more compact, better managed sugar industry. It is very competitive in terms of the international environment in which many people are moving away from sugar and are going into artificial sweeteners, but we feel that it’s something that the industry and the corporation can survive,” the President asserted.
According to the Head of State, going forward, the aim is for the sugar industry to profitably produce between 147,000 and 150,000 tonnes of sugar, and maintain a working population of about 10,000.
The President’s statement comes on the heels of some 7000 redundant sugar workers being placed on the breadline following the closure of the Skeldon, Rose Hall, Enmore and Wales estates over the past two years.
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, two weeks ago, said he was in possession of information suggesting that an assessment was done on the closed sugar estates by the Special Purpose Unit (SPU) which was set up under the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) to handle the divestment of GuySuCo’s assets.
Jagdeo said this assessment has proved that the very estates that were shut down, which led to thousands being unemployed, were actually viable.
“And so, if this is true…it would be very disturbing, because we believed this to be so and we asked our Government to do a feasibility study of these estates and the industry before it took any decision to send home workers, and they refused to do that… To now do another study to find that these estates with small injection of funds could have been viable would be criminal. So we believe the estates are viable,” the Opposition Leader noted.
The former Head of State said if the assessment proved to be true and the estates could be made viable, then the Opposition would support the reopening of all the estates.
The coalition Government has made its position clear that the move to downsize the industry was a necessary one, as the monies used as annual bailouts were too much.
But the Opposition said even if this was the case, the laying off of workers could have been done in stages, to allow for them to prepare for alternative employment.
Now that the preliminary valuation works of several estates have been completed, the Skeldon, Rose Hall-Canje, East Demerara/Enmore, and Wales Estates are now being advertised for sale.
Meanwhile, there have been calls for Government to give out the sugar lands to the dismissed workers for them to develop into economic activity to earn a livelihood.
However, while President Granger did not address this, he did say during Friday’s press conference that the lands would be first subjected to the jurisdiction of a State Land Sales Commission, on which the SPU would of course have representation.
“The idea is that we wouldn’t sell off the family jewels, we’ll make sure that the lands that are being taken out of sugar are placed to the benefit of the people of Guyana as a whole,” he posited.
But the Head of State noted that there could be several anomalies or contradictions which may occur, such as various Government ministries, including the Agriculture Ministry, as well as private companies and individuals, wanting the lands for various use.
“So the State Land Sales Commission is going to rectify the differences among these various agencies and at the same time make a profit from the disposals of those lands which may not be going back into sugar,” President Granger stressed.