Privatisation of sugar industry a “wholesale rape of resources” – Opposition Leader

On Monday last, Price WaterhouseCoopers (PWC) had announced that Government’s privatisation of three sugar estates is progressing at a fast rate with a deal in sight as early as next month but opposition leader Bharat Jagdeo is holding out that the deals lack transparency.
He noted that the opposition has repeatedly called on the government to release vital information about the process of the deals but this has fallen on deaf ears.
PWC also stated that they are in talks with investors from Ghana and India to purchase the Rose Hall Estate- a deal that will not materialize according to Jagdeo.
“Frankly speaking I don’t think it will happen. But it cannot happen transparently because they have refused to make public the report that PriceWaterHouseCooper did, because they are the advisors to the Government on the valuation of assets that are now available for privatization. And we have called on them several times to make public. This is not a State secret.”
He emphasised that the taxpayers’ monies were used to commission a report from the PriceWaterHouseCoopers and as such, taxpayers need to know how their monies were spent. According to Jagdeo, the company did an evaluation at Rose Hall where they listed assets according to those operable and those unserviceable.
The unserviceable were to be disposed but there is a racket occurring at the Rose Hall estate presently, the Opposition Leader alleged.
He posited that the Special Purposes Unit (SPU) has also placed an individual, who has a harvesting contract at the Albion Sugar Estate, in charge of the Rose Hall Estate and that this person is using the government’s assets to fulfil his contract in addition to running a racket there.
“What they have done is to move assets from the operable list to the unserviceable list and are disposing these assets. So, I have heard that a tractor a TM 740 which costs about $15M sold for less than half a million dollars to friends and families of big APNU officials. PriceWaterHouseCooper, a big international firm must be seeing this, I am sure if they are not complicit, they should speak out about it. If you privatize there, the real value will be diminished seriously because all the operable assets are gone at a peppercorn valuation and sale with no advertisement whatsoever.”
The opposition leader added that the government needs to be held accountable for its actions and lack of transparency and that it owes the Guyanese populace answers.
“There is a wholesale rape of resources…How many assets were sold, when were they advertised, who were they sold to? Check whether these assets were on the operable list in the Price Waterhouse Cooper valuation study and now being sold to the unserviceable level and then who they were sold to and finally whether the person in charge now has a cane harvesting contract? The person in charge of Rose Hall at Albion.”
NICIL has earlier in the week revealed that since July 13, 2018, the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) has disbursed $7.420 billion out of the $30B bond to the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) in nine payments – without receiving evidence of how this money is being used by the entity.
Four disbursements were made in 2018 and five this year. The last disbursement was also the largest, $1.442 billion on April 5, 2019. However, GuySuCo has not been forthcoming with information on how the money is being used, something that is proving problematic for bondholders.
In another section of the media, GuySuCo stated that the money was well spend while failing to give a breakdown. It was reported that maintenance and salaries took a huge junk of it.