Ramjattan will continue to expose true nature of AFC

Dear Editor,
In an interview with the AFC’s Leader Khemraj Ramjattan: Coalition Politics, the Political and Economic situation in Guyana and the Future of the AFC and then again, I read his Press release in which he again reiterated that the Coalition made the right decision to close the sugar estates in 2017, saving billions of dollars from going down a ‘black hole’. Wales Estate was closed in December 2016.
I do feel compelled to remind Ramjattan that in 2015 on the campaign trail he made a promise to sugar workers at Whim that no sugar estate will be closed and that sugar workers will get a 20% wage increase. The AFC also circulated a pamphlet to that effect. Pretending to seek resolution to the problems facing GuySuCo, in that same year when the Coalition assumed Office, a multimillion-dollar Commission of Inquiry was conducted by several ‘sugar experts’ and one of the recommendations was that no sugar estate will be closed since the Industry can be made viable by 2025. But in December 2016, Wales went under the guillotine. Then in May 2017, the Coalition presented the White Paper on ‘State Paper on the Future of the Sugar Industry’ in Parliament which recommended that the industry be ‘right sized’ to ‘ensure a viable future’ according to the then Agriculture, Noel Holder. By the end of 2017, three other estates, Skeldon, Rose Hall and Enmore were guillotined as recommended by the ‘State Paper’. The Coalition claimed that the ‘right sized’ industry comprising of 3 estates will produce 147,000 tons of sugar annually. This never materialized and Ramjattan should have ventured to explain why this did not happen.
Maybe Ramjattan would like to explain what happened to the $30 billion bond which the Former Minister of Finance proudly stated that it was to be used to revitalize and ‘rescue’ GuySuCo. According to a DPI Report in July 2018, ‘The SPU has said that GuySuCo needs $30Billion, over a four-year period, to provide a much-needed capital injection, support infrastructure maintenance and upgrades at the Albion, Blairmont, and Uitvlugt estates, which the state is keeping, and to develop new co-generation capacity to support estate operations and sell to the national power grid’. Did any of these were achieved? The monies were simply squandered as Guysuco plunged deeper and deeper into crisis as sugar production continued to fall. The PPP/C in its manifesto in 2015 had said that an allocation of $20 billion would have brought back the industry to viability at that time. But after the piecemeal destruction of the operating estates and the complete annihilation of the closed ones it would take billions more to now revitalize GuySuCo.
Mr Ramjattan needs to know that the then Minister of Finance Mr Jordan had said that all the closed estates will not be ‘mothballed’ but will be in operable conditions to attract investors. This never happened even though millions were paid to PricewaterhouseCoopers to revalue the assets and to receive ‘expressions of interests.’ It was reported that some 70 of these ‘expressions’ were received but not one bore fruit since the estates were in an advanced state of deterioration. Even today investors are shying away from investing in any of the closed estates because of the same reason. Today, Ramjattan has the temerity to boast about the AFC’s ‘legacy’ to partner with the PNC to destroy assets worth in excess $100 billion, many of these assets are unsalvageable. Not only the fixed assets but the human assets were strewn along the wayside with no form of sustainable livelihood offered or available to them. Yet Mr Nagamootooo had the gumption to shamelessly state in Parliament that he will ‘light a candle for the dismissed sugar workers. This is the AFC’s legacy.
It must be recalled that in 2019, in order to appease sugar workers, Ramjattan told them that with oil money there was no need for the sugar industry. According to him, the citizenry would ‘become filthy rich in the near future with the booming oil sector coming on stream’. Therefore, this is an implication that the Coalition’s future plan was to completely do away with the entire sugar industry.
This was highlighted by Ramjattan again in the Globespan interview where he boldly and proudly proclaimed that the AFC’s legacy to the future generation is: the closure of the sugar estates and the Production Sharing Agreement with Exxon. This is unbelievable as it is ludicrous.
Mr Ramjattan seemed to relish any opportunity to attack former AFC Executive member, Mr Sasenarine Singh who is now the CEO of Guysuco. I would like Mr Ramjattan to recall what factors he said were responsible for the current state of GuySuCo. Though he did not admit to the failure of the Coalition to recapitalize the industry, the gross and deliberate destruction of the assets, and the mismanagement, he did admitted that the EU price cuts, the world market price for sugar, the high production costs and the shortage of labor and the floods due to climate change, reeked havoc to the sugar industry.
If Mr Ramjattan had done an iota of investigation he would have known that Guysuco is embarking on a mechanization program as directed by the President himself which will see Guysuco fully mechanized by 2025 thereby bridging the labor availability gap. This will also see a huge contraction in the unit cost of production. At the same time the CEO has recognized the need to change the sales mix and for some time now the sale of packaged sugar has overtaken the sale of bulk and bagged sugar, In fact this has increased the revenue of GuySuCo by more than $1.7 billion. GuySuCo has already recognized that packaged sugar is the future and will bring in revenue of over $750 US per ton. Ramjattan admitted and this is where the Corporation is heading. This will have the immediate effect of not only achieving the break-even point but will push the Corporation back to profitability. In addition, Mr Ramjattan is ignorant of the fact that GuySuCo workers are not limited to ‘cutlass and punt trajectory’. This is an insult to GuySuCo workers. Many of these workers are skilled tradesmen and who supplement their incomes by doing skilled jobs in the Factory and outside of the industry during the out-of-crop periods.
I saw once again read that Ramjattan is calling for the CEO to be replaced and I wonder loudly whether he is serious about the future of the Sugar Industry or he just wants to get even with Mr Sasenarine Singh who resigned from the AFC in 2014. Ramjattan should have backed calls for the Coalition’s Minister of Agriculture to resign or be fired since he failed the entire Sector but he did not. This is utter hypocrisy.
Mr Ramjattan will continue to expose the true nature of the AFC which is merely to secure power at any and all costs. They will coalesce once again with the APNU, they just want a better ‘deal’.

Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf