Reopening of sugar estates will be done in phases – Agri Minister

Works are underway to reopen the sugar estates, which were unilaterally closed by the APNU/AFC Government, in phases. This was releveled by Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha on the side lines of an event on Wednesday. He also stated that there have been budgetary allocations made to the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) to do works in preparation for the reopening of the estates.
Targets, he said, were set, which will allow for the reopening of the Rose Hall, Skeldon, Wales and Enmore Estates to be reopened. “We have set ourselves targets so that we will be opening the closed sugar estates by phase and we are working aggressively in pursuing of those goals we have set ourselves,” the Minister said, adding, “over the past few months, GuySuCo – of course with funds from Central Government – we have been making budgetary allocation to GuySuCo to do a number of rehabilitations in these operating estates and also to do work and prepare for the reopening of the closed sugar estates.”
Presently, rehabilitation is being done in the current operating sugar estates Uitvlugt, Blairmont and Albion. Recapitalisation of these estates are expected to be done on these operating estates.

The Minister said that equipment will be procured for GuySuCo as part of the works to be done and prepare for the reopening of the closed estates.
Upon the instruction given to have the Rose Hall estate reopened back in September, 2020, inspection done on the equipment revealed that they were not in usable condition. Machines have been vandalised, along with key components being misplaced. The repair costs were said to be uneconomical, hence the need to procure these new items. Efforts are being made to put together usable components which were gathered from all the estates combined.
The former APNU/AFC Government had closed the Wales Estate in 2016, and subsequently shut down the Enmore, Rose Hall and Skeldon Estates. This resulted in thousands of jobs being lost, with only Uitvlugt, Blairmont and Albion Estates being in operation.
The 2016 downsizing of the sugar industry by the former Administration saw the dismissal of over 5000 workers from the closed estates.
Upon taking up office last year, the PPP/C Government in September 2020 stated in their 2020 Emergency Budget presented, that some $5 billion would be dedicated to the sugar industry in preparation for the phased reopening of the estates that were closed.
The anticipation of GuySuCo for the reopening of Enmore and Rose Hall Estates by 2022 can be deemed the highlight of the sugar industry since the recreation of jobs is expected to follow the reopening. It is expected that the Rose Hall factory will be the first to become operational, while the Skeldon factory will be returned to operation by 2023.
With the efforts to revive GuySuCo, the Uitvlugt, Blairmont and Albion Estates recorded the highest daily production for 2021, as well as 2020 when it was announced that the sugar company had produced 710 metric tonnes of sugar on March 11, 2021.