Restructuring of GuySuCo 40% complete – Agriculture Minister

…plan for overall sugar industry being fine-tuned, to be completed soon

The restructuring of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), in a period of recovery after a turbulent last five years, is approximately 40 per cent complete.
This is according to Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha who was at the time responding to questions in the National Assembly, regarding a supplementary provision to the tune of $1.5 billion being sought for restructuring GuySuCo, in effect turning back the damage done under the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government.
“We’re about 40 per cent in the entire GuySuCo, because of the destruction (APNU/AFC) has done, we’ll have to do a lot of critical work. And we’ll need more money to rehabilitate GuySuCo.”
Mustapha could not give a definite answer whether the allocations being provided in the supplementary allocation would complete the restructuring of GuySuCo. He noted that it is a continuous process and that monies would also come from the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) bond.
“This $1.5 billion will help to fit critical parts and also prepare the estates. So, as I said, this will be a continuous work to fix the estates. And I want to make it very clear. The (Finance) Minister would have said that GuySuCo and NICIL has a bond.”
“And the monies are also being used to rehabilitate and recapitalise GuySuCo … there will be more works to be done. This will be a continuous process. And I want to reiterate that the money GuySuCo will collect is coming out of the bond too.”
According to the Minister, Rose Hall which will receive the lion’s share of the supplementary funding earmarked for the closed estates, is marked to be reopened first. This will be done next year, after massive works on the ground have been completed.
“We are working as soon as possible to reopen the estates. We are now doing the preparatory work and we’re working to reopen it as soon as possible. Because with the three estates, Rose Hall, Skeldon and Enmore, we have reemployed close to 1200 workers that APNU/AFC fired.”
“They closed down the factories, destroyed the supporting equipment, fired the workers… we have to go now and rehabilitate the factory. They destroyed the cultivation. We have to go back and do replanting. We have to get ratoon; we have to do tillage… so it’s a whole lot of activity and our targeted time is sometime next year in the second crop.”
The Minister also emphasised that there is a plan for the overall sugar sector which is currently being fine-tuned. According to him, GuySuCo is examining the plan right now and GuySuCo, which he noted has enough money to fulfil its financial obligations, will continue progressing on the path to recovery it has been set on.
“There is a plan. The plan is being fine-tuned now. The Board is looking at that. And very shortly they should give a me a copy of that and I will (provide it). GuySuCo has money to pay its current bills and we will continue to pursue value added to increase the profitability of GuySuCo. We have seen a lil turnaround with GuySuCo and GuySuCo is now moving in a positive direction, unlike before last year August,” the Minister said.
The former APNU/AFC Government had closed the Wales Estate in 2016, and subsequently shut down the Enmore, Rose Hall and Skeldon estates. The downsizing of the sugar industry resulted in only the Uitvlugt, Blairmont and Albion estates currently operating.
After taking office last year, the PPP/C Government announced in the 2020 Emergency Budget presented in September 2020, that some $5 billion would be injected into the sugar industry for the phased reopening of the closed estates.
An initial $3 billion was earmarked for critical works for the remainder of 2020 while an assessment was simultaneously carried out on the state of the assets and the level of reinvestments needed at the Enmore, Rose Hall and Skeldon estates for their reopening.