Dear Editor,
ON Globespan’s 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 per cent 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 [Minister] 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 three estates will produce 147,000 tonnes of sugar annually. This never materialised 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 revitalise and ‘rescue’ GuySuCo. According to a DPI Report in July 2018, ‘The SPU has said that GuySuCo needs $30 Billion, 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 revitalise 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.
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 Nagamootoo 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.
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 on Globespan were responsible for the current state of GuySuCo. Though he did not admit to the failure of the Coalition to recapitalise the industry, the gross and deliberate destruction of the assets, and the mismanagement, he did admit that the EU price cuts, the world market price for sugar, the high production costs and the shortage of labour and the floods due to climate change, [wreaked] havoc on the sugar industry.
If Mr Ramjattan had done an iota of investigation, he would have known that GuySuCo is embarking on a mechanisation programme as directed by the President himself which will see GuySuCo fully mechanised by 2025, thereby bridging the labour availability gap. This will also see a huge contraction in the unit cost of production. At the same time the CEO has recognised 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 recognised that packaged sugar is the future and will bring in revenue of over $750 US per tonne. Ramjattan admitted this on the GlobeSpan programme and this is the way 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 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.
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