Agriculture Minister assesses Skeldon, Rose Hall Estates
– new GuySuCo B.O.D to be announced soon
Today, while on an outreach to villages along the East Berbice, Corentyne area, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha visited the Skeldon and Rose Hall Estates.
During his first official visit since being appointed Minister of Agriculture, Minister Mustapha was able to assess the state of the estates as government moves forward with its plans of reopening the closed estates.
Minister Mustapha while responding to questions by the media, said that The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) has a team set up to provide Government with details on what is needed to reopen the estates.
“We’ve appointed Mr. Vishnu Panday, who is the former estate manager for the Skeldon estate as the point person/General Manager to move forward at this particular point in time. He will have a small team of technical officers working with him to develop an immediate plan of action to urgently determine what is needed at this estate right now. GuySuCo has already sent a team here and they have supplied me with a detailed plan on the current state of affairs here,” Minister Mustapha said
The subject Minister added that in order to reopen the estates, a conditional survey has to be conducted. He added, that along with the conditional survey which will include an analysis of the factory and the cane fields, farmers will be engaged to boost cane supply to the factory since Skeldon is heavily dependent on farmers’ cane.
“We have to consult the cane farmers because they contribute greatly to the operations of this particular location. They contribute over 33% of the cane used at this factory so we will work with them and GuySuCo to ensure we have enough cane for the factory,” Minister Mustapha said.
The team is expected to submit a plan of action to Government within a week.
It was also disclosed that Dr. N.K. Goopaul and Mr. Aaron Dukhai were also appointed in the same capacity as Mr. Panday to the Enmore and Rose Hall Estates respectively. The subject Minister also mentioned that a New Board of Directors for GuySuCo will soon be in place and will work closely with stakeholders to move this process apace.