Govt committed to retaining jobs – Pres. Granger

─ “We want to see the sugar industry survive but a more compact, better-managed sugar industry.”

─ GuySuco is a business and must be managed in line with profitability

─ GuySuCo lands to be vested in a State Lands Sale Commission

DPI, Guyana, Friday, August 31, 2018

President David Granger said the administration is committed to retaining jobs in the reorganised sugar industry.

Speaking at a press conference at the Ministry of the Presidency today, the Head of State explained that “GuySuCo (Guyana Sugar Company) is important to us. We have said that we are not shutting down the sugar industry. It is being reformed and we are bent on maintaining larger estates in East Berbice, West Berbice and West Demerara at Albion, Blairmont and at Uitvlugt.”

According to the Head of State, the government is aiming at production targets of 147,000 tonnes to 150,000 tonnes of sugar and maintaining a working population of about 10,000 employees. President David Granger noted that the corporation has been placed under a new CEO, and a Board of Directors is currently being selected.

The president said GuySuco is a business and must be managed in line with profitability. He observed that in the past there has been “temptation” to select for GuySuCo’s Board of Directors, “persons who might be socially prominent.”

However, the president pointed out, “this is a business, this is an international industry. We have to compete with other sugar producers…around the world and we need to have a serious board and a serious CEO, and we are working towards having an industry that profitably produces.”

In addition, the president said, GuySuCo lands will be entrusted in a State Lands Sale Commission. “As far as the closures are concerned, the lands will now be subject to the lands jurisdiction of a State Land Sales Commission of which the Special Purpose Unit (SPU) under National Industrial & Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) will have representation.”

The Head of State explained that “the idea is we would not sell off the family jewels, we will make sure that the lands that are being taken out of sugar are placed to the benefit of people of Guyana as a whole.”

According to President Granger, the State Land Sales Commission will be responsible for reconciling the differences among the various agencies that will seek to obtain lands that would not be going back into sugar. The commission will at the same time seek to make a profit from the disposal of the lands, he explained.

“There is a future for sugar. We have put out a Green Paper. It has gone to the National Assembly. We have had meetings with the Guyana Agriculture Workers Union (GAWU) and with National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NACCIE) and we want to see the sugar industry survive but a more compact, better-managed sugar industry.”

At the end of 2016, four estates were closed in a major cost-cutting exercise to reduce the billions of dollars that consecutive governments have been pouring into the industry. To date, redundant workers have been paid at least 50 percent of severance pay due to them while it is expected that the remaining payouts can be achieved by year-end.

By: Kidackie Amsterdam.

Image: Keno George.