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…urges govt to get right people in the job

ICONIC Guyanese business executive Dr Yesu Persaud Friday blamed “all Guyanese” for the collapse of the critical sugar industry.“This industry was destroyed by all of us because we allowed it to happen,” Persaud said during a meeting between officials of the employers’ organisation, the Consultative Association of Guyanese Industries (CAGI) and Minister within the Ministry of Social Protection, Mr Keith Scott.


Friday’s meeting was held at Minister Scott’s Brickdam, Georgetown office. Persaud, a leading CAGI official, said prolonged negligence by senior Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO) officials precipitated the ruin of the sweetener industry. In part, GUYSUCO’s decision-makers paid almost exclusive “attention to the factory but ignored the field.” Guyanese, the retired businessman said, were paying the price for this blunder. He predicted though that if field practices were favoured again, yields could improve again.


Persaud reminded Scott that sugar was a sensitive industry and the government must “for heaven’s sake get the right people…and right advice (lest it) fall into a trap.” “We can’t allow this industry to die, we have to find a way to save it,” Persaud pleaded with Scott.He flayed the national indifference when news of the imminent closure of Wales Sugar Estate was announced suddenly by the government. The West Demerara estate is scheduled to be closed at the end of 2016.In Persaud’s estimation, “the wrong people in the wrong job” precipitated the floundering and eventual collapse of the Wales estate.“I find it depressing that the industry that brought all of us here is in this state. To see it die would be a tragedy, Persaud lamented.


The Guyanese sugar industry is the single largest employer with some 18,000 persons directly and indirectly attached to the sector rooted in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and later indentureship.Sugar is simultaneously, a significant foreign exchange earner and user, and, is by far the single largest beneficiary of annual subvention from the local treasury. In the last five years, the industry has gobbled up annually, an average G$10 billion of tax-payers’ dollars. The industry however can’t compete on the international market because of European Union (EU) unilateral chop in the price for sugar and the huge cost of production for the GUYSUCO product. While the cost of production for Guyana’s sugar is 24 cents, the price on the world market is almost 50 per cent below that at 13 cents.


When he addressed the issue, Minister Scott said Guyana must look to the Berbice estates to help reduce the cost of production to match the selling price of sugar on the global market. Otherwise, “other estates will have to be closed,” Scott warned.
Scott noted that while Guyana had no bargaining influence for the price of sugar on the international market the country had to find a way to be competitive against beet and other sweeteners used abroad.Persaud lamented that several estates – for example, Leonora, Diamond, Ruimveldt and Houston – among others were in the past closed “willy nilly” while some had the potential to contribute significantly to the local economy. The current crisis in the local sugar sector was also triggered by Guyana’s bypassing of several regional markets for its sweetener in preference to Europe. “This was an error,” Persasud reasoned.


Sugar workers and employees’ organisations here think that closing the Wales estate is an error by the 10-month old government. While sugar workers protested the planned closure of the West Demerara estate, Scott said the APNU/AFC coalition administration was pushing for a “stable industrial climate” here.
As Minister with the Labour portfolio, Scott said his current challenge is to “avoid the mistakes of the past.” Since he has assumed the Labour portfolio, Minister Scott has been holding talks with a number of local stakeholders and foreign investors.
Scott reckoned that Guyana “is the land of the future,” and said he would be pushing for a stronger partnership with investors.


While Persaud castigated Guyana’s 50-year old clampdown on free expression by nationals which forced many overseas, Scott noted that the Republic was currently in the “season of free enterprise (and expression”) and there was a clear direction where the government was heading and how it plans to accommodate development of the economy.

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Value added products like can or bottle cane juice, fish farming, renewable clean energy, local building construction materials from the cane ash and crops are like popular vegetables for export should have been done long ago

Prashad
baseman posted:
ago

It cannot come to fruition without cheap reliable power.  !!

Cease using that excuse.  Jamaica has the same energy problems as does Guyana.  So does the DR, and other Caribbean islands, yet their agro industrial sectors are more viable!

Burdening Guyana with a huge debt, as was demanded by the Amaila project, was NOT sustainable.  This was compounded by the MASSIVE corruption engaged by the PPP, when they spent millions on one of their cronies to build a road, even when others CHALLENGED them to prove that Fip Motilall had this capability.

FM

The gap is too large to bridge, the sugar industry would have to produce at half their cost to even be competitive on the world market.  Yesu is an old fart who has run his course, now he is in senility mode. 

While the cost of production for Guyana’s sugar is 24 cents, the price on the world market is almost 50 per cent below that at 13 cents.

FM

Is Yesu contradicting himself?  In this article he seemed to favor closing some estates.

Selling GuySuCo is most viable option – Yesu Persaud tells inquiry - SN 8/5/2015

Finding a buyer for the troubled Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) is the most viable option for government, according to veteran businessman Yesu Persaud.

“In my opinion, if we can find a buyer who’s willing to take on those debts… because you have substantial assets—the land and factories etc—take it over at a price, of course, that has to be negotiated, then I think there could be a future,” Persaud said after a meeting with the members of the Commission of Inquiry into the sugar industry yesterday.

“I told them it is either two things: you either revise what you have, it is going to be morecostly because you have to go and borrow, borrowing is a very expensive; or, one of the things you could look at, find a buyer and that may be possible,” he added.

Yesu Persaud speaks to reporters after meeting with the members of the Commission of Inquiry into the sugar industry at the Agriculture Ministry yesterday.
Yesu Persaud speaks to reporters after meeting with the members of the Commission of Inquiry into the sugar industry at the Agriculture Ministry yesterday.

According to Persaud, while local banks have been “very generous” in granting loans to GuySuCo, internationally GuySuCo’s high cost of production ensured that loans are given with high interest rates. The corporation is, therefore, faced with billions in debt and high interest rates should it look to loans to assist with debt payments.

Persaud said that due to the $60B debt being carried by the sugar corporation, it is more likely that there would have to be a move toward full privatisation as opposed to divestment and partial privatisation of the state company.

He also pointed out that sugar production has fallen far below a profitable margin. For the first crop, it took approximately 13 tonnes of cane to produce one tonne of sugar.

Persaud stated that for GuySuCo to turn a profit, that figure would have to drastically change to approximately five tonnes of cane per tonne of sugar.

At the same time, he added that the high cost of production coupled with Europe’s emerging beet sugar market essentially meant that the sugar industry’s largest buyers were effectively gone. “We can’t compete with beet sugar, so you can say that we have lost the European market,” he stated.

“When you’re a price taker, you have to take the market as it is. So overall it is not an easy task,” he added. GuySuCo’s cost of production is roughly US$0.40 per pound of sugar, while it sells to Tate and Lyle, the company’s largest European buyer, at US$0.16. World market prices have dropped to as low as US$0.13 per pound since July of last year.

Persaud added that any potential buyers of the corporation will need to be prepared to look at a complete overhaul or rehabilitation. “The future of the industry depends on your ability to rehabilitate it. So, [if] you are going to buy it, you gotta be prepared to rehabilitate it because remember you have the areas of land, you have to check what you can do with that land, it need not be sugar it could be anything, any other commodity,” he said.

With the large debt and the current state of the fields, which have produced low yields due to poor cane quality, Stabroek News asked Persaud if he thought finding a buyer was very plausible. He admitted that it would be difficult but pointed out that the corporation’s lands were vast and other commodities could utilise the vast allocations. He cited fish farming as one example.

Persaud noted that currently Berbice estates Albion, Rose Hall and Blairmont are viable and continually make production targets. However, he said the additional five estates were non-viable, including the Skeldon estate, with its troubled US$200M factory.

President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU) Komal Chand has long advocated for serious investigations to be made into the state of the fields and to ensure that good husbandry practices are being followed through on. Chand has said that the cane yields have severely declined, which has resulted in GuySuCo being unable to have an annual portion of land resting or under flood fallowing. He has said that GuySuCo needed to do a comprehensive survey of the fields and that the plan had to take this into consideration. Representatives of GAWU and the other major union in the industry, the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees are expected to resume making presentations to the commission on the current state of the industry on Saturday.

FM

DDL needs access to molasses, which is increasingly difficult to get, hence his concern.

Who is going to buy Guysicko? He didn't offer to buy it, even as DDL stands much to lose if Guysuco closes.

There isn't any sugar shortage.  Guysuco is plagued by a trade union which doesn't understand the facts of life, and a charlatan named Jagdeo, who refuses to admit that he is responsible for the industry's problems.

The best that can be done is to focus Guysuco in areas where it might be most productive, cutting costs, and so allowing a planned phase out of the industry.

Talk of closing the Demerara estates is as old as when I began to post in GNI, that is 14 years ago!  And in fact several have ALREADY been closed. 

So why the wails about Wales? Isnt it better to focus on a transition plan for the workers, and the farmers than to fool them that the gov't can sustain this unproductive estate indefinitely?

But no, screaming "black man a kill ahbe" is something that Jagdeo prefers to do!

FM
caribny posted:

 

Talk of closing the Demerara estates is as old as when I began to post in GNI, that is 14 years ago!  And in fact several have ALREADY been closed. 

 

Is you DrugB whooped in the race and caused you to change your handle 

FM
Last edited by Former Member
VVP posted:
caribny posted:

 

Talk of closing the Demerara estates is as old as when I began to post in GNI, that is 14 years ago!  And in fact several have ALREADY been closed. 

 

Is you DrugB whooped in the race and caused you to change your handle 

Nah, back then Caribny was Caribj.  Nuff was Nuff!!  Nuff started his own site, but not sure if it still around!  He said PPP had too much pull on this.  Caribj went there but quickly returned as he grew tired of all the twerking, jamb lolo and whatever else they did over there.  Caribj would write his piece and everyone would read and congratulate him!  Only BK would question his grammar sometimes!  It was boooooring!!

He preferred this site where he give out lash and tek lash!!  Caribj is actually a good guy and not a chicken, Nuff was good, but a lil chicken, he tek lash run get away!!

FM
Last edited by Former Member
caribny posted:

But no, screaming "black man a kill ahbe" is something that Jagdeo prefers to do!

You need to copyright this phrase!!

Caribj, come on, last I heard, alyuh ah cry BJ bounced up them Buxton bais!!

FM
caribny posted:
baseman posted:
ago

It cannot come to fruition without cheap reliable power.  !!

Cease using that excuse.  Jamaica has the same energy problems as does Guyana.  So does the DR, and other Caribbean islands, yet their agro industrial sectors are more viable!

Burdening Guyana with a huge debt, as was demanded by the Amaila project, was NOT sustainable.  This was compounded by the MASSIVE corruption engaged by the PPP, when they spent millions on one of their cronies to build a road, even when others CHALLENGED them to prove that Fip Motilall had this capability.

Nah, it is power, believe me.  I did the study for a project when I was there in 2010.  Cost/reliability of the power grid were kill factors!!

Alyuh static thinkers will never get anything going except pu.s.syfoot projects which will never provide that break-out capability!!  You have to hope for oil, the typical 3rd world solution!!

FM
caribny posted:
baseman posted:
ago

It cannot come to fruition without cheap reliable power.  !!

Cease using that excuse.  Jamaica has the same energy problems as does Guyana.  So does the DR, and other Caribbean islands, yet their agro industrial sectors are more viable!

Burdening Guyana with a huge debt, as was demanded by the Amaila project, was NOT sustainable.  This was compounded by the MASSIVE corruption engaged by the PPP, when they spent millions on one of their cronies to build a road, even when others CHALLENGED them to prove that Fip Motilall had this capability.

How soon you forget the EMPTY TREASURY AND MASSIVE corruption engaged by your beloved PNC bhais..

FM

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