The sugar industry: a missed opportunity
DEAR EDITOR,
Kaieteur News – When the government changed in August 2020, I was among thousands of Guyanese thrilled to see that the long night of the APNU + AFC rule was over.
I was particularly pleased because the PPP / Civic had promised to reopen the closed sugar estates. This was very welcome because, like many people, I am convinced that the sugar industry is viable and can still play an important role in expanding our economy. In addition, it is important to ensure that the economy is put on a wide range of products and is not held to be dependent on oil. So sugar can play an important role in improving the well-being of our people.
The closure of the estates by APNU + AFC was entirely based on his own racist politics, his own righteous nature and nothing more. This can be seen by the fact that, at the same time when the APNU came to power, the industry was showing great resilience and a positive production outcome. So much so that the APNU + AFC regime rushed to praise its good performance in 2015. The APNU closed the estates when it was growing.
So reopening the estates was the right thing to do.
However, the industry needs much more than money to make it viable, to allow it to contribute to the overall development of our country. Things can’t be done the same old way. The industry needs to be restructured, reorganized as much as it currently needs financial inputs. Failure to reorganize this could lead to money being thrown away without tangible consequences.
The first step was for older people in government to bring together all the experience we have in this country. These would be experienced field and factory personnel, experienced workers, people with huge practical experience and would appeal to their patriotism to get the industry up and running again.
It should have been made clear that the senior salaries with which they were familiar were not possible at this time. Appeal to management to take pay cut as PNC is severely damaged. They would be rewarded as successes are made and the industry regains its viability.
This would have ensured that GuySuCo and the country would have benefited from people who were committed to the industry and the country. That kind of motivation and commitment would have been an important sign of success.
It is also clear that a new form of sugar control is needed. Everyone knows the history of the industry that almost spans the history of our country, from slavery through indentureship and later the monopoly of foreign control.
Even after nationalization the management structure was not changed. We had a public corporation with a management structure from the plantation era. Same kind of top-down order of execution.
So, we need to democratize management. Make sure machines are created to give employees a chance to say how things were run and how they could be improved. This is a great resource as employees who gave their whole lives to the industry have acquired vast knowledge that should be harnessed in an organized way for the benefit of the industry. This invaluable resource / information has been largely ignored in the past and is being ignored now.
One of the ways in which this could be done was by increasing the involvement of workers in the industry. Create employee co-ops where employees would not only look forward to wages but to end-of-crop dividends.
This means assisting workers with technical skills to run a workers’ co-operative to give these workers the lands in groups to produce cans for the public factories. This would be very useful in improving employee conditions and helps to not only rely on wages but also shareholders.
This is one way of allowing employees to be owners as well.
Management would then free themselves to think about developing new products, increasing revenue streams and building new relationships as joint ventures for new distillation and refining facilities, co-production and ethanol production among other measures.
The cane industry of India and Cuba has extensive experience in new products and we can benefit from their technologies as this country has many cooperation agreements with those two states. I’m sure both will be most willing to work with us.
At the same time a strong focus could be put on cutting costs in a big way. Only a short time ago GuySuCo was doing this work under Dr.’s leadership. Rajendra Singh. All this work seems to have been lost.
The possibilities of saving millions in fertilizers by producing liquid fertilizer, as is being done in India, were already under way five years ago. A lot of money could also be saved by compressing junk and burning them in the broilers to start factories. This also means significant savings from not buying timber to do the same job. GuySuCo and IAST had done a lot in this area. The compressed baggase was much more efficient and a fraction of the cost of wood.
At the level of acquisition, the employees and their unions can play an important supervisory role to ensure that the corporation and the country make the best and most sensible use of scarce financial resources.
There has been recent news from the corporation regarding the purchase of some 40 tractors. The tractors identified were very expensive. However, GuySuCo has very good machine records and experience at much less cost from other sources.
The Mahendra tractor from India is a good piece of machinery at a fraction of the cost of what was being offered. So more equipment could have been bought with the same money. However, some people seemed determined to want the most expensive.
Employees and the union should therefore have an important supervisory role here to ensure value for money and the most selective use of scarce financial resources.
It is unfortunate that the team put in place by the administration does not produce or show any confidence that it is up to the challenge. It does not motivate employees or managers at the middle level.
All indications are that they are old style managers who focus more on prestige like fancy expensive vehicles, huge salaries and expensive personal accommodation. His employment practices do not seem to be looking for the most skilled and experienced managers, but on cronies who can praise the boss. Egoism is now more obvious than finding the best.
It’s time for the government to pay close attention to what’s happening at GuySuCo. If this is not done then the point would be reached where the government would look for the easy way out and accept the privatization of the industry. They would say we tried, we put a lot of money in but it hasn’t worked so we have no other option but to sell the industry out.
That would be a huge collective slap in the face and a great disappointment to our ancestors who invested their life’s blood in sugar.
A great opportunity is missed!
Donald Ramotar
Former President