The challenge ahead for GuySuCo is formidable
massive social and economic dislocation in the sugar belt and beyond.
After the sugar estates’ closure in 2017, the anticipated social and economic woes overwhelmed the dismissed sugar workers whose lives were plunged into disarray (ILO: 1/21 Report). It is noted that the average annual per capita subsidy for bauxite workers is 4 times more than the average per capita subsidy for sugar workers. Certain industries like sugar and bauxite are deeply interwoven in the communities in which they operate. The sugar industry brought workers’ fore-parents as either slaves or bonded labour into the country, and that link (social, cultural, psychological, and financial) to sugar has endured for countless decades and would not be easily broken. Another redeeming feature of sugar is captured by GAWU; “the industry provided other support, some of which continues, such as drainage and irrigation and health services .... our habitation of the low-lying coastal belt is made possible by the network of canals, dykes, sea defenses and water conservancies which were built primarily for the sugar industry.”
The PPPC government is committed to diversification and structural transformation of the sugar industry. However, these were not priorities of the PNCR coalition government under whose rule the sugar cane fields, the factories, and infrastructure were allowed to deteriorate. The Minister of Agriculture says that they expect the Rose Hall sugar estate to begin production in early 2022. The lead time is necessary since the factories became nonoperational from 2017. To weaken further the industry, the PNCR-led coalition was planning to get rid of huge chunks of sugar estate lands. The rationale offered was that they would sell the lands to raise $(G) 35.9 billion to help pay off GuySuCo’s debts. And the prospect of advancing mechanical means of harvesting cane to lower costs was derailed by the coalition which rejected a CDB-funded Sugar Industry Mechanization Project Loan.
The eagerness to dismantle the sugar industry is most evident at Wales where the destruction was so surreal that the PPP/C government decided that it could not be rehabilitated. Instead, it created the Wales Development Authority to serve as an industrial hub, to restore back that community and beyond to productive economic life. The non-production of sugar at Skeldon at present is not necessarily a deterrence to privatization or to joint-public-private partnership. In addition, there is still immense value in its co-generation capability (energy). The Skeldon Energy Incorporated (SEI) reported that in 2016 it had done “$(US) 45M (G$9.45B) in energy sales to the Guyana Power and Light Inc., (GPL).” One should not forget that sugar had been able to rescue all sectors of the economy when they were struggling. Former Minister of Agriculture Dr. Leslie Ramsammy says that over $(G) 92 billion (derived from the sugar levy) had been allocated to other sectors over the period 1976-2000. Sugar workers also contribute $(G) 1.2 billion annually to NIS. However, these positives do not mean that concerted attempts must not be made to progressively reduce subsidies and enhance productivity. The government projects that within the next 4 years, the sugar industry would bounce back to economic viability. Thus, the challenge ahead for GuySuCo is formidable.
Sincerely, Dr. Tara Singh