The Government has expended some $600 million on the rehabilitation of the control room at the Albion Sugar Factory, which was destroyed by a fire earlier this year.
The February 3rd fire at the Albion Estate destroyed millions of dollars in specialised pieces of equipment in the control room resulting in the disruption of the operations at the sugar factory.
On Friday, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha told the National Assembly that critical repairs have been executed to prepare the factory to resume operations.
“Only two days, Albion burnt cane to start the crop and that factory will commence grinding. And we spent approximately $600 million to rehabilitate the entire powerhouse because of the fire,” the minister noted.
He was at the time responding to questions from Opposition Member of Parliament, Vinceroy Jordan, who also raised concerns about the monies spent.
Jordan cited a preliminary report from the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), which had stated the fire caused serious damage to crucial electrical infrastructure in the Powerhouse including the four megawatts generating control panel, 2.5 megawatts generating control panels, 700 kilowatts low voltage cap set control panel, 3.3 kv interbus transformer, interbus transformer barker, a section of the low voltage bus bar and several major section of the circuitry.
At the time, the sugar corporation had estimated damages to be around $50 million.
Based on that figure from GuySuCo, the Opposition parliamentarian questioned the spending of the $600 million to carry out the repairs.
In response, the agriculture minister committed to providing a breakdown of how and on what the money was spent to repair the powerhouse.
Meanwhile, Mustapha went on to note that preliminary investigations revealed that the fire was electrical in origin.
MP Jordan enquired whether that cause was a result of any neglect. “We want to know, was it as a result of overheating, negligence? What is it?”
The agriculture minister maintained the fire was “…electrical in origin. I’m not an electrician… They said they had some feedback power into the system that caused overheating and caused the fire.”
The control system that was destroyed plays a significant part in the factory’s operation. It controls the devices that grind the cane to extract the juice and also the elements that lead to the boilers. The control system is also responsible for regulating the temperature of the boilers. The system, which is computerised, controls most of the mechanical parts of the factory.
GuySuCo had noted at the time that large sections of the wiring would have to be replaced along with the damaged panels, and all of the breakers, and other components, in order to return the factory to a state of readiness to grind sugar.
With the fire halting operations, the Albion Factory missed the grinding of sugar in the First Crop of 2024. In fact, the sugarcanes from that estate had to be sent to the Rose Hall Factory to grind.
These issues were raised in the National Assembly on Friday when the Committee of Supply was considering a $4.042 billion supplementary funding for GuySuCo, which was eventually approved.
