Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) Sasenarine Singh has assured that the often cash-strapped entity will not be a burden on the Guyana Government forever.
According to the CEO, the organisation is working assiduously to reach to a point whereby it will no longer need financial support from Central Government to fund its operations.
Singh made these commitments on Monday night during a social media programme titled “Globespan 24×7” where he explained that the $6B allocated to GuySuCo this year will be used to “reengineer” the sugar industry.
The GuySuCo boss reminded that when the four sugar estates were down in 2016 and 2017 under the APNU+AFC Administration, a significant number of machinery and equipment became permanently damaged.
Despite recommendations from a Commission of Inquiry (COI) commissioned by the then President David Granger, the APNU+AFC administration closed the Wales, East Demerara, Rose Hall and Skeldon sugar estates, sending some 17,000 workers on the breadline.
When the PPP/C Administration assumed office in August 2020, efforts were made to reopen these estates. From October 2020 to date, over 1380 persons were hired/rehired to work in the sugar industry.
“My first visit to Albion, Blairmont and Uitvlugt [estates]…it started with the discovery, in late 2020, of an environment, that I would call, a boneyard of steel and mud that was waiting to be pushed over because that was what happened on theses grinding estates.”
Against this backdrop, the GuySuCo CEO reasoned that significant monies had to be spent to address these problems.
“In 2019, $76M alone were invested on these three estates. In 2021, we invested 37 times more than that,” Singh explained, indicating that the money being received from Central Government is being put to good use.
“What is needed for GuySuCo to reengineer itself is capital investment; that is where the government is putting its money to make sure that all the tools and parts and field equipment and factory machinery are being reengineered and replaced,” he posited.
“…it’s such a huge project. What is wrong with the government investing to enhance the socio-economic energy of rural communities that has limited opportunities?”
According to the Head of the Sugar Company, the organisation has a five-year strategic plan which will see the reduction of production costs and increased profits – which will eventually make the entity “cash neutral”.
“With a good strategic plan, the right amount of resources at the right time and when I’m talking about resources, I’m talking about capital, talent, machinery…this industry is fixable within four years,” Singh expressed.
“GuySuCo is not going to be a drain on the government forever and that is why this strategic plan clearly has a roadmap whereby GuySuCo will become cash neutral in the near future,” he added.
GuySuCo, he further contended, “has no choice but to reengineer its business whereby we have to move up the value chain, we have to be able to rationalise our cost, we have to be become more efficient, we have to be able to make that model work whereby we’re producing sugar to sell to markets where we can make profits.”
And according to the CEO, this plan is already in action.
“When I arrived, 64 per cent of our sugar was being sold on the world market which is a price between US$320 to US$380. Today, 64 per cent of that sugar is being sold in the package and bag sugar market at double that value. We had to reengineer the revenue stream and the revenue had to be fixed and that was fixed last year,” he explained.
“We know clearly what we’re doing about the revenue. This year, we’re going to be focusing on ensuring that the cost structures rationalised, to bring cost of production down,” Singh added.
The five-year strategic plan also aims to improve the mechanising of all the estates such as the refurbishing of generators across the industry, the building of 250 new punts, the creation of a new packaging plant at Albion which will begin this year, the expanding of the packaging plant at Blairmont, among other initiatives.
