“With the three estates [Skeldon, Rose Hall and Enmore]…442 people will be hired back by Christmas of this year, which is a matter of 11 weeks away. They’ve actually already hired back 200 of those people…they are incrementally hiring as the work expands,” Singh explained.
“We are also asking contractors to help in this interim,” he added.
Singh was at the time fielding questions from the media following a tour of the sugar estate at the Uitvlugt, West Coast Demerara (WCD).
Some 6500 workers were placed on the breadline after the David Granger-regime shut down the Skeldon, Rose Hall, Enmore, and Wales Sugar Estates.
The GuySuCo boss laid out the government’s plan for the revitalization of the sugar industry and the reopening of the estates.
In fact, Singh said that just today he received word that the Rose Hall estate has commenced planting of canes.
“That’s a big, big important step because once that cane is planted, an entire project plan is developed because it means that from planting of cane, a factory has to retrieve it,” he explained.
Only recently, Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha revealed that the estates which were closed under the Granger Administration are likely to start producing sugar by next year.
“The damage that was done there by the APNU/AFC, they were about to destroy the entire estates, what they did with Wales [Sugar Estate], they were trying to do with Enmore, Skeldon and Rose Hall, but due to the elections being held earlier, we won the elections; and we will open those estates,” Mustapha had declared to the National Assembly.
“I can’t give you a specific date…I am hoping that by first or second crop next year, we should have sugar coming out of these factories,” Minister Mustapha posited.
Meanwhile, the GuySuCo CEO noted that he is currently re-examining every aspect of the Sugar Corporation in an effort to bring it back to the state of profitability.
