Dear Editor,
The opposition parties and the press have fallen asleep at the switch. It is their duty to alert Guyanese to impending disaster. Such seems to be the case if Mr Tony Vieira’s comment on May 14, 2009 is to be believed.
Mr Vieira argues that Guysuco is having a great difficulty in remaining viable and that the Skeldon factory will become a white elephant. His prediction about the sugar industry is gloomy, perhaps too gloomy. If sugar is as unviable as Mr Vieira thinks, the Guyana economy will not be able to reproduce itself and standards of living will fall. Only narcotics incomes will keep the country afloat.
The first fundamental in relation to reproducing the economy is to maintain the infrastructure. Instead of running around the world, dabbling in esoteric forest trades, it would pay the President, several times over, to secure deals with dredging experts like Boscalis to dredge the main rivers of Guyana to deepen channels and to throw up soil on to the land to raise the land level and improve soil fertility. This would partially overcome soil deficiencies that Mr Vieira identifies. In the late 1960s, Guyana produced 3.6 to 3.7 tons of sugar per acre as compared with a little better today than 2.0 tons of sugar per acre.
The 1960s figure was not as high the 4.0 tons plus that was achieved in St Kitts and in Cuba but it was not insignificant. Those yields are once again possible.
Achieving high yields was a function of efficient drainage and irrigation. Some of the drainage capability was achieved at the expense of the villages which were drowned when the reservoirs overflowed. But with better local government management in the villages and greater skill in the preservation of the reservoirs, top level performances in drainage would reduce the wetness that Mr Vieira identifies as a comparative disadvantage. After all, we have been growing sugar for over 300 years and an inability to improve in yields is an indication of extreme backwardness.
Our trouble resides in three areas. The first is in President Jagdeo’s reliance on the expansion of sugar which, in my view, is viable, but precariously so. The second is in the Indianisation of the management of Guysuco and the drainage and irrigation infrastructure.
The third was the privatisation of drainage canals and trenches in the homestead areas. The strategy to expand sugar was associated with the decision to reduce the importance of bauxite. The PPP seemed unaware of the potential for a symbiotic relation between sugar and bauxite. The surplus from bauxite could have financed the expansion of sugar. Mr Sam Hinds was appointed bauxite executioner.
The consequence of the rapid Indianisation has been the spread and intensification of inefficiency. Every aspect of top level decision-making is regarded as a secret. One minister told the IDB and the World Bank to withhold Guysuco information from me even though I was Guyana’s representative at the IDB.
The IDB and the World Bank should have indicated that the request was untenable but the PNC had made similar requests before. Party politics and race inter-mix to diminish management capability. Guyana continues to suffer from the consequence of this diminution. Sugar can be saved if it modifies its plantation mode and if drainage and irrigation are drastically improved.
These are massive tasks requiring the participation of knowledgeable Guyanese including Professor Clive Thomas, Mr Harold Davis, Mr Tony Vieira and others who know the industry well. If this approach is not pursued, Skeldon will indeed become a white elephant as Mr Vieira predicts.
Yours faithfully,
Clarence F Ellis
