Dear Editor,
Your editorial of Nov 22, 2010 on the Skeldon Sugar Factory woes confirmed yet again that our politicians do not understand leadership and the role of professionals.
I was astonished when I learnt some time ago that the new factory was to be built by a Chinese corporation. When I studied Sugar Technology in Berlin up to the early 1990s China did not have any significant English-language publication in the very comprehensive Sugar Institute library. I have every admiration for the abilities of the Chinese to develop their own technology, but it would only be satisfactory in their circumstances: where they have a very large and willing labour force which could be employed to remedy any deficiencies cheaply; and where they could satisfy the still communist politicians with the figures of production instead of international peer-reviewed productivity.
In such a climate technology transfer would have been slow, and 15 years would not have been enough for their engineers to grasp all of the immense detail of building and continuously running a sugar factory to bring the cost of producing our sugar down. I suppose when our politicians and their loyalists made the decision to hire the Chinese they were shown nice-looking modern factories in China. Did they have competent Sugar Technologists to ask pertinent questions and examine performance efficiencies? Or did they just take along economists, accountants and Board members like the PPP General Secretary who were more impressed with attractive layout, paintwork and shiny pipes?
The modern Sugar Technology that I became qualified in equipped the graduate to balance and control not only (sugar and non-sugar) matter and energy flows, but also the business economics of the undertaking. We also studied extraction by diffusion as is now done at Skeldon instead of only the milling of cane that was then prevalent in most of the world. I was supposed to teach this technology at UG to train the shift and production managers for the sugar industry. It never happened because the politicians did not listen to the qualified people. I was only able to supervise a few final-year physics, chemistry and engineering students in energy balances of certain sugar factories, only one of whom I believe is still a factory manager at Guysuco.
The present strike by sugar workers is a disaster. I remember in the 1990s being consulted by the son of a sugar worker who was one of many who wanted to go on strike for the lack of production bonus. I explained to him how to check the claims of management that a small amount of sugar was produced from the large amount of cane that was cut. They did not strike.
The present strike is therefore not the only disaster. The unwillingness of the workers to look for solutions and, apparently, to work are the greater. Their schooling obviously did not inspire them with any admiration, much less respect, for the self-aggrandisement they observed and learnt in the system. But then again, the politicians have control of education. Can we blame the negative influence of the TV? The politicians have control of that and the radio too.
Yours faithfully,
Alfred Bhulai
