Dear Editor,
In a Stabroek News article last Monday, “Board cannot be blamed for sugar woes – Ramotar,” PPP presidential candidate, Mr. Donald Ramotar, was asked about views held by Guyanese that he should take some of the blame for troubles facing the company, particularly given his long tenure there, and he responded by saying the board of directors cannot be blamed for the state-owned company’s woes.
Mr. Ramotar’s pathetic response demonstrated he lacked even a rudimentary understanding of the twin cardinal business concepts of responsibility and accountability, because a corporate board is the highest decision-making forum on policy and business matters of a company. And since running a government requires a combination of political skills and business acumen, there is no way the leader of a government can pass the buck if a crisis-induced failing occurs in government.
According to Ms. Brenda Hanlon, author of ‘In Boards we trust’, the following are considered basic duties of a board of directors: 1) Provide continuity of the organization, 2) Select and appoint a chief executive, 3) Govern the organization by broad policies and objectives, 4) Acquire sufficient resources for the organization’s operations, and 5) Account to stockholders (in the case of a for-profit) for the products and services of the organization and expenditures.
Against the foregoing, the board on which Mr. Ramotar sat has failed the people of Guyana most miserably, but especially the employees, because in the context of politics and economics, GuySuCo generates income for the treasury, it is the lifeline of a significant portion of the PPP support base of Indian Guyanese, most of whom belong to the PPP-affiliated Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union, so that GuySuCo’s survival and success are also critical to the viability and longevity of the PPP, which depends on GAWU members to vote PPP at election time.
Conventional wisdom dictates that this was all the more reason for the PPP government, GAWU and GuySuCo to always be on the same page, but also since the sugar industry has been facing a dire future in an extremely volatile international market place over which the corporation exercises absolutely no control.
However, while it was understandable when GuySuCo was under the PNC government to be plagued by PPP/GAWU-instigated industrial action and the burning of cane fields in protests, it became incomprehensible when GuySuCo came under the PPP government and was still being plagued by PPP/GAWU-instigated industrial action, sans burning cane fields. This triggered great suspicions among observers that the sugar industry was in trouble, but there might be a rift between the PPP and the government.
According to an OP release dated October 23, 2008, titled, “President meets with GUYSUCO Board,” the President expressed dissatisfaction with the corporation’s production performance after falling short of its target and the delay in completion of the new Skeldon factory. “I am very concerned about the drop in production…GUYSUCO not achieving its target and we discussed a whole range of issues as to why this could be happening. I said to them, ‘I don’t buy the explanation that weather is the only factor. It has to do with manage-ment…leadership in the entity’.”
Ooops!
The OP statement continued: “In this light, the President has requested that the Sugar Corporation’s Board provide some documentation on areas that are critical to the entity’s output. The areas to be focused on include personnel, research and the agricultural practices of the Corporation.”
Notice that he tasked the board to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the situation worsened and in February 2010, GuySuCo fired the Booker Tate management team. In December 2010, GuySuCo announced it was suing Booker Tate for ‘incompetence and mismanagement’ at the Skeldon factory.
But what actually triggered this public meltdown of GuySuCo was a revelation by the AFC’s Khemraj Ramjattan. On September 13, 2008, Kaieteur News carried a story, “Prob-lems abound at new Skeldon sugar factory,” and Mr. Ramjattan was the one who blew the cover on the problems affecting completion of the new factory and overall production problems.
When contacted for a response to Mr. Ramjattan’s eye-opening revelations, Agricul-ture Minister, Mr. Robert Persaud dismissed the AFC as seeking to ‘score political points on the many issues facing the sugar industry, including the EU price cuts’ and that ‘instead of recognizing the challenges faced and the need for continued improved management, as the government has insisted, the AFC is hoping to stir resentment and misrepresent the facts’.
Today, we know enough to conclude that management’s failings were compounded by the board’s failure in its own oversight responsibility to hold the management team responsible and accountable very early on. And since board members were appointed by and reported to the government, the blame buck stopped at the President’s door.
Chairman of the Board is Dr. Nanda Gopaul, who is also Chairman of the Public Service Commission and Chairman of the Board of Director of the New Building Society. Other members include GAWU Presi-dent, Mr. Komal Chand and Ms. Geeta Singh-Knight, of the Clico collapse infamy.
But even if we were to excuse 1) Ms. Singh-Knight, since her deficient leadership skills no doubt contributed to Clico’s collapse, 2) Dr. Gopaul, seeing he wears too many hats to be acutely focused on the problems at GuySuCo, and 3) Mr. Chand, because he serves at the pleasure of the PPP, there is no way we can excuse Mr. Ramotar.
Mr. Ramotar, as the de facto leader of the PPP, had to have a vested political interest in the well-being of GuySuCo. So how come he sat on the board as the industry tanked under poor management and due to the PPP-backed GAWU’s calls for strike action against GuySuCo?
Editor, I actually noted that in 2008, Guysuco lost GY$3B after a combination of factors, including the series of strike actions, and then the President began taking Mr. Ramotar on government-paid trips. After they returned from a MidEast trip last year January, government moved to spend GY$4B on lands from GuySuCo and, thereafter, strike action continued at a lesser rate, but Mr. Ramotar’s political stock soared exponentially, and now one can only wonder whether…
Well, let’s just say time may well reveal the right answers to us, but right now, there is no way Mr. Ramotar’s attempt to absolve the board, on which he sat, for the crisis in the sugar industry can succeed. More than that, if he couldn’t do his job as the political leader of the party – which runs GAWU and forms the government – to help avert the crisis now crippling the industry, how can he be trusted to save and rebuild this government that is bedevilled by major corruption and ineptitude crises?
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
