Saying that the final sugar production figure for the year is bad news, Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) President Komal Chand is calling for expertise to be brought into the sugar corporation to save the industry.
The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) had revised the sugar production target from 300,000 tonnes to 282,000 tonnes in July, but only managed to post 237,000 tonnes at the end of the last crop. Chand, during a brief telephone interview, yesterday noted that GuySuCo had nothing to use as a “scapegoat,” since weather patterns and the availability of labour have been good this year.
“It is pessimistic news that the industry has found itself in, in spite of all the promises that this year would be better, that all the issues would be addressed, they have done as bad as they have done in recent years,” Chand told Stabroek News.
He said that the figure for the year was an indictment of GuySuCo’s ability to determine “not only the quantity but also to determine where the industry is headed.” Further, he said that GuySuCo could not produce canes within a small percentage of figures predicted in the past. “They are not only out by a number but by a high percentage. For an important entity such as the sugar industry, they should do better,” he noted.
Chand stated that next year, the corporation needed to examine several areas of its operations and he singled out the agriculture performance in the fields as a component of the corporation which needed to be addressed.
“We do not have problems with the factories, except Skeldon. We could even leave out Skeldon. But I can say that in the other estates, production is deteriorating,” he said. “What is clearly coming out of the whole situation is that they are not able to produce canes in the fields and we need to get suitable experts and people with agri skills to recognize the problems,” Chand added.
He continued, ‘If it’s tillage, the right varieties used, timely application of fertilizers, drainage, we have to find out what the problems are and find solutions to them.”
Chand noted that GuySuCo has been able to reap canes from the year before and according to him, “they are exposed, the labour issue is always used… you may not have full and regular turnouts but at the end of the year the workers have all qualified for their benefits.” He said that for the sugar workers to obtain their benefits from GuySuCo, they would have had to work for 80% of the days required of them.
He explained that in the sugar industry, work is not viable for 52 weeks as “a normal worker” and as a result workers would find other jobs with competitive salaries. He said that “generally they do not have that labour issue and they might blame the union for calling workers’ strikes or poor workers turnout, but that’s not an issue.”
As regards the Skeldon sugar factory, Chand noted that he could not say offhand whether the issues associated with the functioning of the factory have been remedied. He said that GuySuCo had identified major and minor defects associated with the factory but he did not have any updated information on the issue. (Alva Solomon)
