The sugar corporation today blamed strikes, poor worker turnout and inclement weather for its low first crop output and urged the union and its members to work with it to improve the situation.
In a press release, the corporation said that it had estimated that the first crop would be 101,800 tonnes. It did not say what was actually achieved but in a letter to this newspaper, former PNCR-1G MP Tony Vieira had said that of May 6th production was only 67, 299 tonnes.
The Guyana Sugar Corporation said rain this year was 57% above the long term mean (industry average rainfall of 1,251mm against a long term mean of 718 mm) .
It said further that the failure to make the projected production has created an unfavourable cash flow situation, which forced it to advise the main sugar union GAWU that it would be unable to make payments for Holiday with Pay to workers on time.
Except for Skeldon and Blairmont, all the other estates closed their crop on May 11th, 2012. The Corporation did inform GAWU on May 18th that once the cash flow situation improves the payout will be made.
“In the 1st crop this year, among the harvesters, the Corporation experienced 146 strikes with 18,130 mandays lost, of which 11,700 mandays were lost at Blairmont. Had the amount of mandays lost on strikes been at work supplying canes to the semi mechanical harvesters (Bell Loaders), an additional 7,500 tonnes sugar could have been produced equivalent to $1,200M in revenue. The average turnout of harvesters this crop was 52%. This low turnout contributed to extremely low grinding hours per week in the factories. Optimally, a factory is expected to grind not less than 130 hours per week for better recoveries and factory time efficiency. Unfortunately only Rose Hall Estate has been able to grind an average of 100 hours per week. The other estates are between 75 and below 100 hours per week. During the inclement weather sogginess of the soils prevents the Bell Loaders from operating because of soil compaction, thus harvesters have to be assigned to manual cut and load, rather than stacking canes for the mechanical harvesters. Harvesters are reluctant to do cut and load and prefer to return home; as such burnt canes are left to deteriorate in the fields for days”, the corporation said.
It added that at the current time, 214,100 tonnes of canes remain to be harvested in the 2nd crop but would not yield the same amount of sugar as the canes would be much older. The corporation argued that if all the canes were harvested the first crop’s production would have been closer to the projected target and adequate cash would have been available to pay the workers on time.
“The Corporation again urges the Union and the workers to work together to increase turnout and decrease mandays lost due to strikes so that the current situation does not repeat itself”, the release said.
