As the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) grapples with setbacks affecting sugar production—which has dipped over the last four years—the expected benchmarks set in its strategic turnaround plan appear distant.
Last year’s production figure was set at 300,000 tonnes at the beginning of the first crop before being revised midway through the year to 282,000 tonnes. However, only 237,000 tonnes of sugar was produced last year.
In 2010, the target was 264,000 tonnes but the corporation fell short of at 233,000 tonnes. And in 2009, the year when the blueprint was compiled and became effective, the corporation had set its target at 250,000 tonnes but only produced 226,000 tonnes.
With the 2009-2013 turnaround plan, GuySuCo had intended to work towards a transformed industry, with a competitive cost base, a productive, motivated work force, competitive products as well as production surpassing 450,000 tonnes annually by next year. This, it noted, was to ensure that the sugar industry returns to its rightful place in the well-being of the national economy.
To improve production, GuySuCo stated that there needed to be further acceleration of mechanisation, continuous improvement of cane yields and production, continuous execution of the capital expenditure programme as well as optimising production of the Skeldon sugar factory. The corporation stated that mechanisation will reduce harvesting costs and the dependency on labour turnout, though it noted that it would mean an increase in the corporation’s capital costs as more machinery needed to be acquired.
But several factors continue to haunt the corporation’s plans to increase production, and ultimately the industry. Among them is a decreasing workforce.
The turnaround plan stated that the estimated effect on labour numbers from 2008 to 2015 was expected to drop as the years progressed by at least 10% each year. In 2009, GuySuCo experienced a large decrease in workforce numbers as a result of restricting cost to G$490,000 per hectare of lands. The number of harvesting staff declined over the period.
GuySuCo said that 56% of the estate lands will still be hand-cut in 2015 and the tonnage of cane to be harvested will have increased by 57% from 2008. While this has occurred, a large number of workers have left the industry to turn to other forms of employment. This is as a result of more lucrative forms of income in other sectors, such as the fishing industry.
At the end of the first crop this year, GuySuCo reported that the first crop production fell significantly short of its target and it blamed labour problems as one of the key factors affecting production.
GuySuCo noted that there was an average turnout of harvesters of only 52%, while there were also some 146 strikes by workers within the first crop. It said it was hard hit by strike action mainly at the Blairmont estate in Berbice, where some 11,700 man days of a total of 18,130 for the industry were lost. Had the situation proved different and canes were supplied to the semi mechanical harvesters, an additional 7,500 tonnes of sugar—equivalent to $1.2 million—could have been produced, it argued.
Further, according to GuySuCo, the low turnout of sugar harvesters contributed to extremely low grinding hours per week at the factories. On an optimum basis, it explained, a factory is expected to grind canes for more than 130 hours per week. However, only the Rose Hall estate was able to grind at an average of 100 hours per week while the other estates averaged between 75 and 100 hours per week.
GuySuCo CEO Paul Bhim had told this newspaper earlier this year that the company was focusing on worker turnout as part of its plans to ensure that it meets the target set. However, as the first crop progressed, industrial action across the sugar estates, and primarily the East Demerara estates, saw production being hampered.
GuySuCo noted last year as the second crop came to a close that turnout was one of several problems that affected production. But the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) later indicated that the corporation needed to restructure and address its planting methods, while saying the unavailability of canes needed to be addressed. The union’s president Komal Chand last year end called for experts to be brought into the sugar corporation to save the industry.
Former PNCR parliamentarian and former sugar industry executive Tony Vieira, noted that this year’s first crop represented a new low for the industry in two decades. Vieira, who pointed out that last year’s first crop yielded 106,627 tonnes, also flayed the management of the corporation and the government over the underperformance of the multi-million dollar Skeldon sugar factory.
He said that “the sinking flagship at Skeldon, a monument to Mr [Bharrat] Jagdeo’s disastrous tenure as president of this republic and the incompetence of Robert Persaud and the Board of GuySuCo” produced 10,435 tonnes of sugar in 2011 and 6,596 tonnes in 2012. The figures contrast significantly with the expected 110,000 tonnes of sugar it was expected to yield annually by 2013, according to the turnaround plan.
Bhim told this newspaper that since Skeldon was a mechanised operation, the weather conditions there have severely hampered production.
But the factory has failed to live up to its expectations. In April this year, GuySuCo announced that the factory was set to undergo major rehabilitation works in order to have it fully operational. This included the redesigning and re-engineering of several aspects of the facility and GuySuCo has been working with South African firm Bosch Group of Companies to remedy the major problems at the facility. Such works are on-going and while factory continues to operate, reports are that the problems may not be fixed until the first quarter of 2013.
The US$200M Skeldon sugar factory was unveiled by the government to boost production to 300,000 tonnes and over per annum, however, it has been plagued by numerous problems from the very start.
