Introduction
Last week’s column covered the strategic role of maintenance in GuySuCo’s efforts to modernize the sugar industry. This week I shall discuss respectively, the strategic roles of privatization and mechanization. Last week, I adverted to the fact that, in giving Booker Tate a management contract to run GuySuCo, this symbolized the pivotal role the government expected private stakeholders to play in the future of sugar.
Role of privatization
Booker Tate initiated the Skeldon Sugar Factory Modernization Project (SSMP) at GuySuCo. In its 1998 Strategy Review, it formulated a policy to develop cadres of private independent cane farmers to supply cane to the Skeldon factory.