APNU MP Dr Rupert Roopnaraine says there needs to be a full investigation of GuySuCo’s finances and he charged that despite its financial plight it was finalising arrangements for its Chairman to receive his US$25,000 monthly package.
Roopnaraine’s comments came in the wake of reports that GuySuCo registered its lowest ever first crop when it produced just under 48,000 tonnes.
Roopnaraine told Stabroek News that the cash-strapped state corporation has “for the past two weeks been working towards finalising the salary…the actual amount of all the different perks adds to the US$25,000 perfectly”. He said that in addition to the salary Dr Raj Singh will also have homes at both Skeldon and Ogle. Roopnaraine said that “the hypocrisy is clearly visible,” stating that year after year GuySuCo has been bailed out and the corporation is still headstrong in its financial mismanagement.
Roopnaraine declared that this level of “incompetence” was absolutely “ridiculous” at the management level. He said that “the first crop while shocking is not a surprise, we have been giving GuySuCo subsidies for years and time and time again we are left with these results that are more dismal than the last.”
He said that the next move has to be a commission of inquiry so that a full investigation of GuySuCo’s finances could be undertaken. He noted that the State Corporation’s cash problems stem directly from the Board of Directors and the management, “we cannot just watch these failures happen…GuySuCo itself needs to conduct a serious survey of how and where the previous subsidies were spent.”
Roopnaraine, who represents the Working People’s Alliance in the APNU coalition, said that transparency towards the allocation of state funds has been ignored in the past while noting that the opposition passed the 2013 budget inclusive of GuySuCo’s $1 billion subsidy because “it was the workers getting short-changed in the end”. Roopnaraine continued that “we wanted the punitive steps we took to not fall on the backs of the sugar workers themselves”. He said that the financial woes of GuySuCo have long since fallen to the workers to bear the burden and without the subsidy workers would once again suffer while the corporate heads of the company remained intact.
Roopnaraine said that GuySuCo and its historical context to Guyana meant that the industry could not just be abandoned, but the legacy being created was one of mismanagement. He said that the “managerial collapse in integrity” has significantly reduced the weight and respect of GuySuCo over the years. Dr Roopnaraine said that “this problem goes back several years, there is no financial accountability and the government has failed to dismantle the current board and management which seemingly bears the most fault in GuySuCo’s decline as a corporation.”
He further said that “all of it is a mess right down to Skeldon…the private cane harvesters aren’t growing enough cane to have the factory performing at capacity”. Roopnaraine stated that the amount of cane being produced is not sufficient to produce the amount of sugar needed. This had been noted by both the head of GuySuCo, Paul Bhim and the President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), Komal Chand during the 2013 first crop harvest. Roopnaraine stated that while this was an ongoing issue the corporation was not identifying ways to move ahead. In 2013 GuySuCo produced a hundred tonnes shy of 48,000 tonnes of sugar when the target was set at 70,000. In comparison, the 2012 first crop figure was 67,299 tonnes of sugar from the 101,800 target.
Asked about the GuySuCo first crop, executive member of the PPP/C, Irfaan Ali said that “The PPP is very concerned. Our primary objective, our primary focus is safeguarding this industry, safeguarding the workers and we are very deeply concerned in relation to the first crop being so low”. He stated at a press conference on Monday that the president would be hosting a series of meetings in which improvements to the sector would be discussed. President Donald Ramotar in an invited comment had told Stabroek News that the corporation must restructure.
