The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) is in its third week of the “pivotal” second crop yet no harvesting and grinding has commenced at the Skeldon estate.
President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU) Komal Chand told Stabroek News that GuySuCo did have a list of dates for when harvesting would begin and grinding commencing.
He said that the only two estates that have begun to grind were Albion, which is already in its third week and Rose Hall, which has recently started. Chand said that in relation to the flagship Skeldon factory, “they haven’t decided yet when they are going to start,” while adding that there were other factors at play.
Most recently, several sections of the ill performing Skeldon factory were rehabilitated by the South African Bosch Engineering firm. It was hired to fix a major conveyor belt and various other issues that the original China National Technical Import and Export Corporation (CNTIC) failed to address after completion of the factory.
Critics have noted that the second crop not only began later than expected, but the fact that Skeldon is not grinding in the third week of harvest could potentially showcase the factory is still not capable of operating at full capacity.
The government has remained mum in relation to the exact amount that was paid to Bosch Engineering to fix the various issues. The US$200 million factory has continuously performed dismally, operating far below its intended capacity since opening in 2009. Cost has and continues to play a role in assessing the worthiness of the factory.
The factory was designed to produce 110,000 tonnes of sugar on a yearly basis. To put it into perspective, the 2013 first crop resulted in just over 48,000 tonnes of sugar produced across all seven estates. In 2012, GuySuCo produced 218,069 tonnes of sugar, with Skeldon producing just over 33,000 of that. In comparison with the production of the supposed state-of-the-art Skeldon facility, the Albion Estate managed to produce over 54,000 tonnes of sugar in 2012.
The Skeldon factory has shown continuously that it cannot produce as it should and is nowhere near grinding the originally touted 350 tonnes of cane per hour. In 2012, Skeldon averaged 196 tonnes per hour.
Meanwhile, the state-owned corporation is yet to present its 2013-2017 Strategic Plan although the announcement for the plan was made earlier in the year and once again by Minister of Finance Dr Ashni Singh at the signing of the 2013 financial agreement on sugar in mid June.
When Stabroek News spoke with Dr Singh at a recent press conference, he said that GuySuCo was in the advanced stages of completing the plan, seven months into 2013 when the last strategic plan would have been up. GuySuCo has not publicly presented an evaluation of why the previous plan failed to meet production and other benchmarks.
GAWU and others have consistently argued that the sugar fields are in a state of crisis and need to be urgently addressed by the corporation for yield and output to be improved.
