Head of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union, Komal Chand is urging the Guyana Sugar Corporation to be more proactive in providing information to stakeholders of the sugar industry on its status and challenges.
A promised plan of action for 2013 onwards is still to be presented by the corporation to the public and there has been no assessment by GuySuCo of what went wrong with the previous plan.
Information has also not been made available on rectifications to the troubled Skeldon factory by a South African firm.
In an interview with Stabroek News, Chand argued that the state-owned corporation behaves in a reactionary manner which does not bode well for the industry’s public image.
He told Stabroek News that GuySuCo did not publicly identify dates for harvesting and grinding to officially commence. He said that making those dates public knowledge was a simple way for the public to be included in the sugar sector since the industry is so pivotal to Guyanese society. “You are operating under conditions of the weather…the public will understand that”, Chand stated in relation to dates being altered for the commencement on some estates.
He said that the manner in which GuySuCo management had refused to disclose information freely has significantly damaged the sugar industry’s public support. He noted that it was not a “sensible” way to conduct business adding that by providing journalists with vital information when the sector struggles people will be more aware of what the issues are.
Chand stated that the vast amount of work that has been done by the South African firm Bosch Engineering at Skeldon has not fully been revealed nor has the cost which he stated does not project confidence to stakeholders. He said that Bosch had done rehabilitation work at a similar factory in South Africa and that at this point he did not want to prejudge how well Skeldon will operate from here on out.
“They said they were remedying them so I would wait and see [if] the factory would be able to grind the amount of canes it is designed to grind”, Chand stated in relation to the works recently done at Skeldon by the South African firm. He continued “What I want to say is…let us see what will be the result of all the work that they have done.”
The Skeldon factory has not ground anywhere near capacity in the past. It is rated at 350 tonnes of cane per hour.
On July 18, GuySuCo confirmed that Skeldon has not yet started reaping or grinding cane. It stated that the original start date for Skeldon was July 26th but that this has now been pushed back to August 5th. Given that GuySuCo only registered 48,000 tonnes of sugar in the first crop, observers had said that it was strange that Skeldon had not yet started operations when several other estates had commenced. GuySuCo said that the delayed start was as a result of “extremely wet conditions” at the estate. GuySuCo also admitted that the Wales estate was also behind schedule and would begin harvesting by August 8. The corporation stated that “the delayed start by Wales is attributed to the need to retube the #4 boiler and harmonising of the cane age due to a late start in the 2nd crop of last year.”
GAWU’s President noted that he couldn’t predict how much cane Skeldon would be capable of grinding, but that he was not going to be relying on promises made by GuySuCo in the beginning stages of grinding. Chand said instead that the factory results would have to be assessed and yet again in 2013 there may be a possibility that Skeldon is a far cry away from grinding 350 tonnes of cane per hour.
Chand stated that Skeldon unfortunately remains a perpetual wait-and-see scenario in relation to production capacity. Agriculture Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy stated that he too could not make any promises about Skeldon’s grinding capacity. However he did say that he believed that it would get “close” to its maximum capacity during this second crop.
Amount of Cane
“It is not the factory it is us getting enough canes to the factory and that depends on the weather”, Dr Ramsammy stated. He deflected questions about Skeldon’s preparedness for 2013’s second crop and focused on the inclement weather. Dr Ramsammy told Stabroek News that “Skeldon is fully mechanized…anytime it drizzles there is no operation”. He stated that “the manual component of Skeldon is usually used at other estates when the fields and work is not available.”
Chand also highlighted the impact the weather has had on Skeldon’s ability to perform; he said that the rain over the past three weeks and the weekend rain had made the bell loaders useless. Chand emphasised the need for a balance between mechanical and manual labour.
He told Stabroek News that GAWU was very interested in acquiring information in relation to the amount of cane currently in the fields, but that as the union they would not be privy to such information. Chand stated that “we are the union we don’t have that opportunity to measure the canes” however as the union he stated that this information would tremendously impact how the various estates harvest and grind.
