Dear Editor,
The sale of GuySuCo’s co-generation power plant at Skeldon to a special purpose company, Skeldon Energy Inc (SEI) owned by NICIL and GPL is the final nail on the coffin of GuySuCo and sugar production in Guyana.
How would anyone in their right mind contemplate such a foolish idea? The most competitive and efficient part of sugar production is its co-generation facilities providing its factories with reliable and cheap power. Without this supply the cost of power would increase the already uncompetitive cost of the production of sugar.
Injecting $30M into GuySuCo’s cash flow is a short term measure to pay creditors, but the cost of sugar per ton would forever be higher as GuySuCo would now have to pay market rates for power.
To make matters worse SEI power generation would now be managed by Wartsila. Why? The sugar estates have the best engineers I know, who have over the years managed GuySuCo’s power generation as efficiently as one could imagine. Its boiler operators and power house operators are highly competent and reliable.
I have hired some of these operators and in my opinion they are the best available. Why the need for a management company? Why bring in layers of bureaucracy by transferring ownership under GPL and its politically dominated and incompetent Board and Chairman, Winston Brassington?
As important as it is, was this matter discussed with the unions and workers of the industry? Was any consultation done with the opposition parties now that parliament has been dissolved? Why this haste on a matter so far reaching for the industry so close to the May 11 general elections?
If GPL has excess cash let it extend a loan rather than disrupt the efficiency and low-cost power generation at GuySuCo with long-term increases in its cost. Mr Brassington and the PPP Government must be reminded that any excess cash held by GPL belongs to the people of Guyana who have been overcharged for electricity for many years, and that cash must be returned by means of lower rates rather than being used to cover their incompetence.
In any case the cost of electricity from GPL is too high; its savings consequent on lower fuel prices on the international market should have resulted in a 30% reduction in electricity rates. The private sector and all Guyanese must demand a 30% reduction in the price of electricity.
This latest move by the PPP Government shows clearly how incompetent it is with no answers to the problems facing GuySuCo and the thousands of families that depend on it for their livelihood. It shows vividly that a once profitable enterprise has been made bankrupt by the poor decision-making of a ruling elite similar to the fashion in which they presided over the acute problems in NIS, the impending destruction of the hotel industry and many others. It is time that sugar workers all over Guyana stand up for their rights and protest, demanding an immediate and complete reversal of this transaction.
Yours faithfully,
Robert Badal
