With the closure of sugar cultivation at the Wales estate looming at yearend, GuySuCo has advertised for infrastructural work for the transport of cane to Uitvlugt on the West Coast of Demera.
In January, the sugar corporation announced that the second crop this year would be the last for the Wales estate and there would be no further grinding after this. Private cane farmers in the Wales, West Bank Demerara area will now have to find a cost-effective way to transport their cane to the Uitvlugt estate for grinding.
In an advertisement in the state-owned Guyana Chronicle yesterday, GuySuCo invited sealed bids for “infrastructural works for the transportation of cane to Uitvlugt”. It is also seeking bids for the erection of a tractor and trailer park, roadway and reinforced concrete flat bridges at Uitvlugt estate.
Full details and specifications can be found at its website at www.guysuco.com. A site visit has been arranged for Uitvlugt Estate tomorrow at 1.30 pm. Contractors are asked to assemble at the administration building of the Utivlugt estate.
The corporation in a separate advertisement is also inviting bids for the relocation of the cane gantry, cane scale, feeder table and auxiliary carrier from the Wales factory to the Uitvlugt factory.
In July, Finance Director of GuySuCo, Paul Bhim, told Stabroek News that the construction of an all-weather road in the Wales backlands would enable private farmers to transport cane to the Uitvlugt estate.
He said that the project which would be funded by GuySuCo would cost a “substantial sum.”
He added that the work should be completed before the start of the first crop next year. Some of the farmers who depend solely on cane cultivation were concerned that they would have to transport the cane to Uitvlugt via the West Demerara highway and said they were “barely making a profit” at Wales and would “run at a loss.”
They feared that the heavily-indebted GuySuCo would not have gone ahead with the project because it would cost millions of dollars.
They had told this newspaper that if they “make three trips per day to Wales, West Bank Demerara,” they “would only be able to make one trip to Uitvlugt” on the West Coast of Demerara.
Bhim told SN that 60% of the farmers hail from Canal No 1 Polder and that their fields are actually closer to the Uitvlugt estate than to the Wales factory.
He said the farmers prefer to move their cane there because it is easier to access.
He added that GuySuCo would have to take advantage of the dry period for the construction of the road.
He could not state the exact location of the road but knows that it would be built on the existing dirt tracks, close to the Boerasirie Conservancy.
Bhim had also revealed the relocation of the cane gantry from the Wales factory to the Uitvlugt estate, which does not have one. As such, he said, canes would no longer have to be taken out of trailers and placed at the receiving station at Uitvlugt.
