The government yesterday announced plans to “scale down” the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) to three estates with three factories that would produce sugar for domestic needs and foreign markets, while divesting the company’s remaining assets, including the troubled Skeldon Estate.
Reading from the ‘State Paper on the Future of the Sugar Industry,’ Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder told the National Assembly that under the plan, GuySuCo would aim to produce 147,000 tonnes of sugar annually from the Albion-Rose Hall, Blairmont and Uitvlugt-Wales estates. He noted that the Enmore factory will be closed at the end of 2017 when all cane would be harvested and the East Coast estates would be earmarked for diversification.
Holder presented the paper to the House even as workers from the Wales estate and their families protested in front of the National Assembly to press their demands for severance payments.