Dear Editor,
Last week (Feb 17, 2022), SN reported `Guysons in US$60m joint venture for oilfield manufacturing – Enmore sugar packaging plant to be transformed as part of deal’. There was also a report in KN.
This is a big surprise. The nation needs to know all the terms and conditions of this deal. We demand full disclosure and the related documents should be made public. The Opposition should file questions in parliament including who are the beneficial owners and directors of the companies involved. What was the sale price?
A report said the government has agreed to grant some 55 acres of lands located at Enmore on the East Coast of Demerara to a 52% Guyanese owned joint venture called Guysons K+B Industries Inc. (GKB). GKB is made up of Guysons Engineering, a Guyanese company, and K+B Industries Inc., its American partner. The 55-acre plot includes the US$12.5M Enmore Packaging Plant that was commissioned in 2011 by this same administration and it will be used by the joint venture to build a manufacturing facility to support Guyana’s emerging oil and gas sector. The Government had said it would avoid the “Dutch disease” by not shortchanging the non-oil sector. Now the Government is doing exactly the opposite in this deal. The new manufacturing facility at Enmore will be set up to manufacture and repair tubular goods such as drill pipes, drill covers, etc., needed by oil companies to develop oil fields. So, what happens to the plan for revival and rescue of sugar in which the packaging plant was a key strategy?
As it relates to the arrangement between the government and GKB for the lands and the US$12.5M packaging plant owned by the Guyana Sugar Corporation, GKB’s Chief Executive Office, Faizal Khan highlighted that the lands it is acquiring are “sugar lands,” which will have to be developed in order to become a standard facility. “We will have to do some land filling, land clearing, probably install some streetlights and so on before we can start up the facility,” explained Khan.
Minister Singh reportedly said the granting of the lands to GKB was not by accident since it took place via discussions at the level of the president to invest in Enmore. The reason behind the decision, he added, is to create 500 jobs over a five-year period, especially for those who were laid off after the Enmore Sugar Estate was closed.
However, in a Globespan interview on Feb. 8, 2022, it was reported that “Guysuco will not be a burden on the Guyana Govt forever – CEO.” Guysuco’s CEO said, “When I arrived, 64 per cent of our sugar was being sold on the world market which is a price between US$320 to US$380. Today, 64 per cent of that sugar is being sold in the package and bag sugar market at double that value. We had to reengineer the revenue stream and the revenue had to be fixed and that was fixed last year,” he explained. Packaged sugar was to be a key strategy to rescue Guysuco.
So on Feb 8, the Guysuco CEO is saying that packaged sugar is making profits to help turn around their profitability and by Feb. 16, the President and Minister are announcing the divestment of the packaging plant. Can somebody please explain this sudden turn of events? Was this deal taken to parliament? Should we allow any Government to do whatever it wants with national resources without taking deals to parliament? Isn’t that what caused us to give away our oil and gas resources and we are now pauperized and are “tenants in our own country?”
Did the Guysuco CEO know they were going to pull the rug from under his feet, or was he as surprised as the rest of the nation? And our friends in GAWU, whose head sits as a PPP/C Member of Parliament serving two masters, apparently was not consulted. A news report of Feb. 18 said, “Following the recent announcement that the Enmore packaging plant will be utilized towards the oil and gas sector, sugar union GAWU says it wrote Guysuco yesterday seeking clarification…Through our correspondence, we have sought, among other things, to address the employment of the 30-odd workers currently employed in the plant. “We have seen, from media reports, that Guysuco plans to operate the plant through some alternative arrangements. We, at this time, are seeking to learn of these arrangements and what the next steps will envisage. The GAWU is aware that the Company continues to utilize the plant as it repositions itself as a value-added sugar producer,” the union said in a release today.
Nation, we must have eternal vigilance. We cannot allow any Government to divest national assets just like that. It’s “Our Wealth, Our Country.” Wake up Guyana!
Sincerely,
Dr. Jerry Jailall
