Forging ahead with its plan to relocate the Enmore Packaging Plant, the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) has advertised for the construction of a building to house it at the Albion Estate in Berbice.
In an advertisement in yesterday’s Guyana Chronicle, the sugar corporation invited qualified companies to submit bids for the construction of the building to house the packaging plant.
The plan to lease the building housing the packaging plant to an oil and gas enterprise has prompted questions about the fate of the East Demerara sugar estate and the decision-making of the government and GuySuCo. There had been no prior notification to the public that the building housing the plant would be transformed into a machining shop and major stakeholders such as the sugar union, GAWU were caught by surprise.
According to the advertisement, bids must be deposited at the tender box at the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board, Ministry of Finance at Main and Urquhart streets, George-town by 9 am on May 10.
Procurement documents can be accessed from the company’s websites www.guysuco.com or epr.guysuco.com. Interested bidders can also purchase the tender document from GuySuCo’s Head Office at La Bonne Intention Estate.
According to the tender document, there will be two compulsory site meetings on March 21 and April 11 at 10.30 am.
The bids should be addressed to the Head of the Procurement and Con-tract Management Department, Guyana Sugar Corporation LBI Estate, La Bonne Intention, East Coast Demerara, Guyana.
Following the signing of a deal between local mechanical manufacturer, Guysons and its United States partner, equipment manufacturer K&B Indus-tries, and government, the public learnt that the packaging plant would be relocated.
Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha had previously told Stabroek News that the deal does not “interfere with the estate.”
“…This [deal] is with the packaging plant and we were thinking to relocate it to Albion because Albion is the premier estate grinding sugar… I don’t know why people blowing the thing out of proportion… Whatsoever was there [East Demerara Estate] remain in place we didn’t interfere with nothing else,” he told this newspaper.
When asked if moving the packaging plant machinery will be problematic, the Minister responded in the negative saying that all components can be taken apart and reassembled. It is yet unclear who will be taking apart the plant and reassembling it.
GuySuCo’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sasenarine Singh had previously stated that from this year the corporation will be focused on producing value-added products for its domestic and international markets.
The Enmore packaging plant had been built in 2011 at a cost of US$12 million with part-financing from the European Union. It had been played up as a money spinner and a lifeline for the industry.
