The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) yesterday said that all three of its grinding estates surpassed their weekly production targets for the week ending September 2, 2023.
In a statement, GuySuCo said that this production performance comes on the heels of both the Blairmont and Albion/Port Mourant estates surpassing their weekly targets during the 2nd and 3rd weeks simultaneously of the crop, while Uitvlugt is outdoing its target for the first time in this 2nd Crop of 2023.
The 2nd Crop of 2023 is in its seventh week of production and GuySuCo said that it is evident that the respective teams on the estates have capitalized on a number of strategies to boost workers’ turnout. These strategies, it said, included visiting the villages close to the estates to encourage former workers to return to the industry and help those who continue to work in utilizing the over $3 billion in new equipment bought by the Government of Guyana to support the field and factory operations.
“These operational interventions, coupled with good weather played a major role in the production performance this past week. This good news continues to boost the morale of all employees, since in addition to an average payout of over $28,000 for this week to the cane harvesters, workers will secure additional remuneration through the weekly performance incentive”, the statement said.
The Estate Managers attributed the performance to the improved efficiencies of the workers, coupled with the good weather that is supporting the mechanical harvesting programme.
The Executive Management urged all current and former sugar workers to turn out every week to utilize the dry period to increase their earnings, recognizing that the industry had above average rainfalls for more than one year between November 2020 to January 2023.
Management also called on workers to remain focused and not be distracted by those who have an agenda of deception to keep them out of the sugar industry with their misguided messages.
Over the last week, workers from the Albion and Blairmont estates have been on strike over a reported plan to have them return to the Rose Hall estate.
The statement said that the Executive Management continues to engage with the unions to ensure all eligible workers are treated fairly in accordance with the rule of law and the collective labour agreement.
“The doors remain wide open to all current and former sugar workers to return to work and harvest the bounty of the fields and factories for their families from an industry 100% owned by the people of Guyana as we all advance to the mission of adding a fourth estate to the production process later in September 2023 at Rose Hall Estate in Canje”, the statement added.
