President Irfaan Ali yesterday hailed the resumption of sugar production at the Rose Hall Estate while announcing that GuySuCo has surpassed last year’s production total.
He stressed that the government will be ensure that no effort is spared in making the sugar industry viable, sustainable and resilient for Guyana long into the future.
The President during his outreach to Region Six yesterday declared, “Before the setting of the sun today we will surpass our last year’s production”, adding that he has warned the CEO of GuySuCo, Sasenarine Singh that if the target is not met his “neck is on the line.”
Sources yesterday told the Sunday Stabroek that GuySuCo so far has produced over 47,270 tonnes of sugar for the year 2023. For all of 2022 sugar production was just under 47,000 tonnes from three estates: Uitvlugt, Blairmont and Albion. The low figure is a reflection of the parlous state of the industry.
While sugar output has now gone past last year’s figure, no direct comparison can be made as in addition to the three estates in production last year, Rose Hall has been grinding sugar over the last month and adding to this year’s total.
GuySuCo was unable to achieve its 2022 second crop target of 40,255 metric tonnes of sugar. Production figures which were seen by this newspaper in mid-December 2022, indicated that it fell short of its target by 6,585 metric tonnes. The second crop production figure stood at 33,770 metric tonnes. Its first crop figure was 13,067 tonnes out of a target of 20, 261 tonnes.
Ali who toured the Rose Hall Estate yesterday during his outreach to Region Six said, “Today we celebrate the reopening of the Rose Hall Estate, as I speak to you we are developing most of 4,000 hectares of land at Canje with canes for processing at the Rose Hall factory. Since 2021, approximately 2150 hectares of land is in cane.”
Reopening of the Rose Hall, Skeldon and East Demerara estates had been a major PPP/C campaign promise.
“We are together in this, this was no easy task to rebuild”, Ali stated while reminding me that machinery and equipment were left to rot at the estate following the closure, while cane fields were left to become forests.
“Punts that we spent billions of dollars left in the fields to rot, once beautiful cane fields converted into forest… One of the areas we have not performed well in as a government is telling the story of what we inherited because we are busy advancing the work of the people in the government”, the President stated
He said, “The greatest honour belongs to you, the honour of this reopened factory today belongs entirely to you. We are only your humble servants whom you entrusted to bring it back to you and we are pleased today to report that your humble servants who you entrusted in 2020 to return this, your asset to you and delivered back your asset to you today.”
While output has resumed at Rose Hall and hundreds have been re-employed questions such as the cost of production of sugar and the quality of canes in the field also have to be addressed.
The President then urged, “This is the time to stand solidly together as workers and management in unity only for one objective that is the viability and survival of sugar. There must be no other objective other than the sustainability and viability of sugar and once that remains our focus we shall not fail; we shall not fail.”
The President noted that since 2021 some 1200 workers have been rehired at the Rose Hall Estate, “1200 families resurrected from the monstrous hands of darkness and poverty back to life, that is the difference between the naysayers and the doers.”
Thanking the workers and the union for their role, Ali said that there is still greater work ahead as “40% of this 1480 hectares of land today remain with overgrown bush, more like forest, that we have to find money to clear, reorganize, and put back into production.”
He stressed, that there is only one way to see the productive potential of the country’s people “and that is if we put all the factors of production at work and an important factor of production is land, you can’t put the people to work if you don’t put the land to work and today we are investing to put the land back to work so the people can get back to work.”
In a speech centred around the workers and their families, President Ali gave the assurance that “together we are on a task of rebuilding, there shall be no turning back of the clock of rebuilding under any People’s Progressive Party” government.
He then stated that they will also be investing in the training of workers, along with investing in improved conditions of workers “that we will be first to acknowledge that you will get better and we will do everything to ensure that you get better. We will not neglect you but you must also be aware that together we have to ensure that this industry also get better.”
He stressed, that people must understand the importance of sugar in the life of villages and the life of Guyana, “our sugar workers are valuable to us.”
Furthermore, he said, as this period of Guyana’s development is being navigated, “I assure you that we are building a foundation for 2030 and beyond that will bring enormous prosperity for every single family, to every single worker.”
He urged, “Let us bind ourselves together under the umbrella of progress.”
