One of the more memorable takedowns of vulgar revisionism came from the pen of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in the The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956: “We forget everything. What we remember is not what actually happened, not history, but merely that hackneyed dotted line they have chosen to drive into our memories by incessant hammering.”
That “incessant hammering” is apparently what some of the people hired by the government would like to employ in relation to the Skeldon Sugar Estate disaster and the tarnish it caused to the image of former President and now Vice-President Jagdeo.
How else could one explain the drivel that was issued on October 30 under the names of financial analyst Joel Bhagwandin and constitutional adviser in the Office of the President, Dr Randy Persaud? In true Eureka style they made the stupendous revelation that it wasn’t the PPP/C government to blame for the Skeldon sugar estate fiasco but its bête noire, APNU+AFC and Booker Tate which had managed the industry.
Said the duo: “For more than a decade, many letter writers and the political opposition have cast the blame on the PPP/C Government for failure of the Skeldon factory project and by extension the entire industry. However, recent research by reputable individuals into the historical facts on this subject, and our findings, show a very different picture. In fact, it was Booker Tate and the APNU/AFC government that were ultimately responsible for the dire situation of the Skeldon project and by extension, the sugar industry”.
To be even taken seriously one would have expected Messrs Bhagwandin and Persaud to provide some of the research done and to identify the researchers but none was forthcoming. Instead they casually alleged that Booker Tate was delinquent in the performance of its duties. What is at least known about Booker Tate is that its management revived the industry from the calamitous state that it had been left in under the PNC and presided over a massive increase in production. The sharp decline that followed is also tied to the departure of Booker Tate from its management contract.
Back to Messrs Bhagwandin and Persaud. They then provided a sequence of events to make their case:
In 2000, GuySuCo approached Booker Tate for assistance with sugar industry development; Booker Tate then conducted (a) feasibility study, from which the Skeldon sugar factor project was birthed.
In 2004, GuySuCo entered into a written agreement with Booker Tate for the provision of Project Management Services in respect of the implementation phase of the Skeldon Modernization Project.
In 2005, GuySuCo begins construction of a new sugar cane factory and electricity cogeneration plant at Skeldon Sugar Estate, and in 2008, the factory was commissioned.
They then went on to say that the relationship between GuySuCo and Booker Tate deteriorated due to sub-standard performance by Booker Tate in their oversight role of the Skeldon Project.
Aside from the fact that the timeline ignores important players such as the Chinese contractor CNTIC, the authors failed to highlight that the Skeldon Sugar Modernisation Project was the brainchild of then President Jagdeo. It was well known that then President Jagdeo took a direct interest in the project which he hoped would have led the revival of the industry which had arrived at veritable crossroads with the upending of the EU Sugar Protocol and internal restructuring of the EU sugar market. Not even Mr Jagdeo blamed APNU+AFC and that would have been a monumental undertaking as the PPP/C had been in charge of the industry from 1992 to 2015 by which time the colossal failure of the Skeldon project had already materialised.
Not only had Mr Jagdeo taken a direct interest in the project but the then General Secretary of the PPP, Donald Ramotar had sat on the board of GuySuCo from 1992 until 2011 when he succeeded Mr Jagdeo as President. The PPP was definitely in the wheelhouse of all the decision-making in connection with the project.
The real truth of the matter resided in the selection of CNTIC to build a factory that it had no experience with. That has a familiar ring to it and several complaints have now been lodged with the Public Procurement Commission over inexperienced companies – selected again under the PPP/C government – building pump stations etc. The CNTIC factory was commissioned in 2009 at a cost of around US$187m and failed from the start. It led Mr Jagdeo to warn in October, 2010 that if the factory failed then “sugar was dead”. He vowed to take a hands-on approach. “So even if it means personally I have to get involved, I will get involved to ensure that it is fixed…that it’s delivering the kind of results that it should deliver so that we can safeguard the sugar industry.”
Unfortunately, his interventions were to no avail and the disastrous Skeldon factory drained GuySuCo of money and resolve. The factory’s annual projected output of 116,000 tonnes of sugar was never met despite costly remedial interventions by a South African firm. Its highest annual output of 39,153 tonnes was achieved ironically in 2015, the year APNU+AFC took office.
It got nowhere near to its intended grinding figure of 350 tonnes of cane per hour and the situation persisted until the factory was shut at the end of 2017 preparatory to divestment/privatisation.
The Skeldon factory also had a high cost of production of sugar – around US 40 cents per pound – far higher than world market prices at a time when Guyana had lost access to preferentially priced markets.
The Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into sugar that had been convened by the Granger administration in 2015 reported the following: “From the commencement of the Skeldon project in 2005, when GuySuCo had to initially contribute US$25m from its EU (European Union) receivables over a period of (18) months commencing in 2005, the corporation’s liquidity declined rapidly. As a consequence, GuySuCo became heavily dependent on bank overdrafts, and extended credit periods to maintain the operations of the business. This was the start of the decline of GuySuCo’s financial position leading to its present state of insolvency”.
The CoI said that GuySuCo’s expenditure on the Skeldon factory to the tune of US$72m, the slide in the EU price and the drop in sugar production resulted in reliance on expensive overdrafts for working capital, delays in meeting creditor’s payments resulting in creditors refusing to supply or demanding payments in advance, minimal capital expenditure on the business, late purchasing of critical inputs leading to late fertilising and application of chemicals, significant loss of revenues and dependency on the Government for bailouts. Furthermore, the report said that US$7m had to be spent on corrective work on the factory. This financial impact had a debilitating effect as essential work could not be done on the other sugar estates, the report found.
The machinations of Messrs Bhagwandin and Persaud are further exposed in the fact that their letter never once mentioned Mr Jagdeo despite the pivotal role he played in the entire process. With Mr Jagdeo currently entrusted with major policy initiatives connected to the massive planned gas to power project, there is an earnest campaign underway to astringently rid him of any connection to what must be the largest failure in the CARICOM public sector lest it undermine his standing. Messrs Bhagwandin and Persaud could no doubt better employ their energies to help ensure that the gas to power project doesn’t become the biggest failed public sector project in CARICOM. a
