President Irfaan Ali yesterday confirmed that Paul Cheong is the new Chief Executive Officer of GuySuCo and he restated that 5,000 hectares of land at the Skeldon Estate will return to production.
Stressing that his government continues to work to build the sugar industry by modernizing the fields, Ali said, “5,000 hectares here in Skeldon we are going to put back into production, whilst we are doing that we will be opening up opportunities for more than 50,000 acres of new land so that we can have new land available for our farmers, we are investing in that.”
However, one GuySuCo worker present at the Crabwood Creek meeting yesterday told President Ali that there are some management issues within the estates itself. The worker who is attached to the Albion Estate told the President that while the government is making the necessary investments, managers at the estates are not seeing through the projects as they do not seem interested in rebuilding the industry.
The worker also spoke briefly of the way in which managers were treating staff – something that has been reportedly happening at the estates within the region.
As such, President Ali instructed Minis-ter of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha to have a meeting with GuySuCo workers within the region, as he told the worker that Cheong is the new CEO and would be a part of the meeting as well.
Mustapha noted that he would be meeting with workers before the end of the week.
Stabroek News had previously reported that accountant and businessman Cheong was tipped to head the corporation after President Ali in April announced that a new management team was set to take the helm at the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
Ali had made the announcement of a new management team during an interview with reporters at the Local Content Summit, the Department of Public Information (DPI) said.
According to DPI, the President outlined several upcoming changes at the corporation while affirming the government’s commitment to providing the necessary investments to revive the sector and bolster its role as a key contributor to Guyana’s economy.
