The Guyana Sugar Cor-poration (GuySuCo) yesterday denied that there was any conflict of interest involving its new Chief Executive Officer Paul Cheong, stating that he gave up private cane farming interests since 2019.
Adamant that sugar here can be revitalised, the corporation said that it was setting the record straight as it related to a number of criticisms levelled by former board executive Anthony Vieira.
“To set the record straight, the corporation wishes to inform that the last time Mr Cheong transacted business as a private cane farmer with GuySuCo was 1st Crop 2019. Additionally, ever since accepting his current position as CEO of GuySuCo, Mr Cheong has officially relinquished his personal business relationships with the corporation,” GuySuCo said in a statement. “The facts therefore reveal that Mr Vieira’s contentions are again baseless and wholly mischievous.”
Vieira, a board member at GuySuCo from 2020-2023, this week expressed that he does not see sugar making a comeback here and current efforts at revitalization are futile.
And given that Guysuco’s new CEO had said that he was a cane farmer and had requisite knowledge on the industry, thus believing he could make a positive impact, Vieira said not only did he doubt Cheong’s capabilities, but that he was in a conflict of interest position.
“As a cane farmer delivering cane to Uitvlugt estate, I consider him to be not only incapable of performing as CEO, especially since his back-up staff in the corporation is at best poor, but he has placed himself in a conflict of interest situation, since he is the CEO of a company to which he is also delivering cane,” Vieira stated in a letter to the editor last Wednesday.
Vieira contended that incompetence over the years has led to GuySuCo sinking financially and becoming dependent on subsidies from the government.
He disputed where Albion’s crop was in 2021 from what GuySuCo said was caused by flooding in 2020, contending that the improper drainage stemmed from GuySuCo not checking the drainage pumps, many of which were not functional at the time.
“I must give evidence why such a very complex corporation can be destroyed very quickly when manned by these incompetent political hacks the PPP keeps putting in charge of our national business. My example is that in 2021 from the 15th of May to the 12th of June only a total of 25.3 inches [642.4 mm] of rain fell at Albion/Port Mourant. This was not an exorbitant amount of rainfall by any yardstick for Albion’s designed drainage system. In Guyana, to drain our rainy seasons since Dutch times, the entire country’s drainage system was designed to remove 1.5 inches of precipitation every 24 hours in agricultural areas and 2 inches in the housing areas. Using those criteria in the period 15th May to 12th June, if the Albion drainage system was working properly, the estate could have removed [29 days @ 1.5 inches/day] 43 inches [1092.2 mms] of rainfall,” he contended.
“When I, as chairman of the operations committee, investigated how there could have been a flood of the entire Albion cultivation for two months, literally destroying the entire cultivation, with so small an amount of rainfall, I discovered that of the 11 huge 3-foot diameter drainage pumps Albion/Port Mourant has to drain its cultivation, only 6 were working… I also discovered that the ‘technical team’ of GuySuCo report, submitted to the MOA and the President, led in the end, to the President [wrongly and publicly] arguing with the head of the GAWU union in a confrontation at the Enmore Martyrs’ Ceremony… That flood was not a natural disaster, it was caused by incompetence and neglect,” he added.
Blazing the government for appointing “a CEO who never worked in sugar or clearly in any major corporation before” to lead the corporation from 2020, he said that was the reason for “the almost complete destruction of the Albion cultivation.”
With decades of insight into the sugar industry, Vieira posited, “Throwing money at GuySuCo is fuelling more corruption and incompetence, not reviving that dead corporation.”
GuySuCo fired back: “Regarding the writer’s recount of events surrounding the flood of 2020 which destroyed much of Albion’s cultivation, a comprehensive investigation has since been undertaken and results show that in that year we experienced 74 percent more rainfall than was anticipated,
insomuch that the authorities declared the weather conditions a Category Two natural disaster. Notwithstanding these findings, the writer continues to put forward his own flawed imaginations on the matter, perhaps in his bid to establish credibility on matters pertaining to sugar and the sugar industry in Guyana. “
Vieira’s criticisms are not in isolation as the opposition and many other persons have been saying to input heavily into a sector that for years has not been able to sustain itself is foolish.
“In my econometrics class by Wall Street experts, I was told to hold one variable constant and to examine or change the other variables based on empirical evidence to predict the future or present-day expectations. As such Guyana (GuySuCo) can never produce raw sugar at 18 cents per pound now or never, Paul. I support no party, so I speak freely, blaming no one! I used the current budget request and what was spent the past 3 years, a ridiculous sum,” letter writer Everton Morris posited on Friday.
“Every year, we throw good money for bad sugar outcomes. Why pay sugar workers’ wages when they can be paid for the D&I and privatise the sugar industry? Guyana’s needs today for sugar are perhaps two estates to satisfy the local market with sugar and molasses. The export market is dead, we are losing money. We will never be able to bring the price of production to 18 cents in the next 10 years. Our cost of production is too high, I did some computer modelling using (C++ and AI). We are wasting our money, but we have no say,” he reasoned.
Morris said that dreams of mechanisation here for the industry was “wishful thinking. …This is not sweet, it is sour. The amount of money it will take to resurrect the sugar industry will suck a sizable percentage of our country’s wealth over the next 10 years. We are producing sugar at over 40 cents a pound the rest of the world is selling for 18 cents – ask our neighbour Brazil.” He contended that this country needed alternatives.
In Parliament last week, Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha provided written responses to a series of questions posed by APNU+AFC MP Vinceroy Jordan on GuySuCo. Mustapha also provided figures for this year’s dismal first crop. The total of 6,738.9 tonnes was the lowest in the corporation’s history.
Vieira said that he noted the “telling questions in Parliament” but believed the responses from the PPP was “quite unacceptable.”
Saying that Vieira has “mischievous objectives” GuySuCo stated that it “stands firm with the Government of Guyana and all likeminded stakeholders in working towards the revitalization of the sugar industry.”
