The Guyana Sugar Cor-poration is yet to make full disclosure on the $600m which was used to rebuild the Albion Estate’s power house destroyed by a sudden fire in early February this year, despite calls from the country’s main opposition party for a commission of inquiry into same.
APNU+AFC MP Vinceroy Jordan early last month called for a Com-mission of Inquiry into the $600 million spent by the Ministry of Agriculture to rehabilitate the power house as he had expressed concerns about the expenditure, especially after GuySuCo initially estimated the repair cost for the control room at $50 million.
During a National Assembly sitting, the Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha had revealed that the actual repair costs amounted to $600 million.
Jordan also sought clarity on who will be held accountable for the apparent electrical fire as he believes that a Commis-sion of Inquiry would enable independent experts to investigate not only the cause of the fire but also the procurement process and the repair work itself.
Stabroek News had first reported that the fire caused major damage to the Albion Estate control room, reportedly leaving the factory with over $50 million in losses.
While estate officials had remained silent on the matter initially, Stabroek News was told that the fire, suspected to be electrical in origin, quickly spread throughout the control room before it was eventually put out.
In the process the fire destroyed or damaged a number of pieces of specialized equipment.
In order to ensure the Albion Estate stayed on course with the other estates countrywide, which were expected to commence grinding in the first week of March then, Stabroek News was told that emergency purchase of the equipment which was damaged would have to be carried out so as to return the control room to operation.
Sources had said that the estate would be unable to operate without the control room in working order.
Then Chief Executive Officer of GuySuCo, Sasenarine Singh, three days after the fire, on his Facebook page pledged to ensure that the control room at the Albion Sugar Estate was fixed promptly.
While on the official front GuySuCo had remained silent on the matter up to that point, Singh posted on social media that he spent the following day with engineers working on it.
He said, “Yes, it will be fixed and we shall grind earlier than they think.”
However, one day after Singh’s post GuySuCo in its first statement on the matter said that the preliminary report on the fire “revealed serious damage to crucial electrical infrastructure in the Power-house, including the 4 megawatts generating control panel, 2.5 megawatts generating control panels, 700 kilowatts low voltage cap set control panel, 3.3 kv interbus transformer, interbus transformer barker, a sections of the low voltage bus bar and several major section of the circuitry”.
GuySuCo said that at a minimum “large sections of the wiring have to be replaced along with the damaged panels, and all of the breakers, and other components, in order to return the factory to a state of readiness to grind sugar in the First Crop of 2024”.
They had said that they were in the process of concluding the needs assessment, and were working to procure the necessary replacement panels and other items. It said that it would provide further updates on the progress of the rebuilding.
According to GuySuCo, the fire at around 12:30 pm occurred in the lower section of the Power Plant at the Albion Sugar Factory.
Standard operating procedures within the factory were immediately set into motion and the Guyana Fire Service was contacted. The response from the Guyana Fire Service was almost immediate from the Rose Hall Town Fire Station, resulting in the containment of the blaze within two hours, the statement said.
The Corporation expressed its gratitude to the Internal Fire Team and the Guyana Fire Service for their swift action.
“The Corporation would like to take this opportunity to assure the sugar workers, factory workers, all other employees and the country that it will work without fail to rebuild and repair the Albion Sugar Factory as soon as possible. From the Occupation-al, Health and Safety Report, there were no injuries and the superstructure of the Power House was not compromised and remains a safe working environment. The Fire Service has since concluded their investigation and issued the certificate to return to the building”, the statement added.
