The life of the board of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) has been extended to December 31 to support the new governance structure government implemented at the entity, according to Minister of Agriculture Dr Leslie Ramsammy.
“We want to ensure that the board is providing some insight into those changes before we appoint the new board,” the minister said. Currently, government is reviewing changes at all levels of management, including the chief executive officer (CEO) and the deputy CEO. The latter post is also vacant as Rajaindra Singh’s contract was not renewed, a report from the Government Information Agency (GINA) said. (Singh is sometimes confused in media reports with the Chairman Rajendra Singh)
“I want to make it clear that the former Deputy CEO is not fired, in creating room for changes in this restructuring Mr. Raj Singh had moved… Mr. Raj Singh’s contract was not renewed with GuySuCo, this is a voluntary action that we had agreed on, we have created room that a new person would occupy that position as early as January and that would create room for shifting people around in GuySuCo, and it might also mean that other people will come into that management structure,” he said. Former Deputy CEO Singh has assumed the Deputy CEO position at the National Agriculture Research and Extension Institute.
Ramsammy also said that while Paul Bhim is still currently the CEO of the sugar company, he may or may not retain the said position after more changes are made to the management structure. The ministry recently announced that Indian sugar experts have been added to the industry; one of whom has been deployed to the Enmore estate.
“I see in some sections of the media, it is being presented that this person has come to get the packaging plant going, that is absolutely not so. This person is to provide general support to overall management at the sugar estate at Enmore,” Ramsammy said, adding that the packaging plant is ‘working fine.’ The minister also said that the “under-performance by the plant is a business decision taken, to go with the bulk sugar market, rather than with packaged sugar.”
“I do not know what more I need to say to people, but the underproduction by the packaging plant has nothing to do with it under performing. That underproduction has to do with the fact that most of the sugar produced at Enmore and other estates are being sold as bulk sugar, and therefore, we have not yet allowed the amount of sugar for packaging that we have a capacity to produce,” he said.
Further, the minister said, this year the combined total from Blairmont and Enmore would be about 20,000 tonnes of packaged sugar.
“We have a capacity between Blairmont and Enmore of producing 50,000 tonnes, and we have not asked the two processing plants to produce at that level because our bulk sugar provides us with instant payment…so it is a cash flow issue why we are taking that road, the packaged sugar waits several months after we have delivered before we get payment,” he explained. Ramsammy also said that there may be a change in this business plan next year.
