Opposition wants to have say on state boards membership

-GuySuCo a good place to start, says Trotman

Under the new reality of a minority government, the opposition parties believe that there should be widespread consultations on the constitution of state boards, including that of sugar corporation GuySuCo.

Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy recently announced that a new GuySuCo Board is expected to be appointed shortly but officials from APNU and the AFC have lamented that they have not been consulted on its composition as yet.

Leslie Ramsammy

“There should be a difference because the majority of people have spoken on November 28,” APNU leader David Granger told Stabroek News recently. Granger said that things appeared to be going the same old way and added that this is not a good sign. “There has been no consultation on anything. I certainly have not been consulted,” he said.

Granger explained that the administration ought to realize that the situation is different now and that it cannot proceed in a manner of one party rule.  “Governance has entered a new era. We are not going back to the way it was under [former president Bharrat] Jagdeo,” he said.

AFC Leader Raphael Trotman said that under the new dispensation his party expects that the government would invite the opposition and civil society to nominate persons to serve on Commissions, Committees and Boards—including GuySuCo.

He noted that this was the practice “following the Bharrat Jagdeo/Desmond Hoyte détente that came in wake of the 2001 elections and which was honoured in the Jagdeo/Robert Corbin engagements afterwards.”

“The GuySuCo board is no exception and is an excellent place to start because of its national importance as none of us desire to see the industry collapse,” Trotman said. “This is a good way to ease post-elections tensions; to build trust, and confidence, and foster better inter-party and government/opposition relations,” he added.

At a recent press briefing, Ramsammy indicated that the board’s constitution is currently being discussed by Cabinet, while indicating that there are a number of names that are being thrown around.  He indicated though that there is “a very high probability” that the workers would be represented on the GuySuCo board.

Raphael Trotman

When contacted, President of GAWU Komal Chand said that the union had been told that a new board would be constituted shortly and that an attempt was being made to find suitable candidates who possessed the necessary agricultural and accounting skills.

Describing the process as still in its early days, Chand said that the authorities indicated that they would further discuss the matter with union representatives and may invite one of them to sit on the board.

The last GuySuCo board was convened in January 2009 and was chaired by Dr Nanda Gopaul, the then Permanent Secretary within Office of the President. Gopaul was recently appointed as the Minister of Labour. The other board members were Geeta Singh-Knight; Keith Burrowes; Dr Rajendra Singh; Donald Ramotar and Jangbahadur Raghurai. Errol Hanoman was then appointed as the Chief Executive Officer. Hanoman resigned in June 2010 and was replaced by Paul Bhim.

When the most recent board was constituted, it led to the end of the longstanding Booker-Tate management contract.

The board was then tasked with presenting a “blueprint for success” to lift the country’s key foreign exchange earner out of a production slump.

However, the blueprint is still to be fully implemented even as GuySuCo continues to struggle to meet its annual production targets.