President Donald Ramotar is hoping a new GuySuCo board would be installed in a month’s time.
“We are gonna make some changes at the leadership level. I hope—I can’t be absolutely sure—but I hope in a month’s time everything will be in place,” Ramotar told Stabroek News at Freedom House yesterday.
When asked if the board and management will have familiar faces, he replied, “I haven’t totally decided as yet because I have to decide with the new people that I am going to put inside.”
Ramotar reiterated that the current Chairman of the Board Raj Singh will be kept on albeit in a new position. “He will be there but his functions will change,” he said.
Singh has long been floated as the candidate to be the troubled corporation’s new Executive Chairman. This likely appointment has been sharply opposed by the opposition and other groups.
Ramotar said too that while there have been many criticisms of the current Chairman of the Board, it was not unlikely that a new chairman would not receive the same amount of criticism.
While Ramotar has stated that a review of the board and switch up was needed and proposed a deadline, he did not indicate that he has contemplated thoroughly how to actually go about reorganising the board. He did reveal that the five-year strategic plan from 2013 to 2017 is in its draft phase and that at the next board meeting the plan will be reviewed.
Ramotar, however, brushed off the importance of the plan, stating that it could not do anything about the weather which is currently affecting the second crop harvest.
It was only in June that any mention of a new plan was made during the signing of the 2012 Financing Agreement for the Guyana Annual Action Programme on Accompanying Measures for Sugar Protocol Countries with the European Union. The agreement was signed with a condition that land conversion was going to be a necessary component to receiving over $6.5 billion in funding from the EU to assist the struggling sugar industry.
The second crop target is 192,000 tonnes to make up this year’s 240,000 tonnes target and while it seems unlikely that the corporation will meet it, there has yet to be any official word from GuySuCo in relation to adjusting the figure. The first crop was a dismal 48,000 tonnes, which was a far cry from the 71,000 tonnes target.
The second crop harvest was supposed to have started in late June, but did not officially commence until the first week of July at Albion and later on Rose Hall. The troubled Skeldon factory, which had been advertised to start grinding for the second crop on August 5, is yet to begin.
Stabroek News had been told that Sunday was the new target if the weather permitted, however up to yesterday Skeldon remained at a standstill.
Stabroek News visited Skeldon estate last Thursday and it was noted that the rains had rendered work impossible. Not only was mechanical harvesting out of the question but for over four weeks Skeldon’s manual component, over 240 cane harvesters, were being shuttled to the Blairmont estate. Skeldon was meant to be the centre piece of a reform plan for higher sugar production but it has so far failed disastrously.
