Dear Editor,
I read Tony Vieira’s letter (SN, July 9) titled, ‘Compa-rison with Iacocca and Bloomberg was nonsense,’ which was a response to my letter in SN of July 7. In that I made the argument that the CEO of a large company does not have to possess personal working experience of all their company’s operations. The CEO recruits talented people who have detailed knowledge of the particular division of the operations and places them in charge. I further cited Michael Bloomberg and Lee Iacocca who, I believe are good examples to validate my point. Iacocca said many times that he did not have detailed knowledge of many of the operations of his company, but he relied on the people in charge. Bloomberg said he often “begged and recruited” people to work for him – people who have expertise in various fields that he knew nothing about. He relied on people to help him run his company.
And, then came the part that sent Mr Vieira hitting the roof. I said Mr Raj Singh who was recently appointed executive chairman of GuySuCo, needs managerial talent – this means talent to run a large company with many diverse operations (ratoon cane v new planting, soil science, water management, factory operations, marketing, foreign exchange rates, knowledge of restructuring your operations in the event consumers find alternative sources of sweetening their coffee, how to deal with the boondoggle called ‘Skeldon,’ and the list goes on and on). And so Bloomberg and Iacocca hired bright and talented people as divisional managers, and relied on their advice. Just as Bloomberg and Iacocca did, Raj also can hire bright people with specialized knowledge to help run GuySuCo.
So what is wrong with anything in the above paragraph that is so repugnant it caused Mr Vieira to write: “This is the profoundest nonsense I have ever heard”? Mr Vieira then becomes mischievous by letting his imaginations run wild. He said: “[Neville Harricharran] propounds the ridiculous theory that Raj Singh is Guyana’s equivalent to Lee Iacocca and Michael Bloomberg.” I never said any such thing.
Let us go to some other issues. Sasenarine Singh and Tony Vieira have used the letter columns effectively to stir up public discussion on the sugar industry whose production has been in decline for several years now. We must praise them for their interest; after all tens of thousands of people depend on this industry for their livelihood. And, few things could be more important for the national economy than to save this industry – the need to appoint a Board and executive chairman that are capable of
producing a turnaround.
Why the steady and focused attack on Raj Singh? Both Messrs Sase Singh and Tony Vieira are associated with opposition parties and they attack what the government does. Their attack is not wholly without merit. But that is the ‘spoils system’ that Guyana has practised for the past 50 years. The party in power appoints its own people to senior positions. And very often these people are not qualified. Wouldn’t Messrs Sase Singh and Vieira sanction the same thing when their parties get into power? You win power and all the plum jobs go to your people; this system needs to be changed.
Let’s introduce another name for the moment: Ravi Dev. Have Guyanese been reading his columns on the sugar industry? He is a gutsy, articulate, out-of-the-box thinker. So shouldn’t he be considered for CEO of GuySuCo? It’s the old spoils system. Whether it was the PNC or PPP government this job would go to one of the members of the family.
Rajendra Singh has already been appointed. He has sat on the Board since 1987, and acted as chairman (not executive chairman) over the last two years, and will now take over as executive chairman, that is, he will be running the day-to-day operations of the corporation. His years on the Board, his years studying and working abroad, his exposure to corporate America and his abilities and work ethic should stand him in good stead to produce a badly needed turnaround for GuySuCo.
Yours faihfully,
Neville Haricharran
