Dear Editor,
Let’s get something straight: tough financial decisions have to be made. I support the government in making those decisions with respect to GuySuCo. Wales estate may be a dismal performer in need of closure according to the financial metrics. The issue here is the horrendous timing of the decision and the inconsistency with its own Commission of Inquiry (CoI), which recommended no closure of any floundering estates due to the present dire economic climate. At page 30 of the CoI’s report, the Commissioners boldly rejected closure of the Demerara estates. Eight opposed while two favoured such closure. That the government rejected its own hired experts and is now closing the estate fuels the internecine claims that will flow from this decision. It is astonishing to close a major estate during a national economic slowdown.
The second issue is this decision stands to devastate an indigenous private cane-farming sector operating in Wales. Frankly, that is the bigger concern. The Report of the CoI at pages 29 and 30 endorsed more private cane farming and noted Wales as playing a significant role in this respect. It noted the Wales private cane farmers had made significant financial investments, needed the factory open to process and sell their products over a three-year cycle, as well as saying they were interested in leasing all of the estate’s lands to expand their private cane farms. Unequivocally, there is a group of private investors (cane farmers) in Wales who are prepared to engage in cane farming on such a large scale that it warrants consideration of keeping the Wales estate and factory open. Plus, they are skilled, know the terrain and have existing relationships with the community. They are already working the land and planting cane. Naturally, if these farmers lease the estate’s lands, they would take over and be responsible for all of the ailments GuySuCo is running from (drainage, irrigation, roads, bridges, etc). The Report states they were willing to do so by assuming leases. Even if GuySuCo leases its land to these private Guyanese farmers, it could still retain operation of the factory to service the farmers or even sell the factory to the farmers. It is likely GuySuCo would have made a profit operating just the factory and effectively becoming only a miller, not a planter, at Wales.
These private Guyanese cane farmers are exactly the sort of indigenous, local entrepreneurial group any national entity like GuySuCo looking to privatize should sell or lease its assets to. National interest, not partisan political gimmickry or shallow financial short-sightedness, compels the government to consider this particular group before any other, because this group represents indigenous capitalists and entrepreneurs, not a foreign entity that will ship most of its profits offshore. This is a group that was privately farming cane even as the industry was reeling in turmoil and world prices had stagnated for years. With this decision that effectively freezes the land at Wales for likely a protracted period (given the tone of the press release), a fledgling group of entrepreneurs is shut out, and private cane farming at Wales with likely be killed, if the increased transportation cost of shipping cane from Wales to Uitvlugt hasn’t already done so.
For a government that is already gung-ho about impending oil wealth, isn’t it parlous to take this step at this moment of economic difficulty when it could wait for the promised gushing oil revenues to expedite the much-need reform of the sugar industry by spending those revenues to better soften the inevitable blow? Certainly, the economic heavyweights advising the government would know that the wider national and societal cost of this decision (primarily social and economic) in the current circumstances will far outstrip the immediate savings to the beleaguered sugar corporation. There is no point making the entire hospital sick in trying to heal one patient.
This decision is going to create push factors for flight by many dependent on the estate, as well as among the private cane farmers, who happen to be primarily
opposition supporters. This appears to be as traumatic as the closure of the Diamond estate, which left workers fighting the government for their severance. However, Diamond was closed at a time when the nation’s economy was in far better shape and better employment opportunities existed in the vicinity. This was a grand opportunity for this government to invest in private entrepreneurs by giving them the opportunity to shine and expand in creating jobs and most importantly, by fostering indigenous wealth creation. If they fail, then hand it to someone else. But give them the chance first. This is the same condemnatory stance the PPP took with the bauxite workers by refusing to offer them a chance of buying out the failed nationalized bauxite entity and instead selling to a foreign mega-corporation.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
