The chaos in the sugar sector under the APNU+AFC government might have been easily dismissed were it not for the fact that it has upturned the lives of thousands of former GuySuCo employees and the future of many more hangs in the balance.
What is transpiring in the sugar sector is not the manifestation of deep differences among policymakers attributable to robust disquisition and rigorous analyses of the way ahead in complex circumstances; it is a reflection of gross incompetence, misplaced ambitions and rudderless governance. President Granger and his Cabinet have not shown decisive leadership aside from the cruel ease with which around seven thousand workers were made redundant by the industry without any prospect of other jobs or retraining, and without the aid of a social safety net.
It was clear that when APNU+AFC assumed office in May 2015, it inherited a poisoned chalice at GuySuCo and faced the threat of the immediate shutdown of the industry if it wasn’t substantially bailed out. This was attributable to the PPP/C’s poor management of the industry and the disastrous Skeldon estate experiment. However, three years later, the APNU+AFC government has not brought any relief to the workers, there is no viable plan for the rationalised industry, and it is left to be seen if the four shuttered estates can attract investors who will keep them in play along with thousands of jobs. In the meanwhile, the bewildering gulf between GuySuCo and the state holding company, the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) continues to yield dissonance that can cost the country dearly.
The most serious of these is the contracting of a $30b bond for GuySuCo backed by the assets of the corporation and with costly payments becoming due already. NICIL’s Special Purpose Unit (SPU) which has been entrusted with overseeing the privatisation/divestment of the four estates was also the agent behind the mobilising of the bond deal. In August, the government announced the appointment of Harold Davis Jr as the new Chief Executive Officer and it became clear almost immediately that GuySuCo and the SPU had different views on the allocating of the monies and its utilisation.
The mobilising of the bond with onerous payments should have been preceded by a financial and business plan for the rejuvenation and reorientation of the three remaining estates and the privatisation of the shuttered four. No such plan was lined up and vetted by the government, a board of GuySuCo or even discussed with the unions and other stakeholders, the Economic Services Committee of Parliament and the Opposition. Furthermore, no clear line of authority for disbursement was inscribed. Inherent in this, is the prospect of the wastage of money and squabbling between the corporation and the SPU which have two entirely distinct purposes. This is the state of disorder that continues to characterise the industry. In the meanwhile, the workers made redundant continue to suffer and those remaining in the industry must be worried about their future. There needs to be an emergency decision by the President and Cabinet as to who is in effective charge of the bond financing and whether it has been matched to a viable plan. If not, taxpayers would have been saddled yet again with payments of principal and interest for aimless spending. Shouldn’t the monies have been immediately assigned to developing value-added and specialty sugars and lowering the cost of production by improving field husbandry? This doesn’t seem to have been the case and GuySuCo has made its dissatisfaction clear at the low disbursal of the bond financing.
The dispute between two factions/interests of the government has produced some of the most obscene manoeuvring that calls into question whether anyone is effectively in charge. One faction – the SPU and its allies – had the temerity to try to pilot its own board of GuySuCo and to accelerate the end of the existing board. A Cabinet document to this effect was improperly issued as there had been no sanctioning of it and had to be embarrassingly recalled.
Last week, the SPU mind-bogglingly tried to open a sports bar at what was formerly GuySuCo’s decrepit staff club at La Bonne Intention (LBI). This was thwarted by GuySuCo which restated its authority over the area. The SPU seemed completely oblivious to the vulgarity of opening a sports bar when thousands of former sugar workers were taking licks and awaiting their legal entitlement of full severance – shades of the 50% wage hike which senior members of cabinet awarded themselves in 2015. Hopefully this sports bar was not financed by the bond.
All of this confusion has been underpinned by the stark lack of direction by the government. It organised a Commission of Inquiry into the sugar industry only to immediately turn around and defy one of its key recommendations – not to shut any estate. It also led hundreds of Wales workers to believe that the estate would offer them myriad opportunities for agro-processing and aquaculture only for this to disintegrate into nothingness.
Despite having excellent knowledge of the state of the sugar industry while on the opposition benches, the APNU+AFC government has shown its unfitness to govern complex sectors like sugar. It has lurched from one inanity to the other and must now show decisive leadership. First, the families of laid off sugar workers must be given their full severance entitlement immediately. Second, the bond financing must be assigned to a properly vetted plan that has a clear vision for securing the future of the industry. Third, there must be intense lobbying of CARICOM Heads and the CARICOM Secretariat by Guyana and other sugar producers to ensure that all of the value-added sugar produced in the region is taken up intra-regionally. There is much work to be done.
