Dear Editor,
Sugar output in Guyana fell by more than one-eighth over 2019, as one of CARICOM’s largest sugar-producing nations witnesses its sugar industry collapsing. The State-run Guyana Sugar Corporation, (GuySuCo), confirmed to the media that the 90,246 metric tons produced in 2019 was the lowest in 93 years.
The decline comes as GuySuCo struggles with a debt load of more than $500 million, most of which should not have been on its books since it was incurred by the Central Government of Guyana and not the sugar company. This financial misery was further complicated with the permanent shuttering of four of its seven factories and with the firing of about 7,000 of its 15,000-member workforce as of December 31, 2017. The ripple effect in the industry since them was destructive not just financially, but economically and socially.
Today prime sugar lands are now bush and many of these lands will have to be burnt, flooded and then replanted at a huge expense to the taxpayer, but it is the economically correct decision to make as some 4,000 families are expected to directly benefit as one member of that family returns to work in the industry. Unfortunately, Mr. David Granger promised the nation a more efficient sugar industry but to date, the non-value added charges (mainly head office charges) climbed in the sugar company from 20% before the Granger plan was implemented to 35% at the end of 2019. The bottom-line: the Granger plan which was supposed to make GuySuCo more efficient ended up making it more inefficient and sent some 4,000 families into immediate poverty. The only people who benefited from this Granger plan were about 50 persons who mainly work at head office twiddling their thumbs as they fight with NICIL over who should have control of the G$30 billion that Team Granger borrowed in the name of the Guyanese people.
Sugar was once the country’s largest source of foreign exchange, with an inflow of around US$120 million a decade ago. Today only a quarter of that foreign currency was generated by the sugar industry in 2019 coming in at some US$29 million. This had a seismic effect on the foreign reserves at the Bank of Guyana which continues to decline as it was approximately US$520 million at the end of 2019 compared to US$653 million five years ago; a decline in value of some US$133 million.
Sugar output in Guyana is expected to hit below 88,000 tonnes in 2020 unless there is an urgent injection of fresh new leadership into the industry and at least two sugar factories are re-opened.
Yours faithfully,
Sasenarine Singh
