Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha on Wednesday disclosed that the government has injected $9 billion into the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) to resuscitate the Rose Hall Estate, which was closed by the former APNU+AFC government.
He made this disclosure to the Parliamentary Committee of Supply following several questions posed by Shadow Minister of Agriculture Vinceroy Jordan on the $2b budgetary allocation for GuySuCo to facilitate capital projects.
Mustapha declared “They caused it! They closed the estate! They caused it to rot. They caused the deterioration of the estate. They caused thousands of lives and families to be broken up in this country, and they dare to come and ask this question. $9b – they cost the people of this country, they cost the taxpayers of this country $9b to be spent to rehabilitate and bring back Rose Hall Estate into production”.
However, Jordan stated that despite the government’s continuous investment in GuySuCo, the reality is that the sugar company is unprofitable and underperforming.
He also pointed out that in 2023, GuySuCo had also received $3.5b for capital investment, a significant portion of which, was spent on the Rose Hall Estate.
In response to Jordan, Mustapha reminded the Committee that the Rose Hall Sugar Estate was among the estates closed by the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) administration,
He contended: “Mr Chair (Manzoor Nadir, Chairman of the Committee of the Supply) like other factories, sugar factories …were left to the mercy of nature, we had to spend a lot of money.
“So, when the estate was closed, things were left to neglect and a lot of parts deteriorated. We said we would reopen it, and we did reopen it last year. Now, those parts, links like boiler, you would repair the boiler but during grinding you might find a leakage, you would have to repair it,”
GuySuCo produced over 47,270 tonnes of sugar for the year 2023. While sugar output was higher than for 2022, no direct comparison can be made as in addition to the three estates in production last year, Rose Hall produced cane for several months.
GuySuCo was unable to achieve its 2022 second crop target of 40,255 metric tonnes of sugar.
Mustapha said that he is optimistic, that this year, the Rose Hall estate will meet the target set by the sugar company.
The subject minister stated that “Rose Hall Estate is scheduled to commence grinding this year, at the end of February. So, all those arrangements, all the repairs are in process, and will be completed, so that the Rose Hall Estate could commence grinding this year so that we can work on the target we have set for GuySuCo,”
An investment of some $6 billion is expected to be made in the 2024 fiscal plan to further stimulate the production capacity and operational efficiencies of GuySuCo.
Senior Finance Minister, Dr Ashni Singh made this announcement during his presentation of the 2024 National Budget on Monday, January 15, before the National Assembly.
