In around two weeks, a number Cuban experts will arrive to provide assistance to the sugar industry.
Industry sources said that the experts will include factory engineers, field experts and technicians.
Guyana has been scouting for assistance for GuySuCo from a number of countries to address a variety of problems. These include India and Guatemala.
On April 16, President Irfaan Ali said, “We have been working aggressively at modernizing GuySuCo. What we are doing is bringing a new structure. The current CEO will move into a new capacity, and we have a team that is coming,” the president said.
Additionally, President Ali disclosed that the government is recruiting specialists from various countries, including India and Cuba, to enhance GuySuCo’s operations.
“We have to address factory, agriculture, human resources, and the supply of labour. We are now in the process of bringing all of this together because sugar must be viable, and we are making the investment to make sugar viable again,” he asserted.
Ali’s statement came on the heels of the announcement of the departure of the GuySuCo Chief Executive Officer, Sasenarine Singh who is taking up the position of Ambassador to the European Union. That move raised questions about the direction that the industry would take as Singh had been hired with a mandate to turn the industry around.
The industry remains in difficult circumstances and the government has been accused of sinking money into it without any overarching plan. Questions have been raised on the current average cost of production for a pound of sugar in the industry.
Approaching four years after it promised in its manifesto to reopen three estates, only Rose Hall has been reopened and it is unclear what the future holds for the Skeldon and East Demerara estates.
