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Feb 04, 2010 News
By Leonard Gildarie
Two senior officials of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) have been sent packing as the corporation tightens its operation following a disastrous production performance last year.
Kaieteur News understands that Director of Agriculture Research, Dr. Harold Davis, was sent off late last week by the Board of Directors.
Also gone is Henry Lung-Kit, an engineer formerly under contract with previous management of GuySuCo, Booker Tate. Lung-Kit was one of the subjects of media reports in December for receiving an “exorbitant” remuneration package in excess of $2M per month. GuySuCo’s Chief Executive Officer, Errol Hanoman, has also been in the spotlight in December.
A senior GuySuCo official confirmed yesterday that the corporation has told the engineer that they were not renewing his contract which was up.
According to the official, the corporation is tightening its belt in an effort to cut costs as part of its turnaround plan to make the sugar industry more viable. More sackings may come, this newspaper was told.
Regarding Dr. Davis, Kaieteur News was also told that the Director was sent home for among other things, the deploying of equipment, including tractors. It was explained that GuySuCo was under pressure to complete tillage work in some fields.
However, the tractors, under the custody of the research department, were not sent out to work and this may have contributed to his sacking.
GuySuCo’s management is currently meeting with sugar workers across the country in an effort to “educate” them about the move to revive the industry which within the last few years has been hit by a staggering 36 per cent price cut from the European Union, the corporation’s largest customer.
With poor production and a new state-of-the-art factory at Skeldon, an under pressure GuySuCo’s management is hoping to encourage workers also to minimize the number of strikes which plagued the industry last year. GuySuCo says that it is also facing a dismal workers’ turnout as canecutters move to other jobs in between crops.
In December, Minister of Agriculture, Robert Persaud, had assured that the “super salaries” paid to some GuySuCo’s officials will be reviewed.
The Minister had noted that the Corporation is currently in a transition phase from the previous Booker Tate management and as such he has ordered the review of remunerations and cuts where there are excesses.
Persaud had stressed that the situation must be taken in the context of what was inherited.
Ever since 1998, the government was paying Booker Tate some $500 million per annum. There has been a blueprint which is being implemented. Last year the money paid for management fees, some $170 million, was a drastic reduction.
Persaud said that this was one of the reasons for sacking Booker Tate. In addition, the British team was not performing to its contractual obligations.
It was recognized that since in the early 90’s many believed that the Booker Tate price-tag was very high.
Persaud added that it was he who lobbied Cabinet to relinquish ties with Booker Tate but stressed that the company was still in a transition phase building a Guyanese management team.
“That is why we still have personnel being used that are getting packages that were inherited.”
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