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Aug 24, 2014 News
By Ralph Seeram
I spent quite a few of my youthful years on Blairmont, Port Mourant and Skeldon Estates. I had relatives who resided on these estates, so on holidays I would spend vacations there. Blairmont Estate is a little closer to my heart as most of my family is from that estate. Do you know Blairmont was owned by a British Company called Davson? Davson owned a few estates at the time. Blairmont Estate produced rum that was popular then, it was called “Old Grog”. In fact I had a relative that was responsible for making that rum.
I lived three years at Port Mourant and attended St Joseph’s Primary School, then known as St Joseph’s Anglican School. I had friends who had to convert from Hinduism to Christianity in order to get a teaching job at the school. Back then at Port Mourant as it is today, cane cutters and other field workers were transported very early in the morning to the “backdam.” Later a “food train” will take their food. The estate had people who rode around on large “carrier bikes,” collecting the food,”saucepans,” and “dish carriers” to take them to the train. Some housewives actually preferred to take the food themselves to the train. The train line was located east of where the present Port Mourant hospital is located.
These were relatively happy times for sugar workers. Back then they looked forward for “large backpay” or “bonus”. Unlike now, the cane cutters made enough money during “crop time’ to carry them through the off season time. There was not much opportunity for other employment, so the wages earned during crop time had to last when the factory closed for the season. Back then the sugar industry was the main economic force of the Guyana’s economy, contributing greatly in terms of foreign exchange and to the treasury. It was not a burden on tax payers, was not subsidized by the hard earned Guyanese paid tax dollars, but rather contributed immensely to the workers. It was not a drain on the treasury as it is today.
Today the sugar industry for all intents and purposes is bankrupt. This industry now has to be subsidized by billions of Guyanese dollars to survive. It is so deeply in debt that one wonders how long it can survive. Nobody wants to say the politically incorrect thing that GUYSUCO should start looking to divest or divert to other agricultural based products that would make it profitable.
So Government has been telling the country how it’s going to revamp the GUYSUCO board in an effort to turn around the industry. I said maybe they will bring in people capable of running an efficient corporation. I thought they would bring experts, Guyanese and non Guyanese on board, like they do in the United States where “turn around’ experts are brought in. People who run private enterprises to ensure they make a profit. Because there is no subsidy by taxpayers, an inefficient CEO will be fired if his company is a failure. That is life in the private sector, you turn a profit or turn in your keys, no if or buts.
The expertise is in Guyana to run successful enterprises. Think of companies like DDL, BANKS/DIH, Sterling Products and the Beharry Group of Companies to name a few. These companies survived the tough years under the PNC rule when the private sector was practically demolished, to become a success and has been expanding. My point is that there is enough local expertise to turn around the sugar industry if they are given a free hand; free from political interference.
During the PNC reign it made the mistake of giving Party faithfuls administrative positions in the sugar industry, which caused it to deteriorate at that time. Strange enough the sugar production was much better then.
Today the PPP Government is repeating the same mistakes of the PNC, if not worse.
Like most Guyanese I was looking for a real shake up of the corporation, but the announcement this week of the new GUYSUCO board was an anti climax, a dud, a damp squid, a gross disappointment. Instead of “new blood’ the board has been filled with retried, retread failures whose main qualifications may be faithful party hacks.
It would seem that only in Guyana, failures are rewarded. Failure in the Guyana government is an option for promotion.
Shaik Baksh has been demoted as a Minister of the Government but appointed CEO of the Guyana Water Corporation and now as Chairman of the Board of Directors of GUYSUCO. Baksh’s tenure as a Housing Minister and later for Education has not been stellar, which to some extent led to his demotion. You have another faithful- Ms Geeta Singh-Knight- (think of the failure of CLICO and the Berbice River Bridge). Then you have Keith Burrowes, who is affiliated to more Government boards than a sawmill can produce, figuratively speaking. He heads GO-INVEST which does not screen companies like Bai Shan Lin that invests in Guyana because his agency does not have the ability to do so.
I am not even going to get into the rest of the Party faithfuls on the board
The point is that we come back to the old saying of doing the same thing and expecting different results. You retread party faithfuls, put people with a history of failure and still expect to turn around the sugar industry. GAWU’s Komal Chand is smart to turn down his appointment on the board,’ he knows “if yuh go crab dance yuh skin mus get mud.” Smart fella.
Let me share a little story that has guided me throughout the years. Way back, there was an engineer at Rose Hall Estate who was approached by a salesman to buy welding equipment and supplies for the factory. He promptly told the salesman to go to his welders and do his demonstration and if his welders approve he will buy the products. He personally is not a welder and won’t know if the product is good. He could have easily ordered the product, taken his “kick back” and let the workers deal with the inefficiency of the product. The sugar workers today have to deal with the product forced on them.
You don’t go to a carpenter to do heart surgery, a medical doctor to do a lawyers job or give a carpenter surgical tools to ply his trade, but the poor cane cutters today have to be contented with ‘carpenters’ to do surgery to revive the sugar industry.
Ralph Seeram can be reached at email: [email protected] and Face Book
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