GuySuCo staffers involved in $$M fertilizer racket: eyewitnesses

Dec 16, 2015 News

It appears now that the multi-million fertilizer racket involving staffers of the Guyana Sugar Corporation

Gobin Harbhajan, Special Assistant of OPM

(GuySuCo) was well organized.
Details coming out now indicate that the fertilizer was clandestinely released last week Tuesday night from a secured location of GuySuCo at Gay Park, East Bank Berbice.
On Thursday, police and GuySuCo officials, acting on intelligence, swooped down at North Lesbeholden, Black Bush Polder, seizing 100 bags of Urea fertilizer from a home.
A businessman was arrested in relation to the discovery
Special Assistant of the Office of the Prime Minister, Gobin Harbhajan, yesterday disclosed that the man was on Sunday placed on $50,000 bail at the Whim Police Station after he was questioned.
The fertilizer, in heavy demand by cane, rice and cash crop farmers, was found in bags stamped with the GuySuCo logo.
Insiders believe that the discovery of the fertilizer is no isolated incident. Rather, it is part of an ongoing racket that has been happening over the years.
The loss to GuySuCo would have been in the tens of millions, as fertilizer is one of the main inputs.
Yesterday, the truck owner who picked up the bags of fertilizer visited Harbhajan in Berbice.
According to Harbhajan, the truck owner was told to pick up the fertilizer at 20:30hrs from GuySuCo’s facility at Providence, in Berbice.
A GuySuCo official, who was named yesterday, was the one who released the fertilizers, which is valued at over $500,000.
The truck owner kept the fertilizer until Thursday when he delivered it to Black Bush Polder.
Harbhajan said that the truck owner was fearful and will be handing himself over to the police today, in the presence of GuySuCo’s security.
The discovery of the Urea fertilizer would point to a bigger racket that has been reported.
GuySuCo, struggling to regain its footing after more than a decade of losses and poor performance has been under pressure to improve.
Several workers were recently dismissed and some reinstated after checks uncovered that fertilizer was not applied to acres of cane land.