The PPP does not like feasibility studies

Oct 16, 2024 Letters

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Dear Editor,

I refer to a letter published in the KN of 6th October 2024 by one F.A. Harry who no one seem to know, captioned “GuySuCo will always respond to genuine questions and concerns of the citizens” or some such drivel.  What I am going to write today is the truth and when compared with the lies, libels and defamation published by the KN and Harry, I am issuing a warning, this letter has sought to damage my reputation, and I have already spoken to a lawyer about it.

1. As far as my taking a huge salary and achieving nothing as written by Harry, let me say that the only feasibility study the PPP ever received on superimposing shrimp aquaculture in our sugar cane cultivation system to re-employ approximately 4 persons per hectare, was done by me. And it took almost two years. I’m going to deal further with this below.

2.The first of the numerous battles I fought at GuySuCo early in 2021 as Vice Chairman, was to block a $2 billion swindle to purchase 20 Game articulated tractors which cost almost double what the John Deere tractors we were then using. These tractors were being promoted by the then CEO, who never worked in the sugar industry. This matter went all the way up to the President who allowed a compromised for two of these tractors to be bought for trial. Editor, everyone involved, the technical team of GuySuCo, the NDIA and the Ministry of Agriculture were agreeing to buy a tractor which they agreed was less powerful than the DEERE, used more fuel, but could not plough, and costed substantially more, in the trial which was conducted, I who was the main person objecting to buying this tractor, was not invited to see the trial, the representatives from John Deere were also not invited but not only were the game people invited, they sent their own operator from the USA.

3. Thirdly also early in 2021, the new CEO of GuySuCo wanted to promote two of his cronies who would support his hairbrained schemes to be Executive Directors, and I refused to accept their promotion and got the board to put them to act instead. In less than one and a half years, they were both removed from acting since their performance was poor at best.
4. Fourth as chairman of the production subcommittee, I alerted the board to the acidity of the GuySuCo field soils, and that it was a very real possibility that as much as a 30% of the drop in the GuySuCo yields could be caused by such high acidity, which over time has deteriorated to a pH of 4.5 to 5. At such high acidic levels, the fertilizer we are putting would not be available to the cane. I even got Dr. Homenauth, a soils expert then head of NARI to support my claim. GuySuCo seriously lacks technical competence, the current director of agriculture, a position which in the past was occupied by highly technical people like Dr. Harry Evans, is a person who holds no known agricultural qualification.
5. The introduction of fish farming in cages was an initiate introduced by me. But has not evolved in any significant way as an industry after 4 years, since they were not deployed as I had intended, to benefit all fishermen in Guyana. These cages could have in time established a huge fish farming industry in the main rivers of Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo by using the fishermen and their boats, to help to secure the fish pens from thieves and to take the feed daily to the cages, since they were having problems to make a living in our over fished waters.
6. I showed how GuySuCo can benefit from drones by achieving another 10 to 15% increase in production using them to apply ripeners at 10 times less cost than using airplanes. Editor, I went to these people prepared to soar with eagles but found myself in the middle of a flock of turkeys!

Harry lied and defamed me by claiming that I did not go to work at MOA, I was a consultant at MOA, I was never offered a desk there, I did however attend and participate in every meeting or consultation, I was ever asked to attend. I also wrote exhaustively on all aspects on which I was consulting, and frankly I am quite sure that no one read any of them, they were more concerned with what was in it for them personally, than what was in it for the people of Guyana. I also have emails to everyone including the president complaining of the lack of the monthly meetings we were supposed to have, to aim aquaculture in the right direction.

I also visited and wrote the blueprint for the president of how the Brackish water shrimp project can be improved in east Berbice. and 300 million was approved on my recommendations. The entire thing fell apart when the Minister, a former cane cutter from Skeldon, kept countermanding my recommendations to place the projects in East Berbice instead of the area where my researches mandated them to be.

I wanted to place the Feed manufacturing and the salt water hatchery at Onverwagt, ECD where there were existing facilities and other assets already in place, but Mustahpa wanted it to be done at Tarlagy and other areas in East Berbice for whatever his reasons were. I also had sourced the entire structure for the salt water hatchery from India in a completely non-corrosive building for a salt water environment for around US $60,000 which could be used as our estimate for invited bids, but the NDIA engineers without consulting me on any aspect of the requirements for a structure which has never been built in Guyana, a complete corrosion proof building, offered a proposal for an 80 plus million. I did not agree.

Finally, the feasibility I conducted on my own time, was based on using the established unique Guyana sugar cane field layout which is a perfect system of canals and 10-acre fields, which could be easily flooded. This way, a 1000-hectare aquafarm on the East Coast could employ at least 4000 people who were former employees of LBI/ Enmore. The feasibility was done visualizing somewhere between Ogle to almost Mahaica as the area of preference, since it 1. It had the sugar cane layout, 2. it was close to the Atlantic and salt water, since the prawns require to be grown in at least 8000 PPM of salt, and 3. could supply work to the displaced sugar workers.

The Minister and all the people he employs who are supposed to inform him, were completely oblivious to the fact that the proximity of saltwater and the sugar cane layout were nonnegotiable requirements of the project I did, since he and his staff read nothing, and they wasted months offering us useless lands in East Berbice, for whatever reason, and which were too far from the coast to be practical since the salt content was very low, then they informed the President that we are being difficult and obstructive and were delaying the operation. But the last straw came when the Minister directed me to buy the feed [the largest expenditure in fish farming and could account for over 75% of total cost] from a local entity which had no existing facilities for feed manufacturing I decided that it was impossible to remail quiet. As soon as my 3-year contract expired in 2024, I resigned from that incompetence and corruption. Today, four years after taking office, whatever aquaculture is going on is uneconomical, since they never built a floating or otherwise fish feed mill. And are lost in a sea of corruption and inefficiency. They may be growing fish and shrimp, but it could never be economical. What they paid me was less than what the MOA is apparently paying to wash the minister’s car at MOA according to Paul Slowe.

As far as the Director General of the MOA is concerned, I watched in total disbelief to him rushing to spend the taxpayers’ money, simply because it was allocated by the budget, without any regard or any of the care and caution which I saw in my vast experience at Bookers, GuySuCo and the CBU where I was a director, where every cent had to be spent very carefully. This DG is so careful to protect himself, that his texts disappear from your cell phone after 24 hours. Where there is smoke, editor, there is fire! The PPP does not like feasibility studies editor, it just upsets their massively corrupt agenda.

Tony Vieira

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• Berbice, Demerar, East Berbice, ECD, GUYSUCO, Harry, Mustahpa, Onverwagt

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