The recent fallout between the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) Sasenarine Singh and certain Board members will not affect sugar production in the country.
This was the assurance the Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, gave on Tuesday. Last week, GuySuCo’s Vice Chairman, Anthony Vieira, resigned as a Board member after stating that “GuySuCo has numerous problems which cannot be addressed by the incompetent set of people currently running it.”
In a leaked audio recording from a Board meeting, Vieira and Singh had a heated confrontation over the purchase of tractors for GuySuCo’s fieldwork.
“That doesn’t prevent GuySuCo from moving forward. As a matter of fact, I have instructed the CEO to ensure that operations continue and they continue to look to improve services across the sugar industry to get better performance off these estates,” the Agriculture Minister told reporters on Tuesday.
Since the fallout, President Irfaan Ali said he intends to meet all parties involved since the government is focused on reviving the sugar industry.
Minister Mustapha noted that these “minor issues” in terms of “personality clashes” would not hinder the sugar industry from moving forward.
“Those matters will be thrashed out internally, but I don’t see that as a hindrance to stop or affect production in the sugar industry,” Minister Mustapha stated.
Since resuming office in 2020, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government has been working to reopen three of the four estates shuttered during the tenure of the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition.
“What we’re striving to do is to ensure that we improve the capacity of the factory where that the crushing of the cane can be done in a better way in terms of getting more sucrose out of the cane so that we will have better production in the factory.”
There have been mounting calls for GuySuCo CEO’s resignation, with two coming from the Guyana Agricultural Workers Unions (GAWU) and the Alliance for Change (AFC) – the smaller party within the APNU/AFC coalition.
GAWU and AFC have cited incompetence and poor management as reasons for the CEO’s removal.
Notwithstanding, the government on Monday passed a whopping $44B in supplementary funding, with $3.4 billion going towards the sugar industry.
These funds will go towards the recapitalisation of the company to make the factories modern and efficient while increasing production.
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