In what is arguably one of the most poignant assessments of the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) management of sugar and other sections of the economy, Tony Vieira took the proverbial sledgehammer to Bharrat Jagdeo’s policies and smashed them opened.
In a blistering letter to the media, Vieira, a former sugar estate magnate, accused the Jagdeo’s regime (1999-2011) of presiding over the destruction of Guyana’s 400-year-old sugar industry, just as the Irfaan Ali regime (2020 to present) is destroying the oil industry.
Setting the record straight on the management of Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) during the Economic Recovery Programme (ERP), spearheaded by the Desmond Hoyte government (1985-1992), Vieira said the Booker Tate company which was used to revamp sugar is not the same company that engineered the Skeldon Project.
Skeldon cultivation was destroyed even before the expansion started
“I must stress again that the Booker Tate which [President Desmond] Hoyte retained to manage GuySuCo in 1989, was not the same company which engineered the Skeldon Project, the Booker Tate Hoyte hired, was founded in 1988 from an amalgamation of two companies, Booker Agriculture International and Tate & Lyle Agribusiness, two companies which knew Guyana and indeed the Caribbean sugar cane conditions well, since they both had vast investments in the Caribbean sugar industry.”
Unfortunately, Vieira said, this company was acquired in 2017 by Bosch Holdings. And under this new South African company, who did not understand the Guyana situation, Skeldon cultivation was destroyed even before the expansion started. This destruction he said was in part due to water from the 10,000 acre planned expansion area of the Manarabursi swamp was allowed to drain into the existing cultivation, without necessary steps taken to expand the drainage system into the Courantyne River.
As a result, he continued, Skeldon which had the best producing cane fields in the industry, started producing sugar cane which had worse quality than Uitvlugt Estate due to water logging, since the extra water from the expansion area, flooded the existing cultivation for two to three years. “You can’t put amateurs to manage national enterprises.”
Touching on the white elephant Skeldon Factory, Vieira made known that Jagdeo shot down GuySuCo board’s intent to purchase it from Walchandnagar Industries Ltd in India and contracted a Chinese company.
The factory was built by China National Technology Import and Export Corp. Work commenced in 2005 with expected completion by October 2007. The factory opened in March 2009, but the original cost of US$200 Million jumped to an estimated US$250 Million.
Failing with sugar and oil and gas
Going further, the former GuySuCo board member questioned the wisdom of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government, having failed with sugar, not seeing the need to hire competent companies from abroad to help manage the oil and gas sector. He singled out former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head, Dr. Vincent Adams, as deserving to be part of this management. An energy expert, Adams had a 30-year career in the United States Department of Energy, retiring as Deputy Manager of Environmental Management.
He also took a swipe at government ineptitude evidenced by mounting problems in the electricity sector.
Why is the PPP incapable of making wise decision? Vieira said this is due to government refusal to take constructive criticism as indication of citizens’ concern. Delving deeper into the inefficiency he noted the consequence has seen Guyana deemed a Heavily Indebted Poor Country [HIPC], with Haiti being the only other one in this hemisphere.
It is Vieira’s contention much of the money thrown at GuySuCo does not reach the workers’ pocket, and the more money the PPP ploughs into the industry the richer contractors and politicians get, not the workers or Guyanese people.
Jagdeo should be in jail for Skeldon Factory
Jagdeo “should not be living in a mansion… he should be living in prison” So said Vieira in 2015 in a blistering critique of Jagdeo’s management of sugar sector. Touching on the reduction of sugar workers, it was pointed out that in 1992 the PPP inherited 28,000 and by 2001 that workforce was 16,000. “One can easily conclude that the PPP has done irreparable harm to the industry and have reduced the number of persons working in it by 57 percent in the first 10 years after they got into power,” he made known.
The future of Skeldon
In 2010 then President Jagdeo said if Skeldon sugar factory did not succeed “the sugar industry is dead”. That in one year after its commissioning.
In 2020 the PPP campaigned on a promise to resuscitate industry that remains an economic drag on the economy, given Government continues provide billions of dollars in bail out. Last year the Government gave GuySuCo more than $4 Billion.
April, this year, President Ali announced the government’s intent to reopen the estate. “We are working on the Skeldon Estate…I agree that there are challenges, but we are working on that,” he said.
The situation underscores the mismanagement of the money to satisfy a political end. The PPP’s stronghold is agriculture, primarily sugar and rice.
Tony Vieira’ full letter follows:-
Dear Editor
I refer to a letter written by one Bhagwandin and published by the Kaieteur news of 11th July 2024. Bagwindin’s letter, for whatever reason, is seriously flawed on many levels.
When I met Mr. Jagdeo with my father in 1999 at Hermansen house, and we told him that expanding Skeldon was probably not a good plan, he told us that Godfrey Da Silva, then head of Go Invest, I think, had informed him that it was a solid investment.
Editor, if Mr. Jagdeo had told Da Silva that he wanted to put the Skeldon factory on Mars, he probably would have produced a study to say it’s OK. They decided to expand Skeldon BEFORE the alleged feasibility was done by Booker Tate, I say alleged, because I never heard of any feasibility, and neither has anyone else at the then highest levels of management of that corporation who I consulted.
It was a political/ego decision and not one based solely on economics. Since then, not much has changed with the PPP. Except they continue to introduce bad plans, executed VERY poorly into practice, examples, of bad plans are Amelia and the gas to shore project, poor practice operations GWI, GPL, GuySuCO, Police, are only a few examples.
I must stress again that the Booker Tate which Hoyte retained to manage GuySuCo in 1989, was not the same company which engineered the Skeldon Project, the Booker Tate Hoyte hired, was founded in 1988 from an amalgamation of two companies, Booker Agriculture International and Tate & Lyle Agribusiness, two companies which knew Guyana and indeed the Caribbean sugar cane conditions well, since they both had vast investments in the Caribbean sugar industry.
Unfortunately, this company was acquired in 2017 by Bosch Holdings. Under this new South African company with people, who did not understand the Guyana situation weather, soils etc., and retained by a government, which was asleep at the wheel as usual, destroyed the Skeldon cultivation even before the expansion actually started, since the water from the 10,000 acre planned expansion area of the Manarabursi swamp, was allowed to drain into the existing Skeldon cultivation without taking the necessary steps to expand the drainage system into the Courantyne river!
As a result, Skeldon, which had the best producing cane fields in the industry, started producing sugar cane which had worse quality than Uitvlugt Estate due to water logging, since the extra water from the expansion area, flooded the existing cultivation for two to three years.
You can’t put amateurs to manage national enterprises.
Editor, Jagdeo’s regime presided over the destruction of the Guyana 400-year-old the sugar industry, just as they are destroying the oil industry, which we never had any track-record of managing in our history, prompting one to ask again, why have we not hired competent companies from abroad to help us? Why is Dr. Adams not in place to serve the country? These people cannot even manage the electricity supply to this country; we the citizens are paying more and are receiving less reliable power than almost anywhere else in the world.
All of this is due to bad decision making, and the PPP refusing to take constructive criticism as an indication of concern by citizens and not a nuisance or affront must stop! Not once in all the years that these horrible decisions were made keeping us as, what the world bank labelled, a Heavily Indebted Poor Country [HIPC] the only other one in this hemisphere was Haiti, did the PPP ever take advice from its opposition or concerned citizens and the media, I sat in that Parliament from 2006 to 2010 and budget after budget was presented each one with hundreds if not thousands of pages, and I am not aware that even one number was changed through the intervention of the opposition, which numbered more that 48% of the seats in the Parliament. Surely something is wrong with that picture.
The Bosch Company which took over the management of GuySuCo from Booker Tate, were not qualified for that job, being totally unfamiliar with our unique and challenging bad weather and soil situations, and the government of the time and its incompetent GuySuCo managers, were unable to see it, or address it, until faced with complete disaster.
The new Skeldon factory however was a different problem, the board at that time wanted to buy the new Skeldon factory from Walchandnagar Industries Ltd. an Indian company which had by that time already built 40 plus 300 ton per hour sugar mills worldwide, they were also an original equipment manufacturing company, it was them which the board of the corporation wanted to supply and build the factory, but it was Mr. Jagdeo who overruled them and decided to go with the Chinese contractor who had no proper background in such constructions, and it was clear from the start, according to my sources, that parts of the factory were obtained from different manufacturers, since pipe sizes etc. had to be modified to allow the various components to fit together resulting in the disaster which followed. Editor it was a total no brainer. One can only draw the most adverse inferences as to why the Chinese were given preference.
I appreciate that Mr. Jagdeo is under much stress at the moment due to pressure from the local Media especially the KN, and apparently all of the PPP are rushing in to misdirect the public to protect him from responsibility, since at this time, this one man, who is now posing as an oil Czar, is mainly responsible for the demise of the Guyana sugar industry, and seriously calls into question his competence to manage anything, especially an oil industry and especially since these incompetent corrupt people refuse to retain competent external management agents to help the people of Guyana to manage their Oil sector.
At one time I heard Mr. Jagdeo say that he is not too concerned with the future of the Bauxite industry, as long as no one expects him to dip into the consolidated fund to help it, I heard that statement personally, and am prepared to swear to it in court, but since the sugar industry is their political support base, they persevere in showing that they want to keep it alive, but the workers are not benefitting from the massive monetary interventions, they are. The serious allegations that the opposition [Mostly Afro-Guyanese] want to close the sugar industry which they consider to be too much of a massive drain on our national resources is grossly misplaced.
Mr. Editor, it is also my honest opinion that much of the money thrown at GuySuCo does not reach the workers’ pocket. The more money they plough into that entity the richer the contractors and the politicians get, and not the workers or the people of Guyana.
Tony Vieira.
