Introduction
The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) is not only a company incorporated and intended to be regulated under the Companies Act; it forms a major part of two economic sectors – agriculture and manufacturing. See Appendix 12 – Gross Domestic Product at 2006 Prices by Industrial Origin in Volume 1 of the Estimates of the Public Sector 2015. It is also one of the largest employers in the country and in some areas, such as the Corentyne, it is the single most important economic activity and source of employment.
To the country it is a major foreign exchange earner although it is also a significant user of foreign exchange. It is believed too that the company and the industry also support the rice and other agriculture sub-sectors in sugar areas, and help to manage the anti-flood control systems with its vast network of drainage and irrigation. If the multiplier effect is considered, the economic impact is extended directly and indirectly to commercial banks, insurers, suppliers and service providers.
Alas, it is also – certainly in the last few years – the single largest beneficiary of government subsidies in Guyana. It is estimated that in the five years to December 31, 2015, the company would have received approximately G$50 billion in transfers from the Government. In 2015, 10% of current revenues of the Government proper will be going to GuySuCo, amounting in total to approximately ⅓ of the total employment cost in the 2015 Estimates of Expenditure.
Importantly, like the elephant in the room, sugar has a strong political dimension and forms a major plank of support for the opposition PPP/C. Paradoxically, even when the company came under the control of the PPP/C, GuySuCo has recorded more industrial action than the rest of the country combined.
Continue reading “Addressing the crisis in Sugar – A presentation by Christopher Ram to the Commission of Inquiry into the Sugar Industry”