President Irfaan Ali has confirmed that the Government will soon appoint a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), and will also turn to Cuba, India and Guatemala for technical support to revive the troubled sugar industry.
On the sidelines of the Local Content Summit today at the Pegasus Suites, the President told reporters that the new CEO will be appointed “shortly”, and will be joined by a a new management team.
“We have been working aggressively at modernizing GuySuCo, and part of what we are doing is to bring in GuySuCo a new structure. The current CEO will move into a new capacity, and we have a whole team that is coming with external help,” the President said.
News Source understands that former Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC), Paul Cheong, is set to become the new CEO of GuySuCo.
The current CEO of GuySuCo, Sasenarine Singh, is preparing to leave the company and the country to take up a diplomatic appointment in Europe.
Singh has been heading the state-owned company since September 2020. It has been a rocky tenure for him with the main union representing sugar workers, the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), repeatedly calling for him to be removed from the position.
President Ali said in addition to the CEO and team, specialists will be coming in from Cuba and India to assist the company.
“We are working with Cuba to get some specialists in, we are working with India to get some specialists in. We are working on the modernization side, that would have already started with technical support from Brazil. So, a lot has already started,” he said.
According to the President, there are a number of challenges confronting the sugar company, particularly in the areas of human resource development and labour, as well as factory related issues.
“We have to address factory, we have to address agriculture, we have to address human resources, we have to address modernization, we have to address the supply of labour. We are now in the process of bringing all of this together because sugar must be made viable, and we are making the investment to make sugar viable, and it will be viable,” he said.
This year, GuySuCo received $6B in subvention as part of the government’s efforts to revitalize the struggling Sugar Industry. The $6 Billion is expected to support GuySuCo’s field and factory operations with the hope of turning around the industry.
GuySuCo has received over $20B from the Government over the last three years.
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