One day after the Ministry of Agriculture stated that there was no theft of sugar at the Rose Hall estate, but rather an overstatement in the sugar production by 243 tonnes, Opposition Member of Parliament Vinceroy Jordan is calling for the full release of the audit report that the Ministry said uncovered the error.

In a statement today, Mr. Jordan said there must be more clarity provided on the issue, especially since two managers at the state company were fired over the alleged error.

“With regard to the overstatement of the production, one must query if government understands that the first line of recording, tabulating, and even preliminary declarations are made by the Factory Hand which is a level of staff responsible for accounting and recording production per shift which is made known on a whiteboard visible to other staff, that information proceeds to the Lab Technician then to the Senior Lab Technician (who verifies the figures of production)for onward transmission to the Production Manager and thereafter to the Factory Manager. This should lead to the question; how is it that this overstatement was not detected, at least at one of the various levels of verification? This is clearly an attempt to cover up and hide the failure and the facts.  Having knowledge of this procedure the PNCR//APNU calls on the Minister of Agriculture to make the audit of the first crop of 2024 at Rose Hall Estate Factory public”, Jordan said.

He questioned whether the firing of the two senior staff members was done to cover-up the true state of the operations at the Rose Hall estate amid allegations of corruption. Jordan said one of the managers fired by the Agriculture Ministry was dismissed under the APNU+AFC Government for lack of accountability and other concerns. He said the manager was rehired by the current Government.

“The Minister of Agriculture would know that the very Production Manager was fired by the APNUAFC Administration for similar actions of lack of accountability in relation to the total production of sugar at the Uitvlugt Estate factory along with several other staff. It was the PPP/C Administration that rehired the Manager and today we all can confirm the end result and conclude that they are complicit in corruption”, he stated.

Since 2020, GUYSUCO has received in excess of $30 billion in subventions from the Government. It was recently revealed that the company has suffered losses of more than $15 Billion for the years 2021 and 2022. That figure is expected to climb on the completion of the audits for 2023 and 2024.

The Agriculture Ministry has been defending the efforts to revitalize the sugar industry, and the Government has repeatedly stated its commitment to continuing to invest in the sector.

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