By Bibi Khatoon
Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan, has clarified that the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) is not under the control of his ministry.
In response to concerns expressed by the two leading unions recently about GuySuCo returning to a visionless Ministry of Agriculture, Minister Jordan said that the Ministry of Finance is only lending assistance to locate funding for remaining sugar estates.
During an interview on Monday, the Minister said: “the Ministry of Finance has tremendous responsibilities; we don’t need an extra one to be quite honest with you.”
“Where the Ministry of Finance can help, it will help but what we will not do is to take any responsibility for the agriculture sector and specifically for GuySuCo.”
The confusion began in February when Agriculture Minister, Noel Holder was approached by reporters with questions relating to GuySuCo. At that time, Holder told reporters “GuySuCo has been removed from the ambit of Agriculture to the Minister of Finance, I don’t want to speak out of term.”
Minister Holder allegedly told union leaders also, that they should also protest the finance ministry.
But Minister Jordan clarified that his Ministry was asked to assist the Agriculture Ministry since they lacked the expertise required to divest the closed sugar estates.
He explained that based on a request made, the Special Purpose Unit (SPU), which was set up under the National Industrial Commercial and Investments Limited (NICIL) to divest the resources of the closed estates, is helping GuySuCo to get funding for the remaining estates.
“What has happened is that those that remained cannot finance themselves, so NICIL and GuySuCo now are intertwined. NICIL now has to go look for funding to help the existing GuySuCo to operate and this is essentially what has been happening,” Minister Jordan explained.
The current head of the SPU, Colvin Heath London, was recently appointed Chairman of GuySuCo.
In a statement on April 06, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG) and the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) said the Agriculture Minister contributed to the failure of the industry and objected to Holder being given additional responsibilities for the sugar sector.
