US$180M Skeldon Plant incurs GY$1.2B in losses

Kaieteur News: All is not well with the Guyana Sugar Corporation, and particularly with the new Skeldon Modernisation Plant being constructed at a cost of US$180 million. In fact, the new factory has cost the country more in terms of lost revenue earnings, most of it after a mere three weeks of operation.

During the past year, the contractors ran numerous tests, and the results were less than heartening.The new factory is designed to not only boost production at a time when the price cuts introduced by the European Community are beginning to be felt, but also to help reduce the cost of production. The results are far from the intended goal.

The authorities passed some 50,000 tonnes of cane through the new mill, but the amount of sugar produced was a mere 400 tonnes. A state-of-the-art factory is expected to convert cane to sugar at a ratio of ten tonnes of cane to a tonne of sugar.

The 50,000 tonnes of cane should have produced 5,000 tonnes of sugar. The 4,600- tonne loss cost the industry some US$3 million.

A source said that the loss comes at a time when the industry is cash strapped and when it was recently ordered to pay a six per cent increase across-the-board to sugar workers.

Blogger: All of this money wasted could have gone into paying those public servants their lil back pay and additional increase for 2008. By not paying the customary increases in 2008, the Government has lost any real chance of stimulating the local economy. The funny thing is that the Government had promised to keep the sugar estates open, but more and more that promise appears to be comforting only fools.