Dear Editor,
Whether you are a political leader aspiring for higher offices in government or a religious leader aspiring to change the lives of your followers, there are certain leadership qualities which are common. Among these are integrity and honesty. Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles and this means doing the right thing, even when difficult, and is fundamental for building trust and credibility.
I have had the opportunity to listen to man who is a religious leader and is now an aspiring political leader. That man is Vishnu Panday and is now a candidate for the WIN political party after his contract with GuySuCo was not renewed due to job performance issues. This man worked in various capacities with GuySuCo but of noteworthy was his role as General Manager and Agriculture Director. In a recently published letter seen it stated that he was dismissed from his post as General Manager for ‘serious misconduct’ and at the end of 2024 his contract as Agriculture Director was not renewed due to poor performance as was the contract of his loyal side-kick, Dwarka Bahadur. Recently, at a WIN meeting at Rose Hall Town, Corentyne, he made a willful and highly deceptive statement meant to dupe the handful of attendees.
This pundit/political aspirant boldly lied that the Rose Hall Factory was never fully rehabilitated and he claimed that the former technical Director, Dwarka Bahadur can confirm that all that was done to the Factory was to ‘change some zinc, paint around the place, spruce one two fine things and do one two things on the carrier…the factory was always there, it was not decommissioned…all they did was change the oil and get it going’. This is unbelievable, absurd and totally misleading and meant to deceive the public and Dwarka Bahadur knows this better than anyone else.
In September 2020 the Rose Hall Factory was a total wreck and as the former General Manager, Aaron Dukhia stated ‘it was panoramic destruction’. Firstly, let me educate Panday and Dwarka about the state of the factory. The complete structure of the factory was in disrepair and the machinery and equipment were exposed to the elements of the weather, there was rust and decay all over and there was lush vegetation and vines wrapped around every piece, only Tarzan was missing. Let me outlined a few of the major rehabilitative works done from 2020 to 2023. The entire roof was replaced and structures reinforced; the entire cane gantry had to be rehabilitated; the entire cane carrier had to be replaced (not one two fine things as Panday stated); replacement of all motors and pumps; re-tubing two the six boilers as a start; re-tubing and in replacing pans; replace and change mills rolls, repair five crystallizers, redo the body of the clarifier; install a new water management system; install a new mill desk master control, install a new generating set and major overhaul of the existing 1 megawatt generating set. It was not your car where just an oil change is needed, Panday. This factory was down for three years was it is most inconceivable that it needed just ‘one or two fine things and an oil change’. No wonder Panday and his side-kick, Bahadur were kicked out of GuySuCo. Good riddance, all in GuySuCo will unanimously agree.
Furthermore, Panday should be fully cognizant of the dire state of the cultivation, its water ways and its bridges and other infrastructures. This is in addition to the punt fleet, the tractors and other machinery and equipment which were all beyond salvage. Not to mention those which were siphoned off during the SPU tenure. Panday must know that the rehabilitation of the cane field cannot be done overnight. This is not Jack and the Beanstalk. The overgrown canes had to be raked, burnt and removed, the land had to be prepared, drains dug and the entire works. Waterways had to be cleaned and excavated and bridges repaired and rehabilitated and the punt fleet had to be replaced with new ones. In addition, tractors, machinery and equipment had to be borrowed from other estates but many were bought. This was high-point of the COVID-19 period and procurement of critical spares took a long time. Panday should understand that GuySuCo did not benefit from the works of Mandrake, the Magician.
Then there was acute labor shortage, both skilled and unskilled, which presented another huge challenge and which still is to this day. The dismissed workers simply cannot hibernate for three years plus. They had to find sustenance for their families, some moved to other jobs and some migrated. The human capital at Rose Hall Estate suffered the most. Whilst machinery and equipment can be replaced, labor replacement is not that simple. In the Factory, people were employed as porter/ cleaner and had to be trained on the job and it was these same people who were instrumental in providing most of the labor required to rehabilitate the factory. I must compliment the Factory Manager, Vikram Seepersaud and his team to achieve mission impossible and of course the Human Resources Manager, Pawan Baldeo. There are others who made their invaluable contributions, like Bishan Dhanpat, Aaron Dukhia and Vijay Gobardhan. The current crop sugar professionals such as Nazir Succoor, Threbhowan Shiwprasad and Ravindra Persaud, signals a bright future for GuySuCo.
Today, the Estate is gearing towards mechanization of the fields, to enable the increase use of mechanical cane harvesters to bridge the labor gap and increase production and productivity. But this is a whole new discussion.
Finally, lies and deceit does not befit a leader, whether its politics or religion.