Sugar industry’s recovery a national rehabilitation project

Dear Editor,

The recent comments by APNU’s Member of Parliament, Mr Vinceroy Jordan, labelling the Government’s reported 136.7 per cent growth in the sugar industry as “misleading propaganda”, reveal a troubling lack of economic and policy context. It is necessary to respond – not politically, but analytically – to restore clarity and integrity to the public discourse.

1. The context of growth and the misuse of statistics
   The Government’s 2025 Mid-Year Report’s reference to a 136.7 per cent growth rate must be understood in its proper statistical and economic context. Growth is reported year-on-year relative to the corresponding period of the previous year – this is a standard practice in fiscal and sectoral reporting.

Given that 2024 was an underperforming base year, following the slow reactivation of the Rose Hall and Skeldon estates, it is both expected and legitimate that percentage growth would appear steep in relative terms. The metric reflects recovery momentum, not a declaration of a “boom”.

In simple terms, output is rising, even if targets are still being missed. Since the PPP/C’s reopening of estates post-2020, sugar production has shown a steady upward trajectory. This is verifiable through GuySuCo’s actual production data and national accounts reporting.

2. APNU’s Record: destruction, not investment
   To properly assess current outcomes, one must recall the state of collapse inherited in 2020. During the APNU+AFC Administration, four estates – Wales, Enmore, Skeldon, and Rose Hall – were shuttered, thousands of workers displaced, and key production infrastructure destroyed or sold.

Worse, no capital investment was made to modernise or diversify the industry between 2015 and 2020. Instead, the APNU Government ignored its own Commission of Inquiry (COI), which explicitly recommended against closure and called for a managed diversification strategy, including ventures into ethanol, refined sugar, and co-generation.

The COI report, funded by taxpayers, acknowledged the profound socio-economic damage such closures would inflict – not merely on sugar workers, but on entire village economies, small businesses, transport operators, and retail ecosystems tied to estate livelihoods.

To close the industry despite that evidence was not reform – it was economic vandalism.

3. PPP/C’s capital investment and the path to structural recovery
   Since 2020, the PPP/C Government has injected $24.6 billion in capital expenditure (CAPEX) into the sugar industry across factory rehabilitation, land re-cultivation, and mechanisation upgrades.

This investment must be seen not as a subsidy but as a capital replacement cost – the unavoidable expense of rebuilding a gutted industry. Recommissioning mechanical harvesters, repairing boilers, dredging drainage canals, and restoring irrigation networks all carry significant capital costs.

Indeed, the drainage and irrigation systems maintained by GuySuCo extend beyond factory gates. These networks protect entire communities and agricultural regions from flooding – including rice farmers, cash-crop producers, and residents who depend on estate-maintained waterways.

Thus, the sugar industry’s economic contribution cannot be viewed solely through a narrow profit-and-loss lens. The industry generates substantial social and public goods – employment, community stability, flood protection, and regional spending power.

4. Economic profit vs accounting profit
   Critics often cite GuySuCo’s accounting losses as proof of inefficiency. But accounting profit differs from economic profit. Accounting profit measures short-term financial return; economic profit captures social return on investment – the value of employment, rural consumption, and community resilience that Government-owned enterprises provide.

To this end, GuySuCo’s annual payroll circulation of approximately GY$11 billion fuels direct and indirect consumption across villages, retail sectors, and the banking system. This spending supports the multiplier effect – injecting liquidity and growth across the wider economy.

When the APNU Government closed the estates, the consequences were devastating: 10,000 workers displaced, 48,000 dependents affected, and billions lost in rural GDP. That is not efficiency; that is economic contraction disguised as fiscal prudence.

5. Accountability, not propaganda
   To accuse the Government of “propaganda” for reporting factual year-on-year growth figures is disingenuous. What matters is that actual production has been rising since 2021, supported by measurable replanting, factory rehabilitation, and modernisation.

Yes, GuySuCo has missed certain crop targets – but it is producing more sugar, more consistently than it did when the estates lay abandoned. Recovery is not a switch; it’s a process.

Moreover, unlike APNU’s tenure, where the industry was stripped and neglected, the PPP/C Administration has committed to a long-term industrial diversification plan, which includes consideration of a sugar refinery and renewable energy co-generation initiatives – both designed to move the industry toward higher value-added products and export competitiveness.

6. The broader socio-economic reality
   Sugar remains more than a commodity – it is a rural economic stabiliser. GuySuCo is one of the country’s largest employers, injecting billions annually into local economies through wages and procurement.

The estates’ drainage and irrigation infrastructure are not merely operational assets; they are part of Guyana’s broader climate resilience and agricultural sustainability system. To dismantle them, as APNU did, was to dismantle environmental infrastructure as well.

When Mr Jordan speaks of “wasted billions”, he ignores the multiplier impact of those billions – the sustained employment, the economic dignity of thousands of households, and the protection of agricultural lands.

7. The way forward: measured realism
   There is no denying that GuySuCo must continue to reform. Efficiency, productivity, and governance are ongoing challenges. But recovery must be judged against the condition from which the sector was rescued, not against theoretical ideals devoid of historical continuity.

Guyana’s sugar industry is emerging from a period of near-total collapse. The challenge now is to consolidate recovery through modernisation, energy integration, and diversification – exactly the direction now under active consideration, including the proposed refinery.

The narrative of “failure” being peddled by the Opposition is neither objective nor economically literate. The facts show:
• The PPP/C Government has invested $24.6 billion in capital recovery.
• Production is rising, even as targets remain ambitious.
• The industry’s socio-economic role remains indispensable to rural Guyana.
• The refinery proposal and diversification plans align with long-term viability.
• The COI’s own report – commissioned under APNU – warned not to close the estates.

It is easy to destroy; rebuilding takes time, vision, and capital.

The Government’s task is to rebuild value and capacity; the Opposition’s responsibility is to critique honestly and constructively – not to erase historical facts for political convenience.

The sugar industry’s recovery is neither a “boom” nor a “sham”. It is, in truth, a national rehabilitation project – one that demands realism, patience, and policy continuity.