Dear Editor,
I WRITE with deep concern and frustration at the recent vitriol spewed by Mr Vishnu Panday, an ex-executive of GuySuCo, who now masquerades as a champion of accountability against the current state of the sugar industry and the government. It is not only hypocritical but dangerously misleading.
Mr Panday’s latest outburst and public tirades accuse the government of mismanaging GuySuCo, of failing farmers, of wasting billions and of political interference; he demands transparency and accountability.
But before Guyanese heed his accusations, they must remember what Mr Panday himself represents and that is a major part of the very decline he now condemns.
As former general manager at the shuttered Skeldon Estate and later agriculture director at GuySuCo, he was not a powerless observer, he was among those entrusted with leadership, strategy and execution.
It was under his watch that estates such as Skeldon, Enmore and others steadily decayed. Cane yields per hectare dropped drastically; estates that once produced loads of sugar were closed or collapsed; a sector, once the backbone of many families livelihoods, turned into ruin.
More damningly critics, including former analysts, have publicly labelled Mr Panday as “a cautionary tale of hypocrisy, hubris and decline.”
One blunt assessment said that “at the centre of Skeldon’s failure stands Mr Panday… He was not a bystander; he was the executive with primary responsibility for the Skeldon Modernisation Project and, by extension, a central figure in the decline of GuySuCo and the eventual closure of Enmore Estate.”
Given this painful record, his recent condemnations ring hollow. It smacks more of personal absolution, an attempt to deflect blame, to shift focus away from his own failures. The same man who held high-ranking posts and made decisions that helped sink estates now clamours for transparency and demands that others “come clean.”
If Mr Panday truly cared about the farmers, the workers, and the future of sugar in Guyana, he would start with owning up to the catastrophic legacy of his tenure.
He would also explain how estates under his management deteriorated, why production collapsed, how mismanagement and questionable decisions contributed to the industry’s downfall.
Instead, what we get is a loud demagogue pointing fingers, a drama of protest that is nothing but a retreat into political posturing, and a blatant, opportunistic attempt to rebrand failure as victimhood.
Guyana deserves better. Our farmers, workers and citizens deserve real accountability, not empty rhetoric from those whose own track record undermines their credibility.