Dear Editor,
Our sugar industry has been earning persistent public attention, from various perspectives, during 2025. Not so long ago one observed in Stabroek News:
a) Commentary attributed to a former Estate Manager and Agriculture Director – Vishnu Panday. The article was captioned: Mechanisation necessary for GuySuCo to deliver. Included amongst perceived inadequacies were:
– Massive overhaul of factories
– Shortage of fertilisers; herbicides
– Poor communication between management and the workforce
b) The next commentary in Stabroek News addressed productivity issues at Rose Hall Estate in particular and was credited to Dr. Tara Singh. Briefly it reviewed the closure of that estate in 2017 and its revival in 2022, correctly highlighting the persistent labour shortage and the need for mechanization.
It would be interesting to know how many of the industry’s current decision-makers, managers and advisors know of the earlier existence of Bookers Sugar Estates (BSE) which was nationalised as the Guyana Sugar Corporation, better known as GuySuCo. It is unlikely to have been revealed the staff member who created its current formulation.
Opportunity is taken to assert that the undersigned is most likely the oldest survivor of the management cadre in the sugar industry – from Cadet in 1955 to Human Resources Director 1917, except that there was a substantive period of my intervention with the CARICOM Secretariat as its first HR Director.
More importantly perhaps is my recollection of colleagues from the sugar industry who are alive, and who retired at the following positions as I recall:
Dr. Harold Davis Jr. – Director – Agriculture Research & Development
Ian McDonald – Director – Marketing & Administration
Joe Alfred – Regional Director – Demerara
George Allen – Agriculture Manager
George James – Administrative Manager, Factory Operations
Vibert Parvatan – Agriculture Manager
Fritz McLean – Agriculture Director
Lance Tyrell – Factory Manager, apologies for colleagues overlooked.
More importantly however the abovementioned management team and other colleagues indulged in a wider range of activities, including:
Community Development
Community Centres
Girls’ Clubs
Indoor/Outdoor Sports – local, national, international – cricket, athletics
Industrial Relations
Enough to mention the Unions with whom we engaged
I) MPCA – substantively replaced by GAWU – on behalf of Workers
II) Guyana Headmen’s (Field Foremen) Union
III) Guyana Sugar Estates Supervisors’ Association (Field and Factory) – including Chargehands.
IV) Guyana and West Indies (Barbados, Antigua, St. Kitts) Sugar Boilers’ Union
V) Sicknesses Nurses (Certified Male Nurses, Midwives) and Dispensers’ Association.
IV) Sugar Estate Clerks Association (NAACIE)
Interestingly production and productivity did not appear to be substantively affected by old time industrial relations.
Health Services
Free medical treatment to all employees and families of each estate and head office by organized teams of Estate Medical Officers, Para-Medicals at Primary and Regional Health Care Centres.
Management of an effective Contributory Hospitalisation and Maternity Insurance Scheme for monthly and weekly paid workers – until overtaken by the National Insurance Scheme.
Education and Training
Apprenticeship Scheme (Male and Female)
Assistance to Study – Scholarships to – Guyana School of
Agriculture, University of Guyana and of course relevant overseas
institutions.
Performance Evaluation
Of individuals and teams at identifiable levels, and across estates as well as the Head Office all of which were meticulously recorded.
Communication
The activities formed part of a creative Communication Programme – horizontally and vertically, conducted in appropriately arranged environments by and amongst related personnel, as well as via newsletters, magazines and Television programmes. In the BSE days estates were required to report by radio to the Head Office every morning on the previous day’s production, and relevant incidents as necessary.
A most productive interaction was the Workers’ Council enjoyed amongst identified management and workers (not Unionists). They brainstormed their own agenda and agreed respective recommendations which they shared with other locations/departments as appropriate.
This communication exercise contributed to a spirit of equality.