The cost of shutting down GuySuCo would extend well beyond its balance sheet, prominent business analyst Joel Bhagwandin has argued, warning that the corporation’s financial losses must be weighed against the jobs, livelihoods and community services it supports.
In a letter published in the dailies, Bhagwandin pushed back against an assessment of GuySuCo’s 2025 results which compared its $16.9 billion loss to the cost of constructing 1,924 homes.
“That money was not burned. Most of it was paid to Guyanese workers and spent in sugar communities,” he wrote.
His response followed an October 26 letter in Kiskadee Watch captioned, “This loss is unprecedented in GuySuCo’s history.”
While acknowledging the corporation’s financial difficulties, Bhagwandin argued that judging a state-owned industry solely by its accounting results overlooks the wider cost of allowing it to collapse.
According to the figures he cited, employment accounts for about 77 per cent of GuySuCo’s total costs, supporting more than 8,000 employees and some 5,000 pensioners. Another $2.6 billion goes towards drainage and irrigation works which, he said, also protect neighbouring villages, access dams and farmlands.
“The proper question, therefore, is not whether GuySuCo made a profit, but whether the economy is better or worse off with the industry operating than without it,” Bhagwandin stated.
Drawing on his 2019 position paper on downsizing the industry, he said his estimates placed the social and economic cost of closure at roughly eight times the cost of keeping sugar operating, even at an accounting loss.
That assessment considered lost wages, income tax and National Insurance Scheme contributions, along with sugar’s contribution to the economy.
However, Bhagwandin made clear that his argument was not for maintaining the industry indefinitely in its present condition. He called for gradual restructuring and resizing, alongside investment to improve its viability.
He also argued that alternative employment and economic activity do not yet exist on a sufficient scale in many sugar communities to replace the industry’s contribution.
Using what he described as a conservative, illustrative multiplier, Bhagwandin estimated that GuySuCo’s $22 billion employment bill supports between $29 billion and $33 billion in economic activity. Workers’ earnings, he explained, circulate through shops, markets, transport services and other businesses.
He pointed to the closure of Wales, Enmore, Rose Hall and Skeldon between 2016 and 2018, saying the consequences of sending home some 7,000 workers were borne by families and village economies.
Turning to GuySuCo’s performance, Bhagwandin cited limited operating opportunities, low harvester attendance and the lingering effects of drought on carry-over cane as factors behind rising costs.
He nevertheless maintained that these conditions did not excuse weak performance, but identified areas requiring attention.
Bhagwandin pointed to the Government’s five-year strategic plan, increased mechanisation and demands for greater managerial accountability as measures intended to address the corporation’s difficulties.
“GuySuCo’s accounting loss is real, and accountability is warranted,” he wrote.
The test, he argued, should be whether the turnaround reduces the fiscal cost of delivering the industry’s wider social and economic benefits each year.
