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February 10, 2026
February 9, 2026
Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha on Tuesday said opposition MP Vishnu Panday has no moral ground to criticise the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), citing his performance while employed at the state-owned entity.
Mustapha made the comments during day two of the Budget 2026 debates in response to Panday, a former GuySuCo executive and We Invest In Nationhood MP, who blamed successive governments for the decline of the sugar industry.
“Because of his below par performance, the honourable member was dismissed from GuySuCo because of poor performance,” the minister told the House.
He said Panday was responsible for the Skeldon Estate and, when asked by the corporation to develop a plan to reopen it, failed to do so; and when asked to account for the plan, he resigned. Mustapha added that under Panday’s leadership, planted cane delivered the lowest yield of 66 tonnes per hectare rather than the normal 70 tonnes and above, compounding reasons for his dismissal.
The minister said when Panday’s contract was not renewed, he was asked to intervene, but because the GuySuCo board would not budge on his reinstatement, the honourable member has now resorted to bashing the government over the sector from the opposition benches.
Earlier, Panday criticised the government for its role in the decline of GuySuCo. He attributed the industry’s struggles to both the former People’s National Congress (PNC) and the current People’s Progressive Party (PPP), saying party politics stifled advancement.
“Politicizing of the industry where executives with vast experience were replaced by party loyalists, where funds expended for equipment and machines were never delivered, monies allocated for special projects but never utilised and where contracts were awarded for work never done, led to a staggering drop in the industry’s performance,” Panday said.
“So, like the PNC, when the PPP took over the industry, they flooded the industry with party loyalist.” He said sugar production fell from 331,000 tonnes then to 88,000 tonnes in 2020, 58,000 tonnes in 2021 and 47,000 tonnes in 2022.
