HGP Nightly News – As the government pushes ahead with another major financial commitment to Guyana’s struggling sugar industry, new budget figures reveal a widening gap between investment levels and production outcomes, even as President Irfaan Ali has publicly expressed dissatisfaction with GuySuCo’s performance. In presenting the 2026 National Budget, Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh announced that $13.4 billion has been allocated to the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) this year, slightly above the $13.3 billion spent in 2025.
The allocation comes after a year in which production once again fell short of revised targets, reinforcing concerns about efficiency and accountability across the industry.GuySuCo closed 2025 with approximately 59,200 metric tonnes of sugar, narrowly missing its revised target of 60,000 tonnes. That shortfall followed repeated downward adjustments to production expectations and prompted President Ali, late last year, to warn that estates failing to meet targets in 2026 would face changes in management.
Despite those outcomes, Dr. Singh told the National Assembly that the government remains committed to restoring the industry to long-term financial viability, pointing to what he described as five years of restructuring, reopening, and reinvestment. He cited the reopening of the Rose Hall Estate and upgrades at Albion, Blairmont, Uitvlugt, and Rose Hall as key interventions, alongside support programmes for more than 5,200 severed workers.
The industry currently employs over 8,300 people. The Finance Minister also highlighted efforts to shift away from bulk sugar toward higher-value products, supported by the commissioning of the Albion packaging plant in 2025 and the procurement of mechanical harvesters to reduce labour dependency. Infrastructure works carried out last year included the rehabilitation of cane punts, factory equipment, access roads, and wharf facilities, as well as continued land conversion for mechanised planting and harvesting.
For 2026, the government is targeting the mechanisation of more than 3,000 hectares, alongside factory modernisation projects such as replacing sugar boilers, installing new dryers, expanding billet cane handling systems, and improving all-weather access roads. Five additional cane harvesters are also to be procured.
However, the renewed spending comes against a backdrop of growing scrutiny. President Ali has acknowledged that while sugar remains economically and socially important to rural communities, investment must now be matched by results. His warning signalled a shift from recovery-focused spending to performance-based accountability.
As GuySuCo enters another year of heavy state support, Budget 2026 positions the industry at a crossroads: continued financial backing on one hand, and mounting pressure on the other to demonstrate that long-promised modernisation can finally translate into sustained production gains.
