Andy Warhol says ‘making money is art and working is art and good business

is the best art’. Esteem judges, members of the proposition, time keeper, teachers
and my fellow colleagues, a splendid good morning to you all.

I Malinda Greene, a representative of the La Bonne Intention Secondary School

along with my second speaker Esther Bandhu and Gunadai Ramoutar the third
speaker of today’s debating competition stand firmly and confidently to oppose the
moot “ Guyana Sugar Industry should be diversified”.

Before I begin to educate the audience of our argument, allow me to define the key
terms of the aforementioned moot. According to the Guysuco online recording ‘
The Guyana Sugar Corporation, best known by its acronym GuySuCo, is a
Guyanese sugar company owned by the government. It is the country’s largest
cultivator and producer of sugar, a commodity which is responsible for
approximately 20% of Guyana’s annual revenue and 40% of all agricultural
production.’ The term ‘ should be’ is a verbal phrase which implies that ‘to have an
obligation to’. ‘Diversified’ our main and most significant term suggest according
to Merriam Webster Dictionary ‘ to produce or sell more kinds of products; to
increase the variety of goods and services produced or ordered by someone or
something.

Please allow me to redefine the moot- The Guyana Sugar Company has an
obligation to produce or sell or increase the variety of goods and services.

Impartial Judges, our moot is now being reconstructed “ Guyana Sugar Industry
should NOT be diversified.

Being the first speaker of the opposition team, I will enlighten you on our historical
background of the Guyana sugar estate and the disadvantages of cost and
overextension upon the expansion or development of a business.

Our second speaker will further expound on the lack of expertise presently in the
business entities and the possibilities of reduced innovation that are likely to occur
with expansion.

Our third speaker will conclude our argument with the drawbacks of partnership
and the likelihoods of failure in changes of a large business.
The Guyana Sugar estate is one of the main entities of income in Guyana. Stated in
the website guysuco.gy.com ‘Guyana’s sugar industry was founded in 1658, before
the settlement of the provinces of Demerara and Berbice, when, under the rule of
the Dutch West Indian Company, four plantations were established on the
Pomeroon River in Essequibo. The provinces of Demerara and Berbice were
settled later’. Honourable Judges, should our main source of income be tampered
with, the need for additional cost will be necessary. A business which seeks to
expand or produce more from its resources will need sufficient equipment,
workers, gears, offices, managers etc. So tell me proposition, if Guysuco is
already in bankruptcy, where will they generate the income to diversify into
other fields? As the cliché states ‘ never hang your hat where you cannot
reach’ and surely the Sugar Industry hands are short!!! Businesses that
diversify into territories that require added infrastructure, employee training and
travel between widely separated areas run the risk of increasing their costs to the
point where the value of the venture is compromised. Even the most profitable
diversification involves increased costs and overhead. The Guyana Sugar Industry
is already failing in this country and diversification is impossible.

According to Jagg Zaxx in the Small Business Chron online Article, ‘It
diversification isn’t approached with caution, the result can be over extension of a
company’s resources. To run properly, every division of a corporation, no
matter how large, needs enough resources to maintain its infrastructure and
operations or it will begin to decline’. Members of the proposition through
mismanagement, excessive ambition or simple greed, a company’s directors seek
to expand in too many directions at once, both old and new sectors of the company
may suffer from lack of attention and insufficient resources.

The Prime- minister Mr. Moses Nagamootoo stated in the Kaiteur news 9th May
2017 ‘ In the old days, it was called king sugar, later it was renamed as bitter sugar,
today sugar is no longer king. It has been reduced to the state of a pauper, a beggar
that lives off handouts from the state’. If our Minister in Government can say such
remarks about the sugar industry, then who are we to recommend a diversification?

According to guysuco.gy.com, ‘ In the drive for increased efficiency, the sugar

companies vigorously pursued modernization, research, and new techniques. By
1967, there were eighteen (18) estates serving eleven (11) factories, nine of which
were owned and/or managed by Booker McConnell Limited, the other two, by the
Demerara Company’. Today we have THREE sugar estates in Guyana and I repeat
three sugar estates in Guyana namely Albion, Blairmont and Uitvlugt. My point is,
because of the same diversification, the need to modernize, extend and putting our
hand out of reach, the Guyana sugar industry is in a critical state which may
eventually collapse!

I REST MY CASE.