Sugar ship late and light

Date: Thu 28-Oct-1993
Paper Page: 3
Publication: Daily Nation

A 600-TONNE sugar shipment due Tuesday from Guyana will arrive late, and short
too.

About half that amount is now expected Monday because Blairmont Estate workers
have been on strike for a week.

"We were looking at getting the shipment from another estate, Skeldon, and we
would try to get at least 200 or 300 tonnes prepared over the weekend to be
shipped early on Monday," said director of marketing and administration at the
Guyana Sugar Corporation, Ian McDonald.

McDonald said officials there are hopeful the strike will soon end so the rest
of the sugar can be shipped here.

This shipment is separate from a six-month contract, just completed, that
supplied 3 500 tonnes of sugar to Barbados.

Barbados turned to Guyana after a maelstrom of complaints over the quality and
cleanliness of Guatemalan sugar.

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Ruall Harris, said the
Barbados Marketing Corporation is now negotiating a new contract with the
Guyanese for another 3 500-tonne, six-month contract.

Yesterday he said he had no knowledge of the 600-tonne delayed shipment.