THE Fiji Sugar Corporation has lost close to $40million from the temporary closure of the Ba sugar mill.
FSC board chairman Nitya Reddy said this was a significant loss caused by the industry’s largest fire in more than 150 years.
“This is the largest fire inflicted incident in the 150-year history of the sugar industry,” said Mr Reddy.
“This is far bigger than the closure of the Penang mill, bigger than the floods and this is far bigger than the droughts that have been routinely inflicted on us.”
He said the FSC was working hard to meet the recommissioning deadline of the mill which has been shifted to the first week of December.
“We have a team of about 50 engineers working almost 15 to 20 hours per day and we are very hopeful that we will be able to recommission the operations of the Ba mill.
“We are looking at the first week of December.
“Please do not crucify us because the achievement of the deadline is also very heavily dependent on us being able to source critical equipment for the realisation of the deadline. At this stage without making any commitment, we are looking at a loss of close to $40million.
“That is very significant given the fact that for the last 25 years, FSC has made a profit in only one year over the last 25 years and that was a profit of $2million.
“We have been living on a line of support given by the Government.”
Mr Reddy also refuted claims that a majority of mill workers have been laid off.
“All of our 521 employees who were working on our Ba mill are still on our payroll.
“Despite all the noise made in Parliament last week that we had made mass redundancies, that is not true.
“Out of the 521 workers, only 60 were laid off and these were casual employees. All others are employed.”
