Guyana and the wider world

Guyana and the Wider World
Guyana's Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme (PRSP) and the forestry
sector (Part 2)
By Janette Bulkan
Sunday, February 11th 2007
Stabroek News

Last week's column examined the first two causes of poverty according
to the PRSP in relation to the forestry sector, namely (i) poor
economic policies, and (ii) poor governance. Today's column compares
the forestry sector against the fourth cause singled out by the PRSP:
"deterioration in the quantum and quality of social services" (PRSP
2001, p 7). This analysis is undertaken in the context of the question:
Why is there persistent poverty in the interior alongside the
parcelling out of Guyana's best endowed forests in large-scale forestry
concessions?

Part IV, A 3 of the National Forest Plan (NFP) states:

(a) Priority areas for foreign investment shall be the more capital
intensive, higher technology projects, and those that are linked to an
overseas marketing network.

(b) All foreign investors shall recruit and train Guyanese citizens so
that national expertise may be developed and employment opportunities
maximised at all levels.

Recruitment - In the hinterland where paid jobs are scarce, forestry
could offer regular employment, skills development, and enhanced
livelihoods. However, forestry jobs are rarely, if ever, advertised
through posters in local communities or regional administrative
centres. Forestry jobs are infrequently advertised in the press, radio
or TV. In expatriate logging companies, skilled jobs in the forestry
sector are almost all reserved for foreign contract workers, or local
sub-contractors. Guyanese obtain low-level employment at their sawmills
and log landings, and they secure interviews for employment by word of
mouth. Some workers bitterly described this as 'showcase' employment -
African and East Indian workers on display for visiting delegations to
observe, while foreign contract workers are out of sight in the forest.

Training - In reality, logging and milling companies provide no career
in a conventional sense - no promotion, no in-service training, and
incentives only as overtime pay. The number of Guyanese staff sent by
expatriate and local forestry companies to the Guyana Forestry Training
Centre Inc for training is low. In order to be internationally
competitive, Guyana has to invest in a 'knowledge economy.' Surely it
must be skills and ingenuity which should be fostered - and in what
better area than in the forestry and forest products' sectors in which
Guyana possesses a comparative advantage?

Salaries - Guyanese employed at expatriate logging companies generally
work 12-hour shifts, 27 days on, 4 days off. Both foreign and Guyanese
workers are said to be on one-year contracts, if any, renewable at the
discretion of expatriate management, without any assurance of annual
increment or cost-of-living increase. Many contracts with Guyanese
workers are unwritten in the case of some expatriate companies that
have FDI concessionary arrangements. Guyanese allegedly are paid much
less than the foreign workers for the same kind of job. Wage labour
rates seem to start at G$ 26,000 per month (US$130) for Guyanese. In
spite of the pool of skills available from experience in the bauxite
and forestry industries, almost all the logging machinery in expatriate
companies (bulldozers, graders, skidders, loaders, trucks) continues to
be operated by Malaysians, Indonesians, Chinese and Filipinos. Foreign
workers are paid in US dollars, generally deposited in their bank
accounts in their home country. It is not known whether these foreign
workers pay PAYE or any form of income taxes while in Guyana. There is
no study of the contribution of the forestry sector to employment, as
measured by NIS or PAYE payments.

Food - The dismal social services at logging camps are contrary to the
GFC Code of Practice for Timber Harvesting, and letters to Stabroek
News have complained frequently about employment practices and living
conditions. Guyanese workers employed by a large expatriate company
have expressed strong feelings about the sub-standard living
accommodation and company food. In one expatriate company the food
allowance for foreign workers is said to be more than double that of
the Guyanese - $15,000 per month (US$2 per day) versus $7,000 per month
(US$1 per day). This allowance for food can be taken as
canteen-supplied food, or as a kind of credit voucher which can be
spent only by list-ordering from a company-tied shop. A worker makes
out a list of shop supplies preferred, but is unable to select
alternatives and the shop frequently does not have in stock the listed
supplies.

Guyanese are not given assisted passages from work site to home or
back. Even the short journey of 15-20 minutes from one log landing to
the regional hub which is charged at $1,000 (US$5) per passage,
one-way, by a private operator, has to be borne by the low-paid
Guyanese worker, in the absence of advance information about their
company's transportation movements on which they might hitch a ride.

Health - The 1953 Forest Law requires, and at least some of the major
companies provided, first aid posts at the logging camps which also
serviced the neighbouring communities at least into the 1980s. In the
present, expatriate workers are immediately transported by expatriate
logging companies to hospital if they are sick while Guyanese employees
have to await the expatriate company's pleasure in providing
transportation or find their own way to the nearest government health
centre for medical treatment. Peer-reviewed research papers have
described the differential treatment between foreigners and locals at
one major expatriate operational centre (now closed). Other companies
have emulated this race to the bottom - and disrespect for Guyanese
labour in our own country.

There are no public reports of inspections by relevant government
agencies of any of the forest camps of expatriate companies. However,
there has been international, if no local, sanction of the Barama
Company's non-compliance with basic health and safety requirements for
workers in the camps as well as at work, and requirements for training
in accordance with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Principles and
Criteria. The Barama Company's certification for good forest management
in its two showcase compartments 4 and 5 was suspended for 3 months at
the beginning of 2007.

What is also striking is the pervading climate of fear among Guyanese
forestry workers. Guyanese workers expressed fear of personal
victimization if their employer suspected that they might have
expressed any criticism of their terms of employment. In his budget
speech, the Minister of Finance said that the search was on to create
thousands of jobs over the next five years. The Minister would be well
advised to begin his search closer home. He could convene an
inter-sectoral committee to consider policy on the continuing
importation of Asian forest workers in the context of high unemployment
rates in interior areas. As recommended by OECD guidelines for
multinational companies, and as intended in the National Forest Plan
1997, Foreign Direct Investment arrangements should make explicit
provision for the training of nationals to take over from foreign
workers, at all levels including managerial. This could be through an
enabling clause referencing a detailed supplementary action plan, or
that plan could be one of the annexes to the FDI agreement. Next week's
column will detail some measures which can be set in train now to
create jobs and promote training and job security for Guyanese in the
forestry sector.