Stabroek News
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General Manager of the logging company Barama Company Ltd (BCL) Girwar Lalaram has "locked horns" with forest conservation activist Janet Bulkan over what he says has been a deliberate and sustained attempt on her part to discredit the company internationally and to undermine its access to international markets. In a lengthy and robust presentation made during a press conference at the Cara Lodge Hotel on Friday May 11 Lalaram asserted that Ms Bulkan had undertaken an anti-Barama mission abroad that had discredited the company's image and hurt its overseas sales. He disclosed that Barama was currently holding 15,000 cubic metres of plywood which it was unable to sell on the international market as a result of what he said were Ms Bulkan's well-publicised criticisms of the company's timber harvesting policies. Janet Bulkan is a member of the well-known Guyanese business family - the Bulkans - who own and operate Bulkan Timber Works and Precision Woodworking Company, one of the outstanding success stories in the export of locally produced furniture to Europe and the Caribbean. Precision has been an aggressive public advocate of responsible forestry practices and of adding value to locally harvested timber in preference to exporting logs. However, in his statement, Lalaram claimed that Ms Bulkan's criticisms of Barama and particularly of its timber harvesting policies, were driven by what he described as "a family vendetta" arising out of an earlier invitation to Barama by Precision to invest in the operations of the furniture manufacturing company. "What Bulkan omits to say is that her brothers' company wanted to consort with Barama by inviting the latter to buy into 40 per cent of their company and to work with them as partners," Lalaram said. Stabroek Business was shown a copy of a letter purportedly sent by Precision Woodworking to Barama in which reference was made to a "proposed 2-way confidentiality agreement" relating to the proposed 40 per cent buyout. The letter referred to an earlier August 2006 communication between Barama and Precision on the same issue. Earlier this week Lalaram told Stabroek Business that Barama's parent company, Samling Global had been favour-ably disposed to acquiring a majority shareholding interest - a minimum of 51 per cent in Precision. He said that Barama had communicated Samling's position to Precision but had received no response. Lalaram could not say whether Samling still retained an interest in securing a majority shareholding interest in Precision.
When asked to comment on this issue Mr Rustum Bulkan stated that he did not wish to do so as the company was handling the matter in its own way. Lalaram told Stabroek Business that Barama had previously supplied purpleheart to Bulkan Timber Works but had ceased to do so as a result of differences over pricing. And in what appears to have been a recent decision by Barama to respond to what Lalaram says is a calculated decision by Janet Bulkan to "hurt" Barama, the timber company's General Manager told the media that with immediate effect Barama will continue to supply precision with locust, a high quality hardwood used in the production of furniture, only if Precision agrees to pay the "comparable international price" for the product. According to Lalaram Barama had been saving Precision approximately US$150,000 annually by providing the company with locust at a preferential price. Asked whether Barama has contemplated legal action against Janet Bulkan or the Bulkan business group on account of what he described as the 'lies" being spread about the company Lalaram said that it was not the wish of Barama to engage in litigation with another local company. Barama, the single largest investor in the logging industry in Guyana, has been operating in Guyana since 1991. The company, along with other investors in the sector, has been facing an increasingly aggressive domestic lobby for a reduction and eventual banning of the export of logs from Guyana. Earlier this year the Ministry of Agriculture and the Guyana Forestry Commission convened a major forum to discuss the issue of log exports. However, Lalaram said in his statement that the agreement between the Government of Guyana and Barama signed more than 16 years ago allowed the company to export logs from Guyana. And in response to what Lalaram says has been damage to Barama's international image which it blames on Bulkan the company's General Manager announced that it had recruited the New York-based Public Relations firm Hill and Knowlton and the local company, Guyenterprise to handle aspects of its public communication and public relations. Sources in the forestry sector have told Stabroek Business that Barama's recent sharp attack on what the company's General Manager told the media was a "poison propaganda" initiative may have been prompted by demands from the company's Asian investors that the local management take initiatives to repair the company's overseas image and rescue its international markets. |
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