Audit report

This audit report cannot be taken as a final document
Friday, February 2nd 2007
Dear Editor,

I wish to refer to your article under the caption "Major Deficiencies uncovered in Barama Forest Management - Auditor to appeal some findings."

Many thanks for informing us at Port Kaituma about the major issues and events in our country. In relation to the article, the ASI audit report cannot be taken as a final document until the appeal by the SGS - Qualifor is objectively heard and analysed. So at this point it is not wise to suggest that Barama was not complying with the major requirements of its FSC certificate.

Paragraph 5 of the said article states: "As I also said that according to the comments garnered from stakeholders, SGS had unclear criteria to select primary stakeholders, some representative stakeholders (including representatives of indigenous communities) were not properly consulted". This is not true and is therefore incorrect and insulting to the professionalism of the SGS audit team. It would be of interest to know who these "stakeholders" were and who misled the ASI. The SGS team was very professional and efficient at their consultation processes. They knew who the primary stakeholders of our forest sector were and they were all invited and made their comments at these consultations.

The SGS team was very patient since they listened attentively to everyone and made their notes as the stakeholders were living their comments. The matter of "not properly consulted" is therefore deceptive as claimed by some stakeholders in the ASI report.

Paragraph 6 of the article states "the stakeholders said SGS's procedures were not adequate and SGS did not follow appropriate stakeholder consultation process in line with the laws of Guyana". This is another deception as claimed by some of the "stakeholders". As far as I am aware the SGS team was democratic and impartial in their procedures. They stopped no one from making their comments against the Barama Company. If the SGS team was not impartial in its procedures, they would not have met and invited the Guyana Citizens Initiative (GCI) to their consultations, since the GCI is not a primary stakeholder of the forestry sector.

On the matter of the SGS not following appropriate stakeholder consultation process "in line with the law of Guyana" this is laughable. The fact of the matter is that there are simply no laws governing the consultation process in Guyana.

I do believe that in all fairness to the SGS audit team, the negative description given to the SGS consultation process in Guyana does not represent the truth and should be withdrawn from the ASI audit report.

Yours faithfully,

Trevor Atkinson

StabroekNews