Barama says shortage of local skills delaying veneer plant

http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article?id=56521485


Barama says shortage of local skills delaying veneer plant
By Johann Earle
Stabroek News
Saturday, June 2nd 2007

Workers of Barama Company Limited processing lumber in the sawmill at
Buck Hall on the Essequibo River. (Barama Company Limited photo)

Barama Company Limited says that the shortage of skilled local labour
is affecting the setting up of the veneering plant which the company
hopes to build at Buck Hall on the Essequibo River.

This dearth of skills has caused the company to undertake the training
of a number of managers in Malaysia, so that they would be proficient
in the new technology, according to General Manager and Chairman of
Barama, Girwar Lalaram.

Speaking to members of the media during a sensitisation tour of
Barama's Buck Hall operations on Monday and Tuesday, Lalaram said that
the company is putting up an additional US$10M on top of the US$35M it
has already committed to investing. He said that this should
demonstrate that the company is committed to value-adding in its
production of forest products.

He said that the work is to start soon on the veneer plant and the two
sawmills. During the tour, the media got to see the locations allotted
for the construction of the new buildings to house the sawmills and
veneer plant.

According to Lalaram, the veneer plant is already in the country and is
at Land of Canaan awaiting deployment to Buck Hall when everything is
in place.

But on the co-generation project that is to be a part of the
investment, he said consultants have concluded that there is not yet
enough waste for it to be viable. He said that for now the company will
buy two diesel generating sets to power the veneer plant and sawmills.

"We are on track with what we said we would do," Lalaram said. Asked
why the company was continuing to export logs, he said the company at
the moment did not have the capacity to mill all the logs produced.

The company is also building its own pontoons to transport logs and
other products from the forest locations to Port Georgetown.

Barama's Forest Planning Manager Neil Chand said that the company will
use an airbag technology to roll the barge into the river upon
commissioning.

The company took members of the media and various stakeholders in the
forest industry to see the operations of Barama at Buck Hall and at its
logging camp some 70 kilometres away.

According to Vic Insanally of Guyenterprise, Barama's local public
relations consulting firm, Barama is seeking to let the public know of
its operations in light of heavy criticism from various quarters. More
public relations activities are planned for Barama in the near future.

Lalaram said too that as a result of the audit which led to Barama's
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification being suspended for a
three-month period, a number of issues were being corrected before the
surveillance audit some time in August. Among these is housing
accommodation for the workers of the logging camp and Buck Hall
facilities. These new living quarters will also accommodate the
additional workers for the new facilities being put down.

According to Dr Patrick Williams, country manager for the World
Wildlife Fund for Nature, Barama would have to address a number of
issues before the audit.

Among these were the issue with Akawini and the Environ-mental Impact
Assessments (EIA) for logging roads that would attract the attention of
the auditors. Lalaram said that the company is working to get a major
part of the road fixed by the August audit. The company has started to
demobilise its machinery and pull out from the area as residents of
Akawini strongly made their case for the company and its business
partner Interior Wood Products Inc (IWPI) to leave.

Forest Planning Manager Chand said further that the company is working
within a culture of a very conventional way of doing things. But he
said that with Barama's reduced impact logging (RIL) it is hoped that
some of these old methods will be discarded.

He said that compliance reports are done for every block of concession
harvested and the company is cutting way below what is allowed by the
Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC). He said that the GFC allows 20 cubic
metres per hectare while the company harvests eight cubic metres per
hectare. However critics have argued that if prime species are
over-represented in the eight cubic metres those species would be
severely under threat. Barama has not provided detailed information on
this.