Asian loggers depriving Guyanese of jobs

Asian loggers depriving Guyanese of jobs
Guyana Chronicle, 31 August 2007

I refer to the letter by Ms Preamnarine Karan published in your
newspaper

[ GC 29/8 ] captioned "No transfer from Demerara Timbers to Bai Shan
Lin".

The final sentence in her letter which stated "The reviewers of her
thesis at Yale should be requested to go through her documentation to
ensure that it is based on fact" confirmed for me the identity of the
real author of this letter, as I was present at a meeting at which a
high official announced that he had taken exactly that course of
action.

I would like to ask Ms Karan two questions in turn: -

1. If Demerara Timbers only has a ‘Technical Assistance Management
Agreement’ with Bai Shan Lin, then why did they erect a giant signboard
at the gate of their Mabura operations announcing"Bai Shan
Lin/Demerara Timbers? And why was the signboard taken down a few weeks
later?

2. If DTL's ‘Technical Assistance Management Agreement’ with Bai Shan
Lin only "cover[s] the movement of shares within a specific company" as
stated byMs Karan - in other words, a takeover, confirmed separately
by Bai Shan Lin's Administrative Manager and Site Manager (Demerara
Timbers to be taken over by Bai Shan Lin, Stabroek News, 21 August
2007), would this be similar to the recent buyout in which Danny Chan
of Jailin sold STATE FORESTS belonging to all Guyanese to the same Bai
Shan Lin for over US$19 million. YesUS$19 million. Ms Karan claims
that ‘she does not speak about her very close family members who have
been in the forest sector for decades and have reinvested practically
nothing into the sector’.

Permit me, through your newspaper, to inform Ms Karan of the
contributions to the national economy by Bulkan Timber Works, Precision
Woodworking Limited, and Superior Shingles & Wood Products Inc., three
companies in which the brothers of Janette Bulkan are employed.

In 2006 those three companies employed about 250 Guyanese, all on the
NIS roll; exported about $590 million and paid $79 million in taxes. No
logs exported. All value-added production in 2007 our companies are
aiming to surpass all those numbers.

Furthermore in 2006 those same Bulkans joined with another local
company to start another company - Sustainable Forest Inc. SFI's
concession of 32,000 ha is less than 1 percent of the 4,911,000 ha of
State Forests allocated for commercial use. SFI is now in its first
year of operation, and our company will inform Ms Karan and all other
Guyanese the sum total of royalties and area fees paid per hectare at
the end of our first year.We pledge to have only Guyanese workers, no
logs will be exported. We would like to issue a challenge to all other
concession holders to publish their comparable figures. In addition,
our hard-working GFC and Go-Invest can publish those figures in the
national interest.

Finally I would like Ms Karan to further advise on the following -
Will our policy makers continue to allow Asian loggers to mine our
forests & export logs rather than ensuring that they process the logs
in Guyana? Does it not make sense for our natural resources to be
processed here so all the spin off benefits accrue to Guyanese? When
you fell a tree that takes over 100 years to mature and export it in
log form, here is

what Guyana gets - US $6 in export tax. The calculation is as follows:
The average log measures 3 cubic metres. Declared value of US$300 at 2
% export levy equals US$6.00. Yes the princely sum of US$6.00 for a
prime timber species. And to boot one Asian company is not even paying
its fair share of this 2 % export tax.One does not have to be a rocket
scientist to question whether this is accepable in the 21st century.
Where is the patriotism, Ms. Karan? Will our policy makers continue to
allow these Asian loggers to continue willy nilly to import Asian
workers thus depriving Guyanese of these jobs. And have these Asian
loggers tell us that Asian workers are more productive than Guyanese.
When will Ms Karan or our policy makers join up the dots?
Howard Bulkan