On what targets are the GFC and Customs focusing?

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On what targets are the GFC and Customs focusing?
Kaieteur News, 25 August 2007

Dear Editor,

I note from your report by Leonard Gildarie: “Guyana robbed almost 80
per cent of timber royalties – source – Customs, loggers in cahoots
with sawmills” (Kaieteur News, 07.08.22) that the government seems to
be putting into practice part of the assurance given by Minister Robert
Persaud at his press conference on forestry on December 8 last year.

He promised, then, that exports would be checked 100 per cent.

Now you report that sawmills and lumber yards are being checked for
collusion with the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) staff.

After over five years of playing blind man's bluff, the GFC seems at
last to be implementing some of its own legislation and procedures. But
why is it focusing on the small actors?

The mills in Guyana , including Barama, exported only 45,000 cubic
metres (m3) of sawn lumber in 2006. Are the GFC and Customs
Administration also checking on the exports of unprocessed logs?

The Minister said that data would be published, and the Commissioner of
Forests then refused to release critical information on log shipments.

Now the Forest Products Marketing Council reports that the average
value of purpleheart logs exported in the first half of 2007, declared
to Customs, was US$146 per cubic metre. The same kind of timber is
being purchased in China at a CIF price of US$672 - US$712 per cubic
metre of log (merbau).

Deducting ocean freight and insurance of US$130 per cubic metre, the
FOB cost ex-Georgetown for purpleheart logs should be US$542 –US$582.
So something like US$400 per cubic metre is going astray.

Multiplied by the 191,000 cubic metres of log exports in 2006, that is
US$76.4 million. Are the GFC and Customs focusing on the right targets,
or just the soft targets?

Mahadeo Kowlessar