Timber royalties' article utterly baseless

Timber royalties' article utterly baseless
Kaieteur News, 6 September 2007

Dear Editor,

We wish to respond to an article in the Kaieteur News of Wednesday,
22nd August, 2007, headlined “ Guyana robbed almost 80% of timber
royalties - source”.

The Forest Products Association is gravely concerned when utterly
baseless stories of this kind, attributed to unidentified sources, are
so readily published without the reporter, at least, checking the facts
with the Association or other relevant agencies which represents the
industry.

A claim that 80% of the revenues due to the government payable from
royalties “are robbed” as a result of collusion between the industry
and Customs is patently ridiculous.

The systems and checks in place, from the point of felling a tree,
removing it from the forest, holding it in log yards (where the logs
are held on the concession prior to removal for processing or export),
transporting it for milling, or for export in log form, would make it
impossible for the degree of corruption alleged in the article to take
place.

Unlike almost any other export product, it is virtually impossible to
conceal a product the size of a log from being identified in any
significant numbers.

The article claims that “the present system allows for corruption” and
that “it is impossible for government to really know what Guyana 's
potential is as far as timber exports are concerned”. This is sheer
nonsense. In fact, the entire report displays a total ignorance of the
industry.

Every concessionaire is required to submit an inventory to the Guyana
Forestry Commission (GFC) enumerating every tree that is intended for
extracting for approval prior to harvesting. When a tree is felled,
both the stump left in the ground and the log are tagged.

At the log yard, where logs are first held, every log is listed by tag
number, species, measurement and volume and these lists are subject to
inspection and randomly checked by the GFC against tag numbers on the
stumps in the forest.

Forest Products Association of Guyana