Barama, others guilty in timber scam - President Jagdeo

Barama, others guilty in timber scam
- President Jagdeo
By Neil Marks
Guyana Chronicle, 9 October 2007
http://www.guyanachronicle.com/topstory.html#Anchor-19873
THE country’s largest exporter of logs, Barama, other forest concession
owners, and officials of the Guyana Forestry Commission, have been
found culpable in a scam to “defraud the government of revenue”,
President Bharrat Jagdeo said yesterday.

The Ministry of Agriculture and the Guyana Forestry Commission on
September 25 announced the launch of the probe under suspicion that
several companies deliberately under declared what they were producing.
In addition, there were indications that logs belonging to one
concession were being passed off as belonging to another.

Mr. Jagdeo, while saying the report is still ongoing, warned at a press
conference at the Office of the President complex that action will be
taken against those found guilty.

He said some concession owners have allowed Barama to move into their
concessions, take out the logs, and they sit doing nothing collecting
the money, while some have left their concessions sitting for years.

Mr. Jagdeo said levying on export of logs would not serve the purpose
in this case, since Barama’s 1991 agreement with the government enjoys
exemption.

The Forest Producers Association (FPA) has said that malicious attacks
on its activities by persons in the media, unilateral action by the
government in the sector and destruction of the forest by miners were
some problems of which the cumulative effect could lead to a shut down
of the industry.

In a statement to the media last week, the FPA charged that the latest
example of malicious intent was one by the Guyana Human Rights
Association (GHRA) that Guyana’s forests are being “irresponsibly
plundered.”

The FPA, the statement said, is acutely aware that unfounded statements
like these can and will only result in enormous and irretrievable
damage to the industry which represents a capital investment commitment
of G$160B and which last year contributed some G$ 360B to Guyana’s
Gross Domestic Product.

The sector also provided a means of livelihood for close to 100,000
persons, the association said.

The FPA also charged that its members had not been consulted on the
forestry regulations recently introduced; and that the government had
recently appointed a new board to the GFC and the FPA for the first
time in years was unrepresented on this board.

The FPA also lamented that what GFC and the government said was
tantamount to a series of ultimatums being imposed on members in the
wood processing industry in the form of standards which they will be
required to meet commencing from 2008.

The GFC in response to allegations by the FPA about “ill advised
statements by the Minister of Agriculture and the GFC” and “unfair and
ill advised statements by Government” said that they will be fully
dealt with once they are formally presented.