The recent, semi-comical contretemps involving elements of the Guyana Revenue Authority and the Guyana Police Force was a departure from the long-standing and usually discreet contraband trade along this country’s unguarded coastland.
The so-called $70M ‘bust’ by the GRA’s Customs and Trade Administration’s Enforcement and Intelligence Division – deemed the biggest in the history of local Customs operations – was significant only for its publicity not for its value. Said to involve the seizure of several vessels and vehicles, the bust netted thousands of cases of alcohol.
But this was not an isolated event. Recent ‘busts’ have been reported not only at Land of Canaan, East Bank Demerara but also at Meten-Meer-Zorg, West Coast Demerara and Charity on the Essequibo Coast. An abandoned contraband vessel containing illicit fuel and beer was also found at Hogg Island in the Essequibo River.
The public will recall the serial drama involving the Guyana Energy Agency in which vessels and vehicles transporting illegal fuel ‘disappeared’ from a farm at Coverden and a fun park at Soesdyke on the East Bank Demerara in September and October 2005. These were followed by another ‘bust’ at a fuel station on the West Bank Demerara before the GEA fell silent.
The contraband trade has become an essential component of the national economy, estimated by some to account for about 50 per cent of all imports. The trade surged during the depression of the 1980s with its innumerable shortages when scores of boats were purpose-built for the highly specialised business – some dealing in fuel, some in flour and others in alcohol, tobacco and firearms. The trade received tacit political support in certain quarters and no attempt was ever made to suppress it whole-heartedly.
Many smugglers are known to mix licit with illicit goods and use official ports to create the impression of being legitimate importers. Much of the trade is water-borne and smugglers simply sail upriver ignoring Guyana’s water-shy law-enforcement agencies. Others transship their goods to smaller boats or deposit them at the mouths of small creeks or in isolated fishing villages along the coast to be transported and retailed. The Administration has indeed established regulatory agencies, passed enabling legislation and introduced measures such as the fuel-marking scheme to curb abuses. In effect, however, as evinced in its blas