Dear Editor,
I’d like to thank Ms Samantha Griffith for informing us that “Article 8 B (Export tax) of the agreement signed between the Guyana Government and Barama on 14th August 1991” requires that company to pay the export commission on greenheart logs only (“The forestry commission’s critics are now criticizing it for enforcing standards”, SN February 23 2008). I pointed out in my public lecture that Barama was owing this tax but was contesting payment on logs harvested from illegally rented concessions (“Country getting a pittance from Asian forestry companies – Bulkan – monitoring agency ‘weak'”, SN November 13 2006). The GFC has not publicly stated that Barama has paid this long-outstanding debt, nor its other debts and penalties (“Barama still to pay second fine – Minister Persaud”, KN January 19 2008; “Loggers to pay $275M fines for forestry breaches”, SN January 20 2008).
Ms Griffith evidently has privileged access to secret Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) agreements. The new Section 13 (2) of the Guyana Forestry Commission Act passed by the National Assembly in July 2007 sets out what is essentially a gag order on any GFC “member, employee, consultant, or adviser,” unless authorized by the Commission. Section 27 of that Act sets out severe penalties for the disclosure of any information, so that any person convicted and found guilty under this Act is liable to up to 10 times the statutory fine set at 1 year’s imprisonment and G$1,000,000 (US$5,000). It is not clear if this Act has received Presidential assent, but let us assume that it has.
The Commissioner of Forests himself recently stated that “as the regulatory agency for forestry in Guyana, the GFC is duty bound to let stakeholders be aware of what the real issues are
