Toolsie Persaud Limited (TPL) has agreed to pay $80M for breaches occurring in its forest concession but indicated yesterday that it plans to take legal action against another timber company operating within TPL’s concession which it says is responsible for some of the breaches.
Managing Director of the company, David Persaud told Stabroek News that another timber company had been granted permission to work within TPL’s concession and it was in that company’s portion that some of the breaches occurred. He said that in the contract, the company had agreed to pay any fines instituted, were there any breaches in its portion. But, he stated, the company had not responded favourably to TPL’s demand, as per the contract and so TPL will institute legal proceedings.
The issue of the fines for breaches in the company’s concession had been the subject of court proceedings between TPL and the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) but after a decision in TPL’s favour was rendered, the GFC said that it had several defects rendering it unenforceable.
Agriculture Minister, Robert Persaud, who has responsibility for forestry subsequently intervened and suspended the TPL Timber Sales Agreement. He further advised the company that a detailed report of the breaches committed by TPL was submitted to President Bharrat Jagdeo for his final pronouncement on the matter.
The Ministry of Agriculture, in a media statement yesterday said that TPL has agreed to pay the fines instituted for the breaches following a meeting with President Jagdeo. It said that on August 11, Jagdeo met with the Senior Management of TPL and at that meeting, he pronounced that TPL would be allowed to continue operations in TSA 4/85, provided that it submitted post dated-cheques payable to the GFC on or before December 31, 2008, in the total sum of $80,289,100.
On August 15, the statement said, TPL submitted four post-dated cheques, amounting to $40 146 100 and on August 20 the company submitted two additional post-dated cheques amounting to $40 143 000 for a total of $80,289,100 “which is equivalent to the compensation amount requested by the GFC for the verified and accepted breaches committed in 2008”.
“Following the submission of these post-dated cheques, and a commitment by the Senior Management of TPL to adhere to the GFC guidelines, the GFC has now fully re-instated the operations of TPL at the Manaka Logging Concession” the release said.
The TPL managing director yesterday said that the other company operating within TPL’s concession had responsibility for half of the breaches and so, half the fines but was refusing to honour the contract signed. He said that TPL would be taking legal action to force the company to honour its part. He pointed out that that company, which also had been granted permission to work in other companies’ concessions had been fined previously and had paid up.
He noted that in the contract, it was stated that were there any breaches in their portion of the concession that the company was working on, and if the GFC were to institute any fines, they would be held responsible.
As to the restarting of operations, this newspaper was told that TPL is now mobilizing but it would take two weeks for full restoration. A number of workers had been let go when the operations were closed and 50% of the forest workers were “lost”. The Georgetown sawmill has, however, not restarted operations due to the absence of logs and 200 people were still out of jobs.
Meanwhile, the Agriculture Ministry release reminded all stakeholders that the utilization of the State Forest resources must be done in compliance with the collaboratively established guidelines for Sustainable Forest Management. In this regard, the GFC has been mandated to work in partnership with all stakeholders, but will fully enforce the forestry legislation on all defaulters, the statement said.
