Bulkan’s inclusion on this team was criticised by the government and Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud had written to the head of the FCPF requesting her removal. Persaud’s letter was sent on November 26 and observers have argued that the course of action taken by Persaud was an attempt to chastise Bulkan for her several open criticisms of the administration.
The decision to terminate the services of Bulkan was communicated to her via an e-mail sent on December 23 by Ken Andrasko of the World Bank’s Carbon Finance Unit. In the email, Andrasko said the FCPF was disbanding the Suriname and Ghana TAP review teams. The reason, Andrasko, said was based on the last FCPC Participants Committee (PC) meeting where the TAP process was reviewed. “We expect to move to a different process early next year (2010) for the next set of R-PPs to be reviewed, that has several TAP review teams to review 3-4 R-PPs each, to add comparative perspective,” he wrote.
In the email, he also thanked her for her insights and “for pushing the review team substantively, and for contributing to the Suriname TAP review.”
According to documents posted on the FCPF’s website, at the last PC meeting held on October 27 -28 last year, the PC expressed interest in being more involved in two processes. These were: the selection of members of the TAPs that review R‐PPs; and (ii) the R‐PP reviews themselves. With several R-PPs expected to be submitted to the FCPF this year, changes in the review process have been implemented on a temporary basis until they are formally adopted at the next PC meeting.
According to the FCPF, the PC decided to establish a working group to formulate proposals to improve the TAP process, which will be discussed and/or approved at the latest at the PC 5 meeting scheduled for March in Gabon.“This process is expected to be more transparent, would encourage countries being reviewed to propose some of the reviewers, would build on existing high performing TAP experts already aware of the R‐PP process, and would ensure consistent, quality review of R‐PPs,” it said.
The documents also say that in the light of the TAP process having been heavy to manage (requiring six to eight TAP members for each R‐PP review) and the expected increase in R‐PP submissions for the coming meetings, the Facility Manage-ment Team proposes to nominate teams of about five to seven TAP members to jointly review a set of three to five R‐PPs (with the number of teams created dependent on the number of R‐PPs submitted).
Persaud, in his letter to the FCPC, accused Bulkan of writing critical articles of Guyana’s forestry sector which were filled with inaccuracies, distorted facts and unsubstantiated allegations of corruption, bribery and illegal logging. He further alleged that “her correspondences are also defamatory and slanderous, accusing government officials including the President of Guyana of being incompetent and involved in clandestine activities. Even when responses to her correspondences expose her poor understanding of sustainable forest management principles; and debunk her slanderous comments, defamation, and inaccuracies, Ms Bulkan refuses to concede and persists publicly with her hidden agenda.” The government also filed a protest with the World Bank over a map of Suriname that included part of Guyana’s territory and which was presented at the recent Participants Committee meeting in Washington DC. The administration accused Bulkan of being unpatriotic by not objecting to this map. Bulkan has since said that she was not present at this meeting and consequently could not have protested at the display of the map at the meeting.
Meanwhile, following the decision by the FCPF, academic Dr Alissa Trotz and social activist Andaiye, International Coordinator of the Red Thread Women’s Organisa-tion, wrote to the World Bank requesting “an explanation for the decision taken by the World Babk to terminate the contract of Dr Janette Bulkan.” In their letter, which was addressed to Benoit Bosquet, the Senior Natural Resources Management Specialist at the World Bank, they said that the decision which was communicated in the end of December “appears to have been precipitated by the demand of the Govern-ment of Guyana that Dr Bulkan be removed from the roster of TAP experts on the ground of her alleged incompetence and lack of patriotism in relation to Guyana.”
Noting “Dr Bulkan’s stellar qualifications in the field of forestry” and “her extensive experience in issues related to forest management,” the duo enquired the reason behind the bank’s decision to terminate her contract.
