As the pressure from their own creditors and personal expenses mount, more than 100 rice farmers are insisting that the Mahaicony Rice Limited (MRL) pay just over $300M it owes them for paddy.
Several efforts yesterday by Stabroek News to contact MRL’s General Manager Taramati Ghani for a comment on the current situation have been futile. MRL is yet to issue a statement on the issue.
In recent years MRL has become notorious for its late payments to farmers. During July 2008 the company had owed farmers almost $2B. At the time key officials in the rice industry had described MRL as being “the largest and consequently, most indispensible operator in the sector”.
Madanlall Ramraj, Deputy General Manager of the Guy-ana Rice Development Board (GRDB), told Stabroek News in mid October last year that he had learnt MRL still owed farmers in Region Five $18M and those in Region Six were owed approximately $40M from the $2B debt. It is unclear if the company had completed payments to farmers.
Now just over two years later the company once again owes farmers huge amounts. General Secretary of the Guyana Rice Producers’ Association (GRPA) Dharamkumar Seeraj yesterday described the situation as “ridiculous”.
During a telephone interview Seeraj explained that although MRL owes farmers millions they still sell fertilizer to them. The company, according to the GRPA General Secretary, says that farmers are being given a preferential price.
“It is just too ridiculous,” Seeraj stated. “They owe these farmers millions and yet they have the nerve to bring in fertilizers and sell it to the same farmers they owe.”
MRL, Seeraj said, has since provided a payment schedule for paddy based on their shipment schedule. However, the GRPA informed them that this was not acceptable and they would have to make a serious effort to pay farmers.
“When the farmers were giving them their paddy it didn’t depend on any schedules and now it is simply ridiculous that they are forcing these men to wait so long for what rightfully belongs to them,” Seeraj stated.
Seeraj, who is also a Member of Parliament, also noted that currently an amendment to a piece of legislation governing a section of the rice industry is before the House. If approved the GRPA General Secretary believes that the legislation will help prevent situations like the current one between MRL and the farmers.
“We need to make provisions to deal with things like these,” Seeraj stressed. “If for instance there was an account with money set aside by the company with access being allowed to a specific government body to make payment in such instances then hard situations like this could be avoided.”
Farmer Mohamed Shariff, of Number Four Village West Coast Berbice, said that MRL owes him more than $108M. However, he has since received a letter from them telling him that they only owe him $98M which is $10M less than the amount he has recorded.
“I am a sick man, “Shariff stated. “And right now I am begging this company for money just so I can go look after my medical problems.”
Last May, Shariff said, he had a kidney transplant done and as a result he is forced to travel to the US several times a year for treatment. During the first crop this year Shariff said he supplied MRL with more than 32,000 bags of paddy.
They were supposed to have started payments for the paddy since April, he explained, but never did. Shariff said he has been to MRL’s office countless times only to be pushed around and given excuses.
On July 12, after farmers voiced their concern about the lack of payments from MRL, Shariff said he received the letter from MRL which told him that they would pay him $10M weekly until they had completed paying him.
“I have only received one payment from them so far and they deposited it into my bank account,” Shariff said. “Well, I didn’t get any of that money because I owe Republic Bank money and they took the money in payment for what I owe them.”
At this point, Shariff stated, he is almost bankrupt. He owes several banks payments on loans he has taken to keep his business going, can barely afford his living expense and will be unable to continue planting if MRL does not pay up soon.
“It should be realized too,” Shariff added, “that I farm on a large scale in the hundreds of acres. Imagine if I am feeling the pressure so much then just think of how much harder it is for those farmers who only farm 30 acres or so and didn’t have enough to fall back on.”