Guyana Timber Products (GTP) Inc had its operations suspended for breaches even before the recent discovery of almost 359.8 kilogrammes of cocaine in one of its outbound consignments, according to Guyana Forestry Commis-sion (GFC) head James Singh, who says at one point it was exporting almost twice the amount of forest produce it was declaring.
Singh, in email correspondence with Stabroek News, said that Dutch-owned GTP Inc has now been suspended on three occasions, while noting that the Commission is awaiting the outcome of the investigations into this latest incident before making a final decision on its future.
Observers have raised questions as to why the company is still being allowed to operate here despite its past transgressions.
Singh explained that in the latter part of January this year, prior to the discovery of cocaine in greenheart squares, GTP Inc. was suspended from carrying out “any additional forestry-related activities.” Singh said that up to that point, GFC had already established that the company was exporting almost twice the amount of forest produce that it was declaring to the GFC.
“With the additional discovery of the cocaine, the suspension has remained in force,” he said.
Asked if the company will be allowed to continue its operations here, he said that the “the company had already agreed in principle to pay a compensation of about G$42M for the evasion of export commissions, and for false declarations to the GFC, the breaches prior to the cocaine find.”
He went on to explain that currently the GFC is working together with the Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit (CANU), the Guyana Police Force, the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) and others to determine the level of involvement of the employees, and other stakeholders of GTP Inc with the cocaine concealment.
“GFC will await the findings of this investigation and will make its informed decision based on same. In the interim, the company remains suspended with respect to its involvement in forestry related matters,” Singh said.
Stabroek News had been told that the company had been on the radar of CANU following a similar issue sometime back but Singh noted that GTP Inc’s past transgressions were not related to drugs. He said that the complaints against the company included none/late payments to employees, the National Insurance Scheme (NIS), suppliers of forestry produce, and other creditors.
GFC, Singh noted, had worked with the company to have all those areas regularised.
He added that several years back the company was operating without the proper GFC licence for its sawmill and processing location. “This too was eventually satisfactorily resolved,” he said, while adding that the company’s licence had been suspended for that breach.
That suspension was lifted when those breaches were adequately addressed.
Based on the reports reaching Stabroek News, prior to the drug bust last Tuesday, a vehicle arrived at the company’s Lot 80 Soesdyke Public Road operations base where logs were offloaded. It was later ascertained that the logs contained a total of 314 parcels of cocaine. After arrival at Soesdyke, the logs were placed in a container and then transported to a city wharf for shipping.
According to the GRA, on January 21, a shipment of seven containers was inspected and certified by GFC and issued with the relevant certifications by the agency. Subsequently, the Commercial Invoice, C72 Form, the Timber Marketing Certificate, the Export Certificate and the General System of Preference Certificate of Origin were submitted to the GRA for the shipment of seven containers.
On January 30, while the containers were being scanned, according to the GRA, anomalies were observed and three containers were determined necessary for a secondary examination out of a total of seven that were scheduled to be exported.
The images that were observed were not in keeping with the information that was contained on the C72 Form, which had clearly indicated that the content of the containers were the Mats of Hardwood (MHW). Among the contents of one of the containers were blocks of hardwood.
Officials of the agency’s Drug Enforcement Unit also noted that there were discrepancies in the physical content and colour coding of some of the logs and after it was confirmed that those were the logs that presented the anomalies, instructions were given for one of the logs to be drilled, the GRA said. It was at this point that cocaine was found.
Up to now it is unclear who exactly first found the cocaine as according to reports, after the anomalies were reported to CANU, one container was escorted back to Soesdyke, where it was searched and the carefully concealed packets of cocaine found.
Commissioner General of the GRA Khurshid Sattaur had said that the container where the cocaine was eventually found remained sitting on the wharf for 21 days without being searched because the shipper was not coming forward. From all indications, it was after this person surfaced that the container was searched. According to Sattaur this was in keeping with the protocols of the GRA.
CANU ranks only became aware that there were things wrong with the container last Tuesday. The container was escorted from the wharf to the Soesdyke address, where each log in the container was searched.
The hollow logs were subsequently found with packets of cocaine concealed inside. As many as 20 packets were found in a single log.
The drugs were destined for Holland, where the value is estimated at approximately US$25,000 ($5 million) per kilogramme.
Four persons, including a Dutch national were held in connection with the discovery but they were all later released without charge.
