Dear Editor,
The gross absurdity that our government has imposed on us and the country in the name foreign logging investment has been superbly exposed by KN and your newspaper. This is exemplary. Many have shown their outrage, and rightly so. Who would have thought the people tasked with guiding us to the promised land would be so selfish?
Then there were folks, for instance Mr Bynoe and, of course, the President himself, who have tried to defend the indefensible. Being a previous owner of a State Forest Permission while Mr Bynoe was still dabbling with electricity and Texas, Ohio, I must say that his proclamations in his letter, “less than half the permitted volume of logs from Region 10 are being shipped out at present,” are shortsighted – for him personally, and in the context of Guyana’s development.
Which astute businessman would be willing to sell his super expensive product for a pittance? And to the local loggers who think that selling logs to Bai Shan Lin is the best they can do, I am disappointed. The same can be said about the local companies who sold out, and gave this new logging company access to so much of our forest.
I am well aware of the financial problems which faced the local logging industry. While persons may cast blame and say local logging companies did not update to modern technology I would be the first to admit that the banking system in Guyana is the main let-down. Take a loan from the bank and you have to begin payments at the end of the first month. Try purchasing equipment that way. Before the equipment is installed you owe the bank and stand to lose the equipment. Investment banking is required and it is absent in Guyana. So for local loggers to get by over a long period of time, they exported and sold mostly logs.
So, enter Bai Shan Lin and other foreign logging companies. It amazes me why local logging companies did not see this as the answer to the major financing the industry needs. I want to believe the Toolsie Persauds, the Mazarallys, and Mr Bynoe himself have the ears of government. Why they did not ensure that if these Asian companies wanted to invest they had to have a joint ventures with local companies?
Instead of local companies rushing to sell logs to Bai Shan Lin they should be raising hell and high water against the government for perpetrating this atrocity on them. That is why Mr Bynoe’s letter is so shameful, and diminishes the business savvy I had attributed to him.
The present situation has me dumbfounded. I have never seen a bunch of businessmen so unwilling to defend their territory, their space, their market share. You think Guyana’s wallaba poles could compete against pine of douglas fir poles in the USA without a fight? No call for high taxes on the log exports to curtail the practice. No indication of how this will affect the voting pattern of the logging community, the chamber of commerce, etc, at the next elections. The combination of these associations has the potential of changing the direction of this country, yet they are quiet. Barama can attest to the fight they received trying to sell their Guyana-made plywood on the world market. Mr Bynoe was known as a stern fighter for his rights. What has contributed to this seemingly spineless posture? What the government is allowed to do to the local logging industry is unimaginable – and no backlash, unbelievable.
In the midst of all of this there is a big irony. What would be one’s reaction if I pronounce that local logging companies should have taken a page out of Unamco’s book? What will Mr Bynoe say to that? A local businessman joint venturing with a foreign company. What is wrong with Mr Bynoe using his expertise and know how to corral the number of Region 10 logging associations he mentioned in his letter, and seek investors to gain financing? Wouldn’t that have been a more palatable and rewarding way to go?
Mr Hamley Case shipped in a mill at the same time he was pushing a road to his concession. Mr James Singh surely will know that. So how much more time does this new company need, considering all its assets, before processing and value added plants are constructed? How much more wamara needs to be ripped up overseas before the Chinese are able to design strong enough blades and cutters to do ripping and processing in Guyana? Yet, Hamley’s business, which was the perfect model for the local industry, was slated for destruction under Mr Singh’s watch. Another question: this one for all Guyanese and the media. Where was the uproar then, and
now as Hamley’s equipment continues to rot in our forest?
I cannot help reflecting on how bad, a lot of people claimed, the Barama deal was for Guyana. Seems like the last administration, under Mr Hoyte, did possess a lot of business savvy and a huge portion of patriotism – meaning, he was looking out for Guyanese workers. Oh, we can do better, give us a chance. Well, come see me and come live with me are indeed two different things; they are miles apart.
By the way, Parliament needs to pass a law, retroactively, forcing Bai Shan Lin and others to stop shipping and start the factories now, and dare the President to not sign it. Further, if there is a change of government in the future, would the new government accept these past, questionable deals? It would be helpful if the population and the ‘investors’ know the competing parties stance on this.
Yours faithfully,
F Skinner