Guyana’s annual rice barter agreement with Venezuela since 2009 will conclude in November of this year with Finance Minister, Winston Jordan yesterday stating that since 2014 Venezuela was signalling that there would be no additional arrangements under the PetroCaribe fund.
Jordan downplayed the impact of the ongoing row between Guyana and Venezuela over the latter’s maritime decree saying that Caracas’s intentions to discontinue the annual agreement had already been communicated to the previous administration.
“They were signalling since last year that there will be no more rice, no new agreements after this one,” he said.
Jordan said “we knew before we left there were indications that they didn’t want any more rice we knew that before they had told the previous government that before on numerous occasions. When I arrived there the ambassador indicated to me `well you know thing are going to be difficult because they were saying they don’t want any more rice from Guyana’” he said, while adding that “they then relented and said they may take a little small amount to keep as buffer stocks.”
While he was critical of the PPP/C administration’s lack of disclosure, Jordan and a team from the Guyana Rice Development Board were in Venezuela for the 15th Meeting of the Energy Ministerial Council of PetroCaribe and took over a week to notify the public of the new development.
Jordan returned from Venezuela on Wednesday of last week. Jordan stated that it was unclear if the controversy had any impact on Venezuela’s decision.
Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo on his Facebook page on Wednesday stated that “Venezuela’s position of the non-renewal of the PetroCaribe barter agreement is indeed an act of economic sanction against Guyana.”
“It is sad and inexcusable that the Guyanese people were not advised of this by the former PPP government. Questions will now have to be asked as to whether the Guyanese people, and the thousands of rice farmers in particular who could be affected, were being held hostage by the PPP’s silence purely for the purposes of narrow politicking,” the Prime Minister had written.
He had stated that the government will be exploring all options to ensure that farmers would not be adversely affected. Nagamootoo relayed that former Minister of Agriculture Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett and Guyana’s Ambassador in Caracas Geoffrey Da Silva were all advised that the deal would end in November.
In a response last evening, the PPP said “What the de facto Prime Minister does not want to admit is that the non-renewal of the rice Agreement has nothing to do with the PPP/C, and perhaps even with rice, but with the rapid deterioration of relations between Guyana and Venezuela since the Granger administration assumed office”.
It added: “The PPP/C wishes to make it abundantly clear that on every occasion that a new agreement was signed, the Venezuelan Government informed that they could not guarantee an agreement for the next year as they too were developing their rice industry. However, on every single occasion the PPP/C Government was able to negotiate a new Agreement with generous terms and conditions while we looked for additional markets. This was the case even when there were heightened tensions in relation to the border controversy. Indeed the last agreement was signed during the period when the PPP/C had announced that it was no longer interested in pursuing the UN Good Officer process (on the border controversy) and will be reviewing the other options under the Geneva Agreement – a position the Venezuelan Government did not support. The successful negotiation of all of the rice agreements was possible because of the strong functional cooperation programme and the good relations the PPP/C had developed with the Venezuelan Government of which the rice agreement was the flagship.”
Venezuela has since worked out similar rice barter arrangements with Suriname and Uruguay.
2015 Agreement
The 2015 Rice Agreement was signed in March of this year and while the agreement is done on an annual basis it is the rice and paddy shipments that bring the agreement to its conclusion.
Once the annual agreement is signed Guyana has the full year to ship the quantities of rice and paddy that were agreed upon. The shipments could be concluded well before the end of the year.
Guyana and Venezuela’s Rice Agreement was first worked out in 2009 between former President Bharrat Jagdeo and the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
As of June, Guyana was responsible for shipping 150,000 tonnes outstanding under the 2015 US$120M agreement.
New Markets
The finance minister said that it was imperative for Guyana to now find new markets for rice exports. At the same time that the government will be looking for new markets, the position for General Manager of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) is being advertised.
Stabroek News inquired from Jordan if it was a sensible step to remove the head of the GRDB at a time when the country will be losing its biggest export market. He said that he wouldn’t be able to say at this point in time.
The lack of large scale rice markets has been the genesis of many issues between the government, millers and rice farmers in the last few years. The lack of large scale markets has meant that over 200,000 tonnes of rice have been carried over awaiting sales which in turn delays payments to farmers by millers.
The 2015 first crop was over 360,000 tonnes with over 220,000 tonnes exported as of June, however 148,000 tonnes of rice was carried over from 2014.
