Government is satisfied that logging company Vaitarna Holdings Private Inc (VHPI) has commenced “value added initiatives” and it has disclosed that the company is looking to ramp up lumber production.
According to figures provided by the Ministry of Natural Resources, 30% of the company’s total production from 2011 to July this year, has been exported as logs. Total log production for that period by the company was 79, 450 cubic metres with exports amounting to 30, 276 cubic metres. Local log and lumber sales amounted to 16, 236 cubic metres while logs in stock up to that point was 14, 456 cubic metres. Just over 2000 cubic metres were used for construction of the sawmill, accommodation and other activities.
“GFC is satisfied that VHPI’s value added activities are progressively increasing. During the period January-June 2016, the company has produced 1815 cubic metres of lumber; it is projected that by the end of 2016, the company will produce an additional 3000 cubic metres of lumber,” a statement provided to Stabroek News by the ministry said.
It noted that the Indian logging company is currently operating the sawmill for ten hours per day and employs 30 persons. It is also seeking to recruit an additional 15 staff and when this is done, Vaitarna plans to operate on a two shift basis.
According to the ministry, government is satisfied that “value added initiatives” have commenced and “recognises that the process has some way to go and will continue to monitor and to stimulate the process by imposing penalties where necessary.”
Stabroek News had reported last September that five years after beginning operations here, Vaitarna had finally begun processing of logs albeit on a small scale even as it continues to export them. Stabroek News was told that the sawmill was operationalised last May.
The company had long promised to set up valued-added processing operations but took years to do so. In January 2014, the then Minister of Natural Resources Robert Persaud had said that Vaitarna was in an “advanced” stage of setting up the promised wood processing facility but a visit by Stabroek News to the site found that it was not so.
Exports of logs rather than processing the timber locally has long been a concern since numerous promises have been made by the previous PPP/C government and foreign investors about value-added operations. The promise of value-added has been seen as sugar coating to enable the export of large quantities of logs, particularly to China and India, even though there is little job creation here or value enhancement.
Vaitarna had acquired its concessions in 2010. The Vaitarna deal had not been known locally until an article surfaced in the Times of India in 2011. Subsequently, at a press conference in April 2011, Persaud said that there would be no large scale exportation of logs since Vaitarna has committed to getting involved in downstream activities. VHPI is not here as a logging company but will be involved in value-added, Persaud had emphasised.
In 2012, V G Siddhartha, owner of the Coffee Day group which owns VHPI said that a processing centre for logs would be set up here but the main facility would be in India. The total concessions held by the company here is 737,814 hectares of forest.
