Head of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB), Nizam Hassan, was yesterday terminated from his job for what sources say was the country’s inability to collect over $1 billion owed for rice shipments sold to Panama.
“He was terminated and it had to do with us not being able to get the money for the rice which was sold to Panama,” a source told Stabroek News.
A contracted employee of the GRDB, Hassan was yesterday handed a letter from the Ministry of Agriculture, notifying him that his tenure had come to an end.
Over $1 billion is owed by the Panamanian government to the Guyana Rice Development Board for rice sold to that country.
Shortly after taking office last year, the PPP/C vowed that it would exhaust all avenues to ensure that the monies are paid. Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha had committed his ministry to acting immediately to ensure the outstanding payment is made. “My Ministry will act immediately to reverse these situations so that these debts can be paid from Panama,” he had declared.
The minister had informed that the PPP/C government inherited from the APNU+AFC administration, records of outstanding payments to the tune of $1,184,198,400.
He had explained that the large outstanding sum could adversely affect millers if the payments were not made soon since local millers had owed GRDB $353,925,513 in commission payments but those could not be met until the millers received payment for the rice supplied.
This newspaper understands that the Minister is perturbed about the outstanding sums and how a deal was made without ironclad commitments for payment, for which Hassan could not supply a “proper explanation,” according to a source.
In 2018, the governments of Guyana and Panama renewed their agreement for the supply of rice to the lucrative Panamanian market for 2019.
The value of that contract was US$5.2 million and saw the supply of 200,000 quintals (equivalent to 9,075 tonnes) of white rice being shipped.
In September 2018, 33 containers of parboiled rice instead of white rice was sent to Panama. The shipment was flagged by the Panamanian authorities and returned to Guyana.
In 2014, Guyana had sealed a deal with Panama for the supply of 5,000 tonnes of rice per month.
The signing of the 2014 contracts to supply rice to Panama in a Government-to-Government arrangement ensured that Guyana’s rice market continued to expand, with production having risen significantly.
The Government of Guyana, through the Ministry of Agriculture and the GRDB, and in collaboration with the Rice Producers Association, had been working to expand the market for Guyana’s rice and paddy to overseas markets.
