President Irfaan Ali, yesterday said that Guyana is out of plywood and that the Malaysian-owned Barama Company Limited is expected to restore some balance within the next three weeks.
He made the announcement during his address at the sod-turning exercise for the construction of Demerara Bank Limited’s Leonora, West Coast Demerara location.
Responding to questions from Stabroek News following the announcement, Ali said that while the details remain sketchy, he is trying to ascertain to what extent there is a shortage. He added that he received calls from several builders informing him that there is a shortage of plywood on the local market.
He was unable to say for how long this has been so.
“I immediately placed a call to Barama and they have assured me that because of the rain they had a limitation in the supply of wood to the factory and that they are going to redouble their efforts to get a supply of logs into the factory to bring the situation to some sort of balance in just about three weeks.
“The problem is even on the international market there is a severe shortage of plywood, of sheetrock and so on. These are some of the challenges we are faced with,” Ali lamented.
Ali assured that the government is working to have the issue addressed and added that there are other aspects of the construction sector they are working to maintain a low cost.
“In order to address the issue of construction costs and keep some amount of management of this we are now looking at the opening up of a sandpit that would be managed by one of the government agencies and that would bring some balance in terms of prices. Because with the boom in construction and what is expected is that it will continue to put pressure on the supply side because demand is not falling back, demand is increasing rapidly,” he explained.
Ali added that they are currently working on a location for the pit but stated that it will be a collaborative effort with the government and the private sector.
In 2019, Barama terminated the services of 81 of its employees citing difficulties in maintaining a profit margin. Last year, the company said that it was on the road to financial recovery and would have rehired the terminated employees.
