What had once been seen as the potential start of a new chapter in trade relations between Guyana and Cuba appears to have been soured by the Caribbean island’s protracted failure to liquidate amounts owing to a local miller for rice it purchased just over five years ago.
In 2017, local rice miller Nand Persaud and Company concluded an agreement with Cuban company Alimport, under which the Cuban government received approximately 7,000 tonnes of rice. In the wake of the signing of the agreement, Nand Persaud and Company reportedly received partial payment for the consignment leaving an outstanding balance of US$600,000.
Earlier this week its Chief Executive Officer Mohindra Persaud told the Stabroek Business that efforts to recoup the long-outstanding amount had borne no fruit, its engagements with both Alimport and the Government of Guyana notwithstanding. Persaud said that in pursuit of payment of the outstanding amount he had travelled to Cuba in 2019, but had returned home empty handed. He added that the company’s engagements with Cuba through the vehicle of the Government of Guyana had included “many letters and telephone calls” as well as engagements with the Cuban Ambassador in Georgetown as well as the Guyanese Ambassador in Havana.
During his visit to Cuba, Persaud said, a formal agreement had been reached with Alimport that Cuba would pay US$200,000, representing the actual cost of the rice and shipping costs and interest on the outstanding amount as well as profits accruing to the Nand Persaud would be waived. However, since then there has been no movement on the payment, Persaud said.
The company has declined requests from Cuba for more rice purchase agreements, indicating that it was not prepared to do so until the debt due on the 2017 shipment had been liquidated.
But the company’s challenges associated with recouping payments for exported rice do not end there. During this week’s interview, Persaud told this newspaper that the company was yet to receive payment of the staggering amount of $260 million, five years after it had sold rice to the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) for export to Panama. Despite several letters from the company, the GRDB has failed to make any payments to date.
Persaud said the company had also put a specific proposal to the GRDB for a regime for the liquidation of the debt through letters and a specific recommendation with regard to the payment of the debt. In response to these missives, he added, the GRDB had confined itself to acknowledgement of the company’s correspondence and will-return-your-call responses to telephone calls.
The specific recommendation proposed, Persaud said, was for Nand Persaud and Company to retain a portion of the export tax for every tonne of rice it exported until the debt owing on the Panama transaction was liquidated. To date there has been no response to this proposal.
