Given the disclosure, days ago, that the Government of Panama had finally made a payment of $1.5 billion owed to nineteen (19) Guyanese rice millers the question now arises as to whether local rice milling company, Nand Persaud & Company, may not now move to redouble its efforts to secure its own payments from Cuba for rice shipped to that Caribbean island, beginning in 2023.
By sheer coincidence, the public announcement in Georgetown that the Government of Guyana had managed to secure the payments from Panama six years after the collapse of the Sale Agreement may well have the effect of Nand Persaud and Company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mohindra Persaud, ‘pulling back’ on his pronouncement, days ago, that having, with the support of the Government of Guyana, reportedly including President Irfaan Ali, sought without success to secure the payment, the local company may have to set aside such expectations as it may have had with regard to the settlement of the debt.
In the instance of the Panama rice debt, the nineteen local rice farmers to whom Panama was indebted had continually lobbied the Government of Guyana to intensify its efforts to secure the outstanding payments. In the instance of Nand Persaud and Company, the company’s CEO, whilst expressing a continued interest in receiving payments for rice sold to Cuba, always appeared to rely on mostly ‘official channels’ involving the Governments of Guyana and Cuba, to cause the debt to be settled. Exchanges between Guyana and Cuba, over the years, have seen the involvement of high-level state officials in Georgetown as well as the country’s Ambassador to Cuba, Halim Majeed.
During a recent interview with the Stabroek Business a few days ago, the Nand Persaud CEO said that following a protracted wait for payment, interspersed by several interventions, the company might well have to forego payment of the amounts owning to the company by Cuba.
