Will Panama’s recent rice payment to local millers raise hopes of a similar gesture from Cuba?

Wait at an end: Local rice farmers gathered to receive their long outstanding payments from Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha for rice shipped to Panama more than six years ago
Wait at an end: Local rice farmers gathered to receive their long outstanding payments from Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha for rice shipped to Panama more than six years ago

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.