Dear Editor,
As the President and major shareholder of Agri-Solutions Technologies Inc (AST), I am writing with significant and grave concern regarding a number of erroneous and malicious comments uttered in the media on the state of our operations at the Wauna Oil Palm Estate in Region 1. It is our intent to seek legal redress from the person(s) who have been responsible for originating these damaging statements, but in the meantime we would like to inform the public of the fallacy of the media reports.
We would also like to register our consternation that reports in the media regarding our operations are being made without the necessary steps being taken to contact AST or its representatives. This is an inexcusable lack of professionalism, and copies of this letter have also been dispatched to Channels 9, 11, NCN and GINA.
Statements apparently made by an opposition Member of Parliament on television regarding our operations have since been also reported on the radio. In addition there have been many incorrect allegations reported in Guyanese media that:
AST has significantly reduced the number of employees previously employed by NEOCOL (the government entity which operated the estate before AST acquired it) despite previous assurances to the workers.
AST has been experiencing problems with their operations, and have been unable to supply enough bio diesel to the regional administration, resulting in prolonged periods of blackout being experienced in the Mabaruma sub-region.
AST, despite promises to the contrary, have not put any funding into the estate, and have not commenced with the planned expansion of the acreage of oil palm under cultivation.
As the major investor involved, Mr. Dwarka Persaud is dissatisfied with the investment and is seeking to return the estate to the Government of Guyana.
We categorically refute all of these malicious allegations, and are taking this opportunity to discuss and clarify the truth of our activities at the Wauna Oil Palm Estate.
We became involved with this project when the estate was at an all-time low. NEOCOL consistently operated at a loss for many years and up to the point where AST acquired the estate. In 2006, NEOCOL’s sole purchaser of crude palm oil produced on the estate refused to purchase any more. The estate faced immediate closure and retrenchment of the some 66 permanent employees. At the same time, the AST, under the stewardship of Professor Suresh Narine, had developed a local pilot plant to produce bio-diesel from a variety of feedstock, among them crude palm oil. Dr. Narine approached and convinced us to invest in the development of a bio-diesel plant to convert the crude palm oil produced on the estate to bio-diesel, so as to avoid the closure of the estate and the retrenchment of the workers.
Over the last twenty years after leaving Guyana, we have had success in the Plastics Reprocessing industry in Canada and the United States. However, once we saw what Dr Narine was doing we became (and continue to be) very interested in the project because of its social impact in the region and its potential to significantly benefit Guyana’s energy sector, employment, and development.
AST was then contracted to build a commercial bio-diesel plant at the Wauna Oil Palm Estate, and this plant was completed and commissioned in 2007. AST was also contracted to train the employees of AST in biodiesel production and quality control. Subsequently, the privatization unit of the Government of Guyana, NICIL, negotiated a lease agreement and a Purchase and Sale agreement of all movable assets to AST to take over the palm oil production side of the business as well. In July, 2007, AST acquired the entire estate.
Since July, 2007, AST has reclaimed the entire cultivated estate, as during the NEOCOL operation, only a fraction of the cultivated estate was harvested. This involved the hiring of a number of seasonal, part time workers (23 individuals in total) to clear the growth that had taken over the estate. These workers were not ever hired as permanent staff, and indeed, during the years that the estate had been operated by NEOCOL, workers who were employed to clear undesired growth were always hired on an as-needed basis. AST currently has some 76 permanent staff, approximately 10 more permanent staff than was employed by NEOCOL. Furthermore, AST now provides daily lunch to all of its workers on the estate, whether they are permanent or temporary, as long as they show up for work. It is just one of the many social impact programs we have planned for the project.
Now that we have cleared the existing cultivated acreage and can begin to harvest a greater area of palms, we are also moving forward with a new cash-crops cultivation project. This will result in even more of the temporary pool of workers being hired permanently. Furthermore, having restored the cultivated portions of the estate to a useful and productive state, we are now embarking on a significant increase of cultivated acreage, having secured a source of competitive palm seedlings from Costa Rica. Indeed, we have partnered with our seed supplier so that we can not only supply ourselves with seedlings, but others in Guyana who are also interested in palm oil cultivation. Our business plan, submitted to the Government of Guyana as part of the privatization of Wauna included a schedule of investment activities, and we are well on target with those activities.
We have increased our bio-diesel plant capacity significantly, this expansion having been only recently completed. Furthermore, we have begun to improve the physical plant on the estate – buildings have been renovated and painted, the palm oil factory is going through significant overhaul, and we have acquired more machinery to groom and maintain the estate. In addition soil and foliage on the estate have been evaluated by experts both in Florida USA and Ontario Canada, and we have incurred significant expense to bring experts from Costa Rica to Wauna to assess the best approach to the increase of our cultivated acreage. We have ourselves visited plantations in Central America, again to assess the best possible ways of approaching increased cultivation. We have seen a reduction in palm oil production over the past five months, despite harvesting a larger cultivated area of the estate. This is due to a seasonal lean period. However, we have not reduced the amount of bio-diesel supplied to the region. Instead, at a significantly increased cost to ourselves, whenever we have faced shortages of palm oil, we have resorted to the utilization of petroleum diesel on the estate, so that we can supply the region with all of the bio-diesel required for their needs. We are committed to the partnership with the region, and despite the difficulty in logistics, production, and distribution in a region as remote as Wauna, we have been able to meet our commitments to the region.
We would like to point out that the operations with which we are engaged are pioneering- we have, with the AST’s help, established the first and only commercial bio-diesel operation in Guyana.
We have done so in a remote part of the country, and have had to train staff members who were unskilled in this type of operation, all within a very short time frame. In this type of endeavor, it is unavoidable that we will have challenges, and that from time to time, we will encounter unplanned interruptions to our activities. However, given the sterling performance of our workers and the giant strides made, it is surprising and very sad to witness untruths being propagated, apparently for narrow political gains. We wish to let all of the political representatives in the Region know – we are committed to this project, we intend it to be a success, and we see the most important resource in this endeavor as being the people of the region.
As for the reports that we are desirous of abandoning the project, let me state emphatically: nothing is further from the truth. We are as committed to this project now as we were at the beginning, and I am eagerly looking forward to the expansion plans ahead.
Yours faithfully,
Dwarka Persaud
President and CEO
Agri-Solutions
Technologies Inc.
