Dear Editor,
I read the article ‘Agriculture Minister debunks Unamco discrimination charges’ (KN May 12) with interest. I was particularly drawn to the statement that “Hamley Case, after unsuccessfully trying to manage a large prime forest concession issued to Case Timbers ltd (CTL), sold his interests to Malaysian investors who were owners of Unamco.” I respect the Minister’s right to his own views but feel compelled to introduce him to the facts of my 5 year tenure as Managing Director of CTL and Unamco.
The “large prime forest concession issued to CTL” in 1993 was situated in the North West District of Guyana. The forest was granted to CTL as a 3 year Wood Cutting Lease (02/93) and dated September 21, 1993 with exclusive rights to cut, remove, process and sell forest produce on 2 blocks of state forest. The first block consisted of approximately 307,600 acres of forest and an Amerindian reserve that GFC had overlooked. The second block consisted of approximately 420,800 acres with more permanent swamp than “seasonal swamp.” During the first year of my tenure our intrepid inventory team which included some GFC personnel carried out surveys of the 2nd block near Kaituma and the Waini by boat. It was a frustrating exercise, and the enumeration was aborted when it became clear that harvesting logs in such swampy conditions would be extremely difficult and expensive as it would require specialized equipment like helicopters to winch out the logs to a collection point. After a few weeks the team returned to Georgetown by air leaving CTL’s boat and engine moored somewhere on the Barima River.
Around this time myself and my Malaysian partners bought a controlling interest in Unamco Industries Ltd. The Malaysians purchased 80 % and I purchased 15% of Unamco’s equity. This gave us access to 237,000 acres of virgin forest in the Upper Berbice area. The decision to purchase Unamco was driven by the need to have as close as possible to 1 million acres, the minimum forest resource required to sustain a 2-line plywood factory given the scarcity of plywood species. After the North West experience we were looking for unpopulated forest on dry land. With Unamco we were able to carry out enumeration exercises on foot and prepare our management/operational plan to submit to GFC. By this time GFC’s Commissioner appeared to become quite hostile to CTL/Unamco and placed all sorts of obstacles in our way. As a result, a lot of management time and money was wasted. Probably in the region of $40M out of a total investment to date of $4.7B.
While waiting for GFC to cooperate and do their work to approve our forest plan we turned our attention to Block 1 in the North West District forest situated around Baramita village. Out of the blue in December 1996 GFC matter-of-factly informed us that roughly ¼ of Block 1 was an Amerindian Reserve and off limits to foresters. GFC actually admitted their mistake and proceeded to excise the Amerindian lands from the most forested part of Block 1. GFC’s mistake cost CTL around $15M.
In early 1997 CTL decided to surrender the “Large prime forest” Minister Persaud mentions in the article referred to above in exchange for another forest of equal size. We specifically wanted unpopulated forest on dry land preferably contiguous to Unamco’s forest in the Upper Berbice.
GFC’s commissioner had difficulty with our request for a forest exchange and put CTL on a ‘go-slow’ that gradually became a ‘no-go.’ In 1997 our fleet of road-building, earth-moving and forestry equipment arrived in Guyana and GFC refused to grant permission for Unamco to relocate the units to the Kwakwani site. This was despite the fact that President Cheddi Jagan had inspected the equipment parked at a temporary storage yard in Tiger Bay behind Palm Court and had assured prompt approval for the relocation to Kwakwani. This type of administrative ineptitude lasted well over 2 years.
While the battle over relocating the equipment to Kwakwani was being waged we continued to forge ahead with setting up Unamco’s forest operations and established a temporary base camp at West Bank Kwakwani.
The nightmare with GFC intensified when we tried to lease 500 acres of virgin unused land near Jeep Landing at Kwakwani water front. We needed this acreage on the Berbice River to construct our sawmill and then a plywood factory, both with their respective log yards. As part of the complex we also wanted to build personnel houses, a health centre, a landing strip, place(s) of worship, a school, a farm, recreation facilities and a port as part of a mini-township with room to grow (I was subsequently told by someone close to the government that the loss of control inherent in such a comprehensive development frightened the ruling party). However, GFC in its wisdom was only willing to grant us 15 acres insisting that most Guyanese sawmills on the East Bank Demerara and in the Berbice area operate successfully on less than one acre of land! After several months of acrimonious debate and unnecessary confrontation with GFC we again had to seek the intervention of President Jagan and his advisers. By the time we got GFC’s approval for 400 acres some 8 months had elapsed and my tenure as MD was drawing to a voluntary end. Nevertheless I stayed on to oversee the construction of Unamco’s 74 km access road to the forest and part of the internal forest road along with 19 major bridges and 40 culverts. These roads were built through dense jungle over hills and through swamps. The access road itself is roughly twice the distance between Georgetown and Timehri and cost slightly over US$1.5M. In 1997 Prime Minister, Mr Sam Hinds declared the road open and soon after I resigned as MD of both Case Timbers and Unamco. Many of these facts can be verified in GFC’s and CTL/Unamco’s records as well as in records held by the Office of the President, Cameron and Shepherd (Unamco’s attorneys) and in the banking system.
GFC is now being managed more effectively under the watchful eye of Minister Persaud but is still dilatory in making important decisions. For instance, GFC has taken over 3 years to make a decision concerning the renewal of Unamco’s lease. This act alone or lack of it shows the lack of sensitivity, concern and tact in dealing with Unamco’s investment. During this period and as a direct result of the delay Unamco’s expensive logging and road building equipment (Komatsu bulldozers, motor graders, skidders, backhoes, crane, front end loaders, excavators, compactors, logging trucks, dump trucks, cargo trucks, articulated lorries, low-bed haulers and 4x4s) have been stolen, cannibalized, gutted of their engines and vital parts, and finally cut up and sold for scrap. I am convinced that open season was declared on Unamco by someone with the power to organize and unleash a large gang of armed men in Region 10. The storage buildings and workshops in the forest have been vandalized, all the spare parts stolen and even the zinc sheets removed. All that remains are dilapidated shells where proper buildings existed. Sections of the 74 km access road have been destroyed and most of the bridges broken down by armed bandits who pillaged the concession, terrorized Unamco’s security personnel and took all that they could move.
When myself and Unamco’s General Manager went to report this mayhem to the Police Commander in February he was quite puzzled as this type of systematic, unrelenting plunder of an investor’s assets had never taken place in Guyana before. When we told him that the lease had expired 3 years ago and had not been renewed it became clear to him what was going on. He was very helpful to us and even apprehended some of the bandits as they were transporting Komatsu bulldozer parts (components) to Linden. Three years is a long time to keep a major investor in limbo for want of a decision to continue operations or quit.
Three years is also the time it took me and a 50-man team (who all contracted malaria) to build Unamco’s 74 km access road to the forest, 19 major bridges and 40 culverts and all through dense tropical jungle.
At the margins I agree with the Minister that I was unsuccessful, but only in terms of managing a relationship with GFC as it was being directed at the time I was MD of CTL/Unamco. However, as regards some of what was visibly achieved during that period, I draw attention to the 14 companies, police and army personnel, miners and eco-tourists who regularly use the Unamco road to traverse Guyana and engage in various economic and other pursuits which would have been near impossible a decade ago.
When the annals of Guyana’s forest history are written it will state that CTL/Unamco’s $5B investment was not only unfairly treated but systematically destroyed. I leave it to the analysts, the economists, political commentators and international observers to decide the motives and mentality behind Unamco’s execution. But I already know the final chapter in this story of Unamco’s wilfull destruction.
Yours faithfully,
F Hamley Case
