Dear Editor,
I was in considerable awe when I read that President Jagdeo is considering pulling Barama’s concession. Wouldn’t this be extreme? I cannot help believing that the President was grasping the opportunity to make a political statement, a show of solidarity with the dismissed workers and a reminder of his political power. If that is the case, many will ask why not the same empathy with the bauxite workers?
But, regardless of the President’s agenda or strategy this particular rhetoric is ill-advised for more than one reason. For one it is a terrible approach if government is serious about attracting more investment in Guyana. Secondly, the laying of blame totally at the feet of Barama is to appear to condone the unprofessionalism of some of the local work force.
Also, there is not an apparent appreciation of the importance of an investment dollar; no seriousness about addressing the problems faced by this particular investor. There is no aggressive endeavour to find common ground to make this investment a success for Barama and ultimately for Guyana.
The advent of AT&T, Barama and Omai came after a prolonged international wilderness and investment starvation created by President Burnham, who loved such tough talk and over pushed his hand at nationalization. Are our memories so short that we have forgotten? All our major industries are in a shambles because of this strategy, yet we continue to go along the same rugged road.
Far too many criticize these companies for the deals they got to lure them to invest, and spare no opportunity at lamenting. There were reasons why those deals were necessary – we had no bargaining strength because of similar strategy and policy. Deals are deals. They must be respected. It’s like giving your word and trying to take it back. It would not work. How can one progress in any endeavour in this manner?
We cannot indirectly re-negotiate the deals these companies received as many are insinuating. There are also those crazy calls about driving these companies out of Guyana. Are we serious? To be replaced by who? And, at what cost to Guyana’s struggling economy?
In relation to those talks about under invoicing, one cannot blame a business for trying to deceive if our monitoring inadequacies allow them to get away with it. Reputable companies in the US and worldwide, many of which we work for comfortably, hire high-earning attorneys to find dubious ways to beat the tax system.
It seems to be an undisputed fact that workers’ negligence contributed to the boiler blow-up. Now, in SN there was this: “Blame was laid against employees attached to a construction firm currently working on a section of the sea-defence aback of Craig village” for the flooding. There were and are many instances of workers’ negligence not taking prominence in the news – many instances of kokers left open, security guards sleeping and employees not giving one hundred per cent.
Sherwood Lowe wrote a letter recently which perfectly articulated and addressed my observations and concerns about the diligence and utter commitment that is lacking generally. This ‘don’t care a dam’ attitude is counter-productive. If the pay is not right do not work. But, if we do we should not be stretching out our hand on pay day when we premeditated and actually gave less than fifty per cent of the corresponding labour output.
It is good when our leaders have all-round experience. One of the fundamentals lacking in Guyana’s leadership is that most of our leaders have no business experience, never had to invest their personal money, raise capital and meet a payroll. There are many problems affecting business investment and development in Guyana. One of them happens to be worker dependency.
At one time, during the days of Balfour Beatty’s many projects, Guyanese workers were considered the best in the Caribbean, with most of those projects finishing ahead of schedule. As time goes by there seems to be a waning of that excellence. President Jagdeo may have not noticed, thus the opportunity to address those issues with the workers was missed.
I am merely a business enthusiast. I tried to put myself in the place of Barama. The logging concession is in the North West District yet the plywood factory was established at Land of Canaan. What was the logistics? Why would the company have the factory so far away from the concession? I saw two main reasons. Demographics and the assumed ability to source lumber from neighbouring concessionaires.
Land of Canaan is perfectly placed. They did not have the cost of Omai – finding lodging and transportation for workers. Secondly, in less than twelve hours, a truckload of logs can be moved from the stumps on close-by concessions to the plywood factory. I am sure Barama’s restrictions on sourcing this lumber have somewhat affected the vitality of the factory and I addressed this theory in my last letter.
I was vindicated when I saw a letter from Mohinda Chand, who wrote this: “the dynamics and challenges of upstream log supplies have a direct impact on the productive capacity of downstream activities. In fact, it is even more challenging for plywood production given the unique requirement and limited time-span needed to deliver freshly harvested (without insect infestation) plywood logs to produce the desired marketable plywood sheets.”
Mr Chand continued, “Consequently, it is important to highlight that log supplies are affected by increasing transport distances, difficult terrain, adverse weather patterns, variable species composition and abundance, natural defects of species, natural durability of species, poor soil types, shortage of skilled labour force, tightly regulated industry and high capital intensity.”
Many persons may not know this, but Guyana has a wood beetle problem. Even greenheart does not provide a deterrent to those bugs. It is something UG should be researching. Given Guyana’s many waterways the right chemical to keep the bugs away must be developed.
This unfortunate situation, this shackling of the company’s upward mobility, was mostly stimulated by raised voices, pushing the supposed illegality about subletting and suggesting that the company’s straight-up business and financial soliciting strategy of combining the forest acreage of potential suppliers as something foreign to business norms and practices.
Let’s face it. Many of the small concessionaires cannot afford to purchase the equipment necessary to move logs. So if the purchaser uses his equipment to move the logs, what’s so wrong about that? So we now have a situation where small concessionaires are in dire need of the revenue of peeler logs that are standing un-used on their concession since the beginning of time and Barama, which can acquire those logs to enhance the productivity of the factory and employ more workers, has to abide by this stupid sub-letting law.
The Ituni Loggers Association is one of four such associations that are in close proximity to the Land of Canaan factory. Can anyone estimate the benefits to these communities if Barama is allowed to source logs from these areas? The subletting law had its effectiveness but it must now be taken off the books or readjusted to accommodate development, not only to benefit Barama, but also other companies that may not want to have a concession but can easily set up a factory and purchase logs for value-added processing.
This is what the President should be looking to address. He along with the Minister of Agriculture and the GFC should be meeting with the company officials to find out their inner issues. Straighten them out. That is more likely to motivate them to get the boiler fixed and re-employ the workers.
Barama did not have the luxury of a Unamco, whose concession is close to a densely populated area. Yet their proposed plywood factory is still sitting in containers, deserted and deteriorating at the side of the Berbice River. If the concern is about finding jobs for workers, why is there no attempt to assist that business investment to bear fruit?
Yours faithfully,
F Skinner
