Trotman defends continuing engagement with Baishanlin

Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman yesterday defended government’s continued engagement with controversial logging company Baishanlin saying that a “do wuh you want with me” scenario is not happening and the firm will be taken over by a Chinese state-owned company.

Ask yesterday why, given the history of the company which has not fulfilled major commitments to do value-added processing despite benefitting from billions of dollars in tax concessions and in light of it being under investigation for tax evasion, government was continuing to engage with the company, Trotman said the firm could not be ignored altogether.

It was pointed out that Minister of State Joseph Harmon met with representatives of the