One of the country’s leading rice millers and exporters of rice has told the Stabroek Business that it is indeed unacceptable that an amount of the magnitude alluded to in a recent official media release should be owing to local rice farmers for rice sold to Panama up to two years ago, and has asserted that it is the responsibility of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) to actively pursue the matter of settlement of the debt with the Panamanian authorities.
On Sunday, an official media release disclosed that the local Ministry of Foreign Affairs had dispatched a letter to the “Panamanian authorities” urging them to honour their obligations to Guyana and to pay the $1.9 billion owed to local rice millers. Asked to comment on the disclosure, Chief Executive Officer of the Berbice rice milling operation, Nand Persaud and Company, Mahendra Persaud, told Stabroek Business that official pressure for the payment of the outstanding amounts was overdue and that it was fitting that the matter was being pursued through official channels. Persaud said that while it was the millers to whom the amounts were owing, there existed no bilateral agreement between those millers and the Panamanian buyers. In fact, he said, it was to the GRDB that the local farmers sold the rice that was shipped to Panama. Accordingly, Persaud told the Stabroek Business that it was to the GRDB that the millers were looking to expedite the payments.
