THE Government has given a strong commitment to work with the relevant State agencies and all other stakeholders, to address the issues affecting the small loggers of Region 10.A team of representatives from the logging community within the region met with Minister of Governance, Raphael Trotman, who also has responsibilities for the Natural Resources Sector. According to the Government Information Agency (GINA), the meeting took place at his office on Wednesday evening.

Reporting on the meeting, Minister Trotman told GINA that the group which came to the Department consisted of representatives from 14 different logging associations in Region 10, and several individuals who are into logging, without being a part of any association. Among the major concerns raised was access to lands for logging purpose.

“They are concerned about an obvious downturn in the global economy. A lot of logs were going to China and Asia and there have been a down turn, so they have a lot of stock in hand…they want to know what concessions if any, Government can give,” Minister Trotman said.
According to Trotman, concerns were raised about large logging companies crowding them out on the market, the impassable state of access to roads and fuel prices. He described the meeting as “a very good” one.

The representatives have pledged their support to the new Government but, according to the minister, “they have also put us on notice that it is not a blanket support, they expect that we would perform in their interest.”

COMMITMENT

With regard to the Government’s commitment to immediately address these concerns, Minister Trotman stated that, “The one commitment we gave was that we would work in their interest to relieve the concerns they raised.”

He however pointed out that some of their concerns will be addressed through the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC), while noting that some new regulations and practices have come into play. These include using the Global Positioning System (GPS) as the representatives requested training in this regard.

Minister Trotman committed his ministry to partnering with Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson, to address the deplorable state of the roads used by the loggers.

“I do plan a visit to Region 10 later in the month of September, and I would insist that Minister Patterson go along, because the state of the road is very critical, much of the cost of production or getting the logs to market has to do with transportation and the bad state of the road…so hopefully the trip can involve Minister Patterson and some others, where we can bring some immediate relief and the minister can see for himself what the needs are,” Trotman stated.

TAX CONCESSION

Addressing the issue of possible tax concessions, the Minister explained that he would have to seek the permission of Finance Minister Winston Jordan, who in turn has to get Cabinet’s approval.

With regard reviewing the tax concessions, granted already to existing companies, the minister explained that “I do not want us to get into the mood of being anti-investment or anti-foreigner. We are going to ensure that the playing field will be level, it must be the same for the foreigners as well as for the local small loggers. These are things we are working on with the GFC.”

The intention of the Administration is to also ensure that those large companies that have been granted concessions, that they are working them and doing that in a proper manner, respecting the country’s laws and regulations, Trotman told GINA.
“We want to ensure that they are keeping to their agreement at the end of the day, so that its value added. If they can’t, then we will look at taking them away, but we don’t want to start off by saying we are going to be taking anything away, that’s not in our interest.”

NORWAY AGREEMENT

The minister was firm on maintaining good relations with Norway, as this is critical for the development of the forestry sector in Guyana.

In November 2009, Guyana signed the Agreement with Norway. This will see Guyana benefitting from US$250M by 2015, for avoided deforestation, once certain performance indicators are met.

In the country’s efforts to promote and improve its value added products, “we have to maintain our good relations with Norway, we have to maintain that Guyana has a product that is lumber or logs that can be harvested, we have got to ensure that there is value added products.”

Minister Jordan had stated in his 2015 Budget presentation on August 10, 2015, that the conclusion of the 5-year forest agreement with Norway provides the impetus to open discussions on a successor agreement. This, he said, will be pursued on the next visit of the team from the Kingdom of Norway to Guyana.