OLD Kai has observed that the Alliance For Change (AFC) has jumped to announce that if elected to government, it will put in place a ban on the export of logs. No doubt, this was all part of a carefully orchestrated plan, following the misinformation campaign by the Kaieteur News on the forestry sector.

The daily attacks by the Kaieteur News on stakeholders in this sector, and then the pronouncements of the AFC were no coincidence. Old Kai is, however, happy the AFC has made such a bold pronouncement, because it just goes to show how unprepared and desperate they really are. Equally so, it illustrates just how irresponsible they are, as their proposed ban on timber exports directly places the livelihoods of thousands of workers and their families who depend on this industry in jeopardy.
And among those who will be hardest hit by this obnoxious proposal will be the small loggers in the hinterland communities, who have depended on this sector for over a century to sustain their families.
I do hope the people in these regions who stand to have their main source of income taken away by the AFC have taken note, and will not be swayed by the two-faced nature of the Party, as, no doubt, they will soon venture into these communities and tell the people that what they said was not exactly what they said. They will say that their primary concern is ensuring value-added production, and the export ban on timber will ensure more processing is done in Guyana, thereby creating more jobs.
While this is correct and has been at the forefront of efforts by the Government since 1992, the AFC’s actions thus far indicates that this is another trap to get a few votes, as it is no other than the AFC, combined with the APNU, which has been trying to get this country internationally blacklisted and slapped with sanctions intended to kill our export markets, not just for timber and timber-related products, but production in all our sectors.
Already, the Opposition’s continued refusal to support the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism legislation has seen it become more difficult for several sectors to conduct business transactions with partners overseas, particularly our banking sector. This much they have publicly stated.
Now, the AFC needs to tell Guyanese how ‘strangling’ the business sector will translate to increased investments and value-added production in the timber industry, especially if those foreign and local companies will now find it more difficult to do business with, and in, Guyana. They cannot be harming our investment prospects, and then talk about encouraging investments at the same time; and this clearly illustrates the two-faced nature of the AFC.
How can they be trusted when, in the lead-up to the last elections, they promised sugar workers a 20% wage and salary increase, and that they will not support any attempt to close the industry, only to turn around, after they enjoyed a combined one-seat majority with the APNU in the National Assembly, and supported calls for the industry’s closure, and for it to be turned into fish ponds?
Therefore, Old Kai is pleased that they have been rebuked by no less a person than President Donald Ramotar, who has promised to defend the interests of loggers and those that depend on the forestry sector, just as he has defended and supported all the other sectors over the past three years.
Quite fittingly, speaking at the annual Pork-Knockers’s Day event in Bartica on Saturday, President Ramotar reaffirmed that Guyana’s deforestation rate is amongst the lowest in the world, and has been supported by independent international verification methods, and that our current volume of extraction was well below what is permissible. Therefore, there is no doubt that our forestry sector is sustainable.
That said, can the AFC/APNU and their cheerleaders now tell us why they have suddenly become supporters of the Government’s Low-Carbon Development Strategy when they have consistently slashed funding for it in successive National Budgets?
To be continued…