PRESIDENT Donald Ramotar yesterday asserted that despite the “vicious attack” on foreign investment in the country, there is “no raping of our forest” by foreign logging company Bai Shan Lin. 

The Head of State was at the time responding to questions by the media on the operations of the Chinese logging company, Bai Shan Lin which has been targeted by sections of the media and labelled as operating illegally in the country.

“The export of logs is still way below what we can export based on some of the regulations of the laws that we have”

According to the President, he is convinced that there’s an orchestrated attack on having investments in the country while disclosing at the same time that this pattern has been shown from the beginning of last year.
He questioned the attack on similar projects by the Opposition which bore no fruitful explanations as to why these projects were not supported. “How do you explain the attack on the Amaila Falls project by the Opposition… “How do you explain the expansion of the airport… How do you explain the attack on the specialty hospital… How do you explain the attack on Marriott Hotel?” he questioned while noting that the country does not even possess a five star hotel.
As such, Ramotar is contending that there is an obvious link with sections of the media which has taken an Opposition’s position and are now moving their attack to investors in the society.
“I am not speaking for Bai Shan Lin but I’m telling you that the Ministry of Natural Resources was summoned to the standing committee of the National Assembly, they answered every single question, not a single question was left unanswered; nothing as far as I am aware and has been reported to me has been done in any illegal way,” the Head of State assured.
He further explained that all of these arrangements are the same across the board with everyone else that goes into these kinds of arrangements, stressing that “there’s no raping of our forest.”
However, he disclosed that the export of logs is still way below what we can export based on some of the regulations of the laws that we have. “But we have this constant attack against investment, particularly Chinese investments in the country which I really find to be totally anti-national and the target is our economy. That is what it appears to be” he noted.
“I am convinced from all of the reports that they have given me, that not a single law has been breached, that we are not exporting logs above what our programme of sustainable forest calls for legally and from a sustainable point of view. In fact, the figure that I’ve seen, we are way below where we should be to have a sustainable forest development in our society,” the President asserted.
He concluded by noting that the constant attack is “ridiculous” and there is an obvious pattern to attempt to attack and scare local as well as foreign investors in our society.
Outlining its position, Bai Shan Lin recently maintained that it had started its work in 2007 and rejected the notion that their operations were permitted under unregulated conditions and outside the provisions of the law.
According to a recent statement by the company: “Over the period 2011- 2013, the company applied through the GFC’s forest allocation process and has been granted two State Forest Exploratory Permits.”
Such permits amounted to some 344,849 hectares, for which applications were from public advisories by the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC). The company noted that through various partnership arrangements, Bai Shan Lin “has invested substantial financial and capital resources into these operations.”
The company also boasted that in keeping with its social responsibility to the region, Bai Shan Lin “has employed close to 200 local Guyanese in various areas of operation, including in harvesting, heavy duty equipment operation, field teams and administrative personnel.”

(By Ravin Singh)