EMBATTLED Turhane Doerga, after his contaminated rice shipment to Chile was rejected, has attempted to shift blame for the tainted shipment to the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB).In a comment to a local media outlet, Doerga is quoted as saying, “The Alesie Group supplied it, but it wasn’t Alesie-branded rice. The rice qualified under specifications in Chile. The rice was certified by GRDB under the contract quality. The rice was certified; you can’t ship anything if Jagnarine Singh (GRDB General Manager) doesn’t sign off on it. It is the GRDB; they are the ones that have to say yes it is good, it is certified and it goes.”

Doerga is also claiming that there are moves afoot to smear the Alesie brand, used his company, Rumzeight Rice Processors Inc.
However, GRDB officials have rejected what is being deemed Doerga’s failure to accept responsibility for the quality of his shipments by shifting blame to another body.
Deputy General Manager of the GRDB, Ricky Ramraj, told the Guyana Chronicle, yesterday, that while GRDB inspects rice, it does 10 per cent checks.
“It is difficult to do 100 per cent checking at all the rice mills. Last year we exported over 500,000 tonnes of rice. One tonne of rice is about 20 bags, so we do 10 per cent checks,” he explained, adding that most rice millers are committed to this undertaking – in the interest of ensuring quality exports.
Ramraj also rubbished Doerga’s claims that the rice exported was not Alesie branded rice. “It was Alesie branded. We have the documents to show all of this.”

FULL INSPECTION
Following the debacle, the GRDB is now expected to enforce 100 per cent inspections of all Alesie Rice exports.
Doerga’s rice was sent to the Chilean company, CABAGAN, Sociedad Distribuidora de Produtos, but was rejected after “pests, wood chippings and stones” were discovered in the shipment.
The South American country also lodged an official complaint with the GRDB.
According to the Agriculture Minster, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, in a prior comment, the debacle had jeopardised the Chilean market and brings into question Guyana’s reliability as an exporter of high-quality rice.
He stated that Doerga has since been offered options to dispose of the contaminated rice shipment by Chilean rice authorities.
“Rice markets are fragile,” Dr. Ramsammy stressed, underscoring the Doerga’s double standard in using the political Opposition’s platform to argue that enough is not being done to secure new rice markets on one hand and jeopardising the markets that have been secured on the other.
The Agriculture Minister committed to ensuring that efforts are made to repair trade relations with Chile.
The 2015 export target has been set at 514,000 tonnes.