– says Finance Ministry’s Mid-Year Report

AT the end of the first half of 2019, the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) recorded a cash deficit of $253.3 million, $16.5 million higher than the end of June 2018.
This is according to the Finance Ministry’s 2019 Mid-Year Report.

The Board reported revenues of $282.6 million compared to $186.8 million in the same period in 2018, mainly due to receipt of outstanding sales commissions.

The mid-year report noted that the total expenditures were $523.9 million, an increase of $104.1 million over the same period in 2018.

This resulted from higher employment costs and unbudgeted operational expenditure. The latter included rehabilitation works on an office building at La Bonne Intention (LBI) Estate, and an advance payment for a seed cleaner, which amounted to 20.7 per cent of total expenditure.

The Board now projects a deficit of $256.4 million at the end of the year, compared to a budgeted surplus of $27.7 million.

Meanwhile, at the end of the first half of 2019, government-owned MARDS Rice-Milling Complex located at Burma, Mahaicony, recorded a cash surplus of $15.1 million, 32.1 per cent lower than the position at the end of June 2018.

Total receipts were $33.1 million, $5.4 million less than the same period in 2018.
The report noted that this was mainly on account of farmers not paying their land rent in a timely manner.

Sales of pesticides and weedicides amounted to 11 per cent of revenue earned, compared with 7.7 per cent for the same period in 2018.

On the other hand, total expenses increased, in the period under review, to $17.9 million, from $16.2 million, due to higher spending on maintenance of property and purchase of pesticides.

At the end of 2019, the company anticipates an overall balance of $23.1 million, $9.5 million above the budgeted surplus of $13.6 million.