By Neil Marks
THE country’s largest exporter of logs, Barama, other forest concession owners, and officials of the Guyana Forestry Commission, have been found culpable in a scam to “defraud the government of revenue”, President Bharrat Jagdeo said yesterday.

The Ministry of Agriculture and the Guyana Forestry Commission on September 25 announced the launch of the probe under suspicion that several companies deliberately under declared what they were producing. In addition, there were indications that logs belonging to one concession were being passed off as belonging to another.

Mr. Jagdeo, while saying the report is still ongoing, warned at a press conference at the Office of the President complex that action will be taken against those found guilty.

He said some concession owners have allowed Barama to move into their concessions, take out the logs, and they sit doing nothing collecting the money, while some have left their concessions sitting for years.

Mr. Jagdeo said levying on export of logs would not serve the purpose in this case, since Barama’s 1991 agreement with the government enjoys exemption.

The Forest Producers Association (FPA) has said that malicious attacks on its activities by persons in the media, unilateral action by the government in the sector and destruction of the forest by miners were some problems of which the cumulative effect could lead to a shut down of the industry.

In a statement to the media last week, the FPA charged that the latest example of malicious intent was one by the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) that Guyana’s forests are being “irresponsibly plundered.”

The FPA, the statement said, is acutely aware that unfounded statements like these can and will only result in enormous and irretrievable damage to the industry which represents a capital investment commitment of G$160B and which last year contributed some G$ 360B to Guyana’s Gross Domestic Product.

The sector also provided a means of livelihood for close to 100,000 persons, the association said.

The FPA also charged that its members had not been consulted on the forestry regulations recently introduced; and that the government had recently appointed a new board to the GFC and the FPA for the first time in years was unrepresented on this board.

The FPA also lamented that what GFC and the government said was tantamount to a series of ultimatums being imposed on members in the wood processing industry in the form of standards which they will be required to meet commencing from 2008.

The GFC in response to allegations by the FPA about “ill advised statements by the Minister of Agriculture and the GFC” and “unfair and ill advised statements by Government” said that they will be fully dealt with once they are formally presented.