Barama expected to lay off more workers after contract renewal - source

While the contract between Barama Company Limited and the Government of Guyana is expected to be renewed by the end of the week, a source says that the company’s operations will be scaled back and it will likely have to lay off more workers.

According to a source close to the company, while the previous 25-year contract expired on October 15, it will be renewed soon, but the company is going to continue its operations on a smaller scale. The decision was made because it was not economically viable to continue at its current scale.

Stabroek News was unable to confirm the plans with General Manager Mohindra Chand.

However, the source explained that the company would have to lay off more workers in the coming months. When Stabroek News contacted Lincoln Lewis, the General Secretary of the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU), which represents the Barama workers, he said that he was unaware of such a decision.

The company had reported last month that 180 workers had been retrenched over a threemonth period and Chand had said Barama was forced to let the workers go because of the market slowdown and the fact that government was not moving quickly towards renewing the company’s contract.

The Ministry of Natural Resources has said that in 2015, at the request of Barama for a continuation of its contract, Cabinet gave its ‘no objection’ to the continuing of the arrangement but recommended the convening of a Task Force to examine the request.

This Task Force was seen as necessary given the “rapacious activities” of some foreign companies operating in the forests of Guyana, and “some not so positive observations that had been expressed about Barama in particular,” the ministry had said in a statement.

The Task Force comprises representatives of the ministries of Business, Natural Resources, Public Infrastructure and Indigenous People’s Affairs, the Guyana Revenue Authority, the Guyana Forestry Commission and a legal consultant.

The statement said that the Task Force met on several occasions and visited Barama’s operations at Buck Hall, Essequibo, following which the legal consultant began reviewing the existing contract, forest concessions, and tax incentives previously granted to the company, while other members evaluated workers’ rights, value-added operations and environmental management practices, among other things.

Barama has control over 1,611,195 hectares (3,981,349 acres) of state forest in the north west of Guyana and when it entered the market here in 1991 was meant to be predominantly engaged in value-adding via plywood.

However, for a number of years plywood has been on the downswing and the company has been engaged in the exportation of a significant amount of logs.