Under pressure Bai Shan Lin pays monies owed to Amerindians

 - dead silence on duty free concessions granted to company

Amerindians from Kwebana, Region One, has reportedly been paid by Chinese-owned Bai Shan Lin, after waiting more than a year. This was following reports by Kaieteur News.

Chinese-owned logging company, Bai Shan Lin, amidst scrutiny of its operations, has paid off several Amerindians it owed from a Region One community.

According to Kwebana’s Toshao, Godfrey Wilson, the company came in with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash last week Monday and paid a number of workers who were contracted to fell logs. A number of shops that were owed for groceries and other items received their monies, too.

Wilson said that the company promised to improve its relationship with the community, located along the Waini River, during a meeting that involved senior officials from the Guyana Forestry Commission.

The company paid half of the almost $1.2M it owed and came back last Thursday with the rest of the money. The issue had been a burning one after Bai Shan Lin came under fire for its operations across the country.

The company has joint venture operations in a number of areas, including in Regions 10 and Region Nine. Permission to log in its concessions at Berbice and in Region Nine has not yet been granted.

But questions were raised over the extent of its activities, the joint venture arrangements and the many concessions it received, including duty free for vehicles.

During investigations by this newspaper, the issue of non-payment to Kwebana villagers was raised during a visit there.

Andrew Brescenio, Bandie Samuels and Theobald Lewis, three residents of Kwenbana expressed pleasure at finally getting their wages after years of waiting. They were high in praise to Kaieteur News for highlighting their dilemmas

No Money

Andrew Brescenio said he was told to work and cut logs but when time came for payments, there was no money.
He was among workers who would spend weeks, sometimes up to three at a time, living in plastic tents while cutting logs for Bai Shan Lin.
When Bai Shan Lin entered the village looking for chainsaw operators, Brescenio opted to go. He started working with the company in October 23, 2012. He was promised $400 for every cubic metre of logs he cut.
He worked seven blocks and only received a percentage of what he worked for.  He left for the village and returned in 2013. He had hoped to collect what was owed to him, but to no avail.
It was then that he was told to work for “plenty, plenty money” and when it adds up he would be paid. But again, he was given just a percentage and to date has not received one cent of what is owed to him. He alone is owed over $1 million, he said.

Kwebana Toshao,
Godfrey Wilson

“They always promising us that they will pay whenever we done cut the wood…but they rob we, ” he had told this publication.
Even when it comes to knowing exactly what is cut, they have to take Bai Shan Lin’s word for it, as the measurement was done by the Chinese workers.

“They always keep robbing we on the production too, because they never give us the priority to measure our own logs to know how much cubic metre we cutting.”
Brescenio said that on his last attempt to get the money he worked for, he was told by Bai Shan Lin officials that the manager had been fired and the current managers knew nothing of his outstanding wages.

The Chinese company had even claimed that it had contracted the work out and had no knowledge of the outstanding payments.
Brescenio had said that the matter was drawn to the attention of the Minister of Amerindian Affairs, Pauline Sukhai, since last year, but she had not responded to the complaints.

Last week, the Ministry said that an official complaint would have to be made.
The Amerindian man had even travelled several miles to Buckhall, Essequibo River to talk to Bai Shan Lin, in vain. He had no money to travel back to Kwebana.
His story resembles that of other workers. Bandie Samuels worked with the company in 2012. He was owed over $100,000.
Theobald Lewis said that initially, he worked for 18 days then got sick and had to return to the village. He was given a partial payment in two installments.
He went back to the interior to meet with officials to get the rest of his money and was asked to work further and he would be paid the total sum, including what was owed to him. He was still waiting up to over a week ago.
“We are not getting into contact with these people…When we call, different manager and different system in place,” the aggrieved man had related to Kaieteur News

Apart from the exploitation of the workers at Kwebana, when Bai Shan Lin entered the community, the company reportedly bluntly refused to draw up an agreement with the community, according to the village Toshao.

Their stories were similar to those of a number of other villagers. The issue has come to the attention of one of the Amerindian associations.

Silence

The GFC and its governing authority, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, and Government had launched an unprecedented public relations campaign to defend Bai Shan Lin.
The parliamentary opposition has already accused senior government officials of colluding with the company to hide the true nature of its operations, noting that kickbacks are what have caused it to shut up in the face of what could be glaring violations of Guyanese law.
GFC has said that the Chinese company is doing nothing wrong but there are many questions over the joint venture that still remain. These include the arrangement and the many concessions granted to the Chinese company, including duty free concessions on luxury vehicles like Lexus and Infiniti, hundreds of container trucks, loaders, excavators, bulldozers and other heavy duty vehicles. This equipment is mainly for primary logging activities.

The company has failed to put down any processing facilities.

A number of other logging companies are now being scrutinized.

Questions over the duty free concessions to especially Bai Shan Lin had sparked a swift retaliation from the Guyana Revenue Authority after questions were posed to them.

GRA boss, Khurshid Sattaur

Over the weekend, GRA’s boss, Khurshid Sattaur, in obvious response also to reports by this newspaper of his three children who are all working with him, seized two Lexus vehicles belonging to family friends of Publisher, Glenn Lall. The vehicles were part of fleet used by Lall, in face of an increased number of threats regarding the newspaper’s investigations of a number of questionable deals and practices by the administration.

A few weeks ago, a vehicle assigned to a senior Minister of Government was seen taking pictures of the Lexus vehicle that had been parked in front of Kaieteur News office.

There is nothing in law that stops a remigrant from lending his vehicles to others. But GRA insisted on removing the vehicles from the home of the remigrant’s son, in Continental Park, East Bank Demerara, where they had been parked.

The move has been widely seen as a strike to silence the newspaper’s reporting on questions over the many duty free and other tax concessions being granted to especially foreign investors.

Questions posed to GFC had been referred to GRA whose boss, Khurshid Sattaur, said he cannot by law divulge information.

Of course, the Guyana Chronicle was given all “confidential documents” regarding the two Lexus belonging to the family friends of the Lalls.

Yesterday, the Amerindian Toshao in expressing his gratitude said that, was it not for Kaieteur News’ report of the outstanding monies, the residents would have remained without their monies.