Forest stakeholders would support a turnaround plan

Dear Editor,
Firstly, I wish to extend congratulations to our Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat on his recent appointment to manage and guide this very important sector. His insight and vision will be welcomed to transform gold trading, mining, and particularly the forestry sector.
As a forest sector stakeholder for more than 25 years, I would like to state that the sector has been at its worst state over the past 4 years. This was no fault of the Guyana Forestry Commission or the sector stakeholders, but was solely due to the former government’s overall lack of vision and implementation of initiatives to stimulate economic development. If there has been no new housing scheme or massive infrastructural development, how can there be local consumption of forest products?
This was further complicated when the APNU/AFC government repossessed millions of hectares of active forest lands for reallocation to their friends and associates, which hasn’t yielded substantial benefits to the country, except for application fees.
Further, the recent Board of the GFC has been an abysmal failure, with members seeking to squeeze the Commission to make unjustified administrative changes which were strongly rejected by staff. All forest stakeholders know this, as the spirit of staff were shaken, but they remained committed to their work. The recent Government has been uncaring, as many GFC staff were paid as much as two months late, no exaggeration.
Stakeholders also understand that monies allocated to the GFC from the LCDS have been transferred to another APNU-aligned agency for politically driven projects with no returns for the Forestry Sector, inevitably weakening the financial capability of the Commission.
Editor, I have a medium scale forest and sawmilling operation, and the shocks from the sectors are almost immediately felt by my company and my staff. For stakeholders to prosper, the Ministry of Natural Resources, along with the Government, need to reverse the stagnation of this sector for the benefit of all Guyanese.
On behalf of other stakeholders within the forest sector, I stand committed to supporting Minister Bharrat and his team’s vision and turnaround plan for the sector. We need to do this swiftly, by ensuring timely payment of salary and benefits to the staff of this vital regulatory agency while simultaneously implementing initiatives and policies to stimulate growth of the sector and, by extension, Guyana.

Sincerely,
T Williams