Wakenaam rice farmers still owed for Mexico shipment

Almost four months later

Rice farmers who live and operate on Wakenaam Island in the Essequibo River are still to be paid, almost four months after they had sold paddy in March to a miller who converted their product into rice. This comes against complaints that they continue to face difficulties in trying to repay loans taken to acquire fertiliser, fuel, and equipment.
According to information recently disclosed, those farmers, along with others on the Essequibo Coast, are still owed millions in total, after millers had bought their produce in March. Withholding such payments to farmers for more than 42 days, as <<Guyana Times>> has been reporting, violates the Rice Factories (Amendment) Act of 2009, which says that farmers should not wait longer than the mandatory 42 days before being paid for their paddy. According to the Act, the manufacturer (miller) is required to pay the paddy producer (the farmer) half the amount upfront, and the rest within two weeks of receiving that farmer’s paddy.
On Saturday, <<Guyana Times>> was told that a popular Essequibo miller who owes several of the Wakenaam farmers promised to pay off the money owed on Friday last, since a Mexico-bound ship laden with rice recently departed Guyana’s shores. However, according to farmers, the miller pushed back the date again to next Friday. Efforts by this newspaper to contact that miller were unsuccessful, as calls were forwarded to voicemail.
Millers are holding out that the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB), a Government entity, owes them over $2 billion in outstanding payments from the Panama deal dating back to 2017. However, Head of the GRDB, Nizam Hassan, has since claimed that the GRDB is not responsible for payment delays from buyers in Panama.
In fact, Agriculture Minister Noel Holder said recently that “millers should desist from using the farmers as a bank.”
However, while denouncing responsibility for the shipment, it was Minister Holder and Hassan who met the Panamanian Institute of Agricultural Marketing on March 18, 2016, when a commitment was announced for the increased quota of rice from Guyana.
“Our Government is extremely pleased that you (Panama) are happy with the services we (GRDB) have been supplying since the commencement of our relationship… I would like to assure you that the GRDB will continue to provide the same excellent and professional service to your Government,” Minister Holder had said following that meeting.
The Guyana Rice Millers Association (GRMA) has always maintained the position that millers are signing agreements with the GRDB, which has a Government-to-Government arrangement with Panama; and, as such, GRDB has an obligation to pay millers. GRMA Head, Leekha Rambrich, observed last month that GRDB was violating laws that govern the sector, with particular focus on its delayed payments to millers under the Panama deal.
He posited that with the signing of the Panama contract, the GRDB “is committing itself to a six-month payment plan”, whereby rice would be obtained and payments would come six months after. The official contended that this would be tantamount to withholding payments from farmers.
“Where will millers get money to pay the farmers from? Why is it (that) the minister doesn’t let the GRDB pay the millers, so they could pay the farmers? GRDB is the exporter, and they are buying the rice from millers, and they are setting precedent and breaking the law. You cannot sign agreements to pay millers after six months; the minister is contradicting himself,” Rambrich told <<Guyana Times>> in June.
Millers have outlined that they have been operating in overdraft. Information disclosed is that banks requested a payment schedule in which millers outlined how they would repay funds they had borrowed. Reports are that the GRDB had promised to pay millers since September last year, but revised the payment deadline to April 30, 2018.
An industry insider told this newspaper that the GRDB had been in discussions with Minister Holder for him to release funds to pay the millers, as the GRDB reportedly has reserves in its coffers; and it was disclosed that the GRDB has been disbursing small percentages of the payments in the weeks after reports had surfaced in the media.