Alesie frustrated over export licences’ delay

May 15, 2008 News

Several West Coast Demerara rice farmers are expected to once again descend to the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) to lobby Government over the failure of that regulatory body to issue a mill and export licence to the Ruimzeight Rice Processors Inc.

Yesterday, officials of the GRDB said that they have appealed a recent court ruling which ordered the licences to be issued to that company which is part of the Alesie Group.

However, they declined to comment on the matter as it is before the courts.

Today, a few of the farmers from West Coast are expected to meet with Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud to discuss among other issues, their grouses.

On February 7, Justice Jainarayan Singh ordered GRDB to issue a mill licence which was being withheld because the Ruimzeight company reportedly owed millions to farmers, in direct contravention to the Factories Act.
Chief Executive Officer of Alesie, Turhane Doerga, said that during the court case, GRDB had been unable to produce anyone who can confirm he owed them money.

One month after Justice Singh granted the order, a delegation of farmers from West Coast Demerara, along with Doerga, descended on the Cowan Street, Kingston office of GRDB urging for the licence to be issued.
At that time, Doerga was issued a list of requirements, including certification from the Environmental Protection Agency, which the factory at Ruimzeight must meet before being issued.
Subsequently, the order by Justice Singh was appealed by GRDB.

Last month, the company wrote GRDB’s General Manager, Jagnarine Singh, expressing its frustrations over the failure to get the licences.

Listing the “futile” attempts it made to obtain the licences, the rice miller said that he called GRDB offices several times, to no avail.

Contacted yesterday, Doerga said it was unrealistic and unfair that rice exporters were holding rice prices at US$700 per tonne while in Suriname his company was paying in excess of US$900.
Two months ago, Alesie accused Government of not being too friendly to investors and said that as a result the company intends to cease large-scale operations in the country.

During a session at the Ruimzeight Rice Producers’ factory where some 60 rice farmers gathered for a meeting, where they signed a petition for paddy price to be at least $4,000 per bag, Doerga told a gathering of parliamentarians and other rice officials, that the list of injustices against Alesie over the last 15 years was long.
Also at that meeting were General Manager Jagnarine Singh, of rice’s regulatory body – the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB); Parliamentarians Anthony Vieira, Khemraj Ramjattan and Mervyn Williams.
Doerga told farmers that it is time for Alesie to pull out since after 15 years, government has not even seen it fit to issue him with a work permit. The company will still have some ties but it will be minimal.
Shortly after coming here, in the early 1990’s, former GM of GRDB, Charles Kennard, stopped the company from exporting rice.
A few years back, a boat with $200 million in rice from Suriname and Guyana was also seized for carrying drugs and although no one was charged, the rice was not returned to Alesie and the company was saddled with the task of finding the money to repay the farmers from whom it took the supplies.
Making a case for Guyana, Doerga had noted that currently the rice producing countries are unable to meet consumer demands with the supply shortfall somewhere in the vicinity of three million tonnes and the shortage is only expected to grow.
According to the General Manager of GRDB, Jagnarine Singh, the regulatory body was forced to withhold Ruimzeight’s licence last year because the mill was breaching the Rice Factory Act by owing more than five per cent of the gross sales to farmers.
He recalled that those farmers whose paddy was taken in 2006 by Alesie only started receiving payment last year.
But Doerga replied that government had contributed by seizing a vessel and not making the proceeds of the rice available to the farmers.