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Minister of Agriculture, Robert Persaud’s response

Sep 02, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
I wish to offer my comment on the above letter by Mr. Michael Maxwell.
The Guyana/Venezuela deal highlights the Government’s commitment to take advantage of every opportunity to improve the lives of all Guyanese especially rural farmers, despite ethnicity or political affiliations.
In fact it is rather sad and sickening for any patriotic and honest individual to criticise any effort to aid the rice industry which supports all walks of life. Economic preference by ethnicity is the policy of a bygone era. Mr. Maxwell’s attempt to spread disunity and racism through misinformation amongst the Guyanese people by insinuating that the Government took preference of one ethnicity over another is mischievous.
I would therefore like to dispel the misinformation contained in Mr. Maxwell’s letter by stating that the money to pay the millers/farmers comes from the Petro Caribe Account i.e. Government of Guyana obtains oil from Venezuela, this oil is sold to the Guyanese public and the proceeds are held in an account called the Petro Caribe account, to be paid as dictated by the oils supply agreement.  It therefore means that instead of repaying Venezuela directly for their oil through the Petro Caribe account we are instead using this money to pay rice farmers/millers and then discounting this value from the value owed to Venezuela for oil.
Mr. Maxwell created a dismal view of the rice sector which is far from the truth as export revenues for the rice sector has grown by 147% over the last five years and for 2010 to date, we have already seen export revenues increase by 14.1% (equivalent of US$9.7M) over 2009 for the same period.
Additionally, I wish to reiterate that as a policy and hallmark of the Government to ensure transparency all stakeholders were invited on several occasions to discuss the supply of rice and to Venezuela, contrary to Mr. Maxwell who stated that a special interest group was targeted to access the market. The Government and the Ministry of Agriculture remains open for constructive criticisms and positive dialogue to improve the livelihood of all Guyanese.
Access to the Venezuelan market resulted from a meeting with His Excellency President Bharrat Jagdoe and President Hugo Chaves in New York last year. As agreed, Guyana will supply paddy and rice, while payments will be done from payments for oil supplied under the Petro Carib deal. Subsequent arrangements with the Ministry of Agriculture/GRDB and Corporacion De Abastecimiento Y Servicios Agricolas (LA CASA) finalized this deal.
Robert Persaud,
Minister of Agriculture

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