Is Mr. Archibald serious, or is it something else?

Sep 01, 2014 Letters

Dear Editor,
Yesterday’s edition of the Kaieteur News carried a full page reproduction of a letter by Mr. Jacy Archibald, Corporate Secretary of the Guyana Forestry Commission(GFC) which appeared earlier in the letter columns of the newspapers. The letter is captioned: “An open letter to Bulkan, Palmer, Ram and TIGI, et al.”
In his references to me, Mr. Archibald made a series of allegations which in the interest of space I summarise hereunder:
1. Incomplete reporting by the GFC, stating that I failed to point out any evidence or specifics to substantiate my claim.
2. That I am either not knowledgeable on the contents of the National Forests Plan or Policy or am deliberately deceptive in my assessment of the GFC’s annual reports.
3. My assessment of the GFC’s annual reports is without merit.
4. That I highlighted discrepancies in the “income and expenditure”
Let us take these one by one but before I do so, I should make a couple of points. The article in the Kaieteur News was sourced to a column at chrisram.net posted on January 11th, 2014 under the caption Forestry Commission’s Report – an affront to decency. It is clear that Mr. Archibald either did not read the column, or read it but did not understand, or was simply forced to have his name used.
1. Did Archibald not READ or did he read but not UNDERSTAND that I wrote that the tabling of the report for 2005 in the National Assembly was done more than eight years later? And did he READ or did he read but not UNDERSTAND that I asked about the reports for the years prior to 2005, described by me as a black hole?
Did Archibald not READ or did he read but not UNDERSTAND that I wrote that the Minister had failed to table audited financial statements for the years 2010 – 2012 and that the so-called 2010 report has a balance sheet for which not a single note is indicated, an income statement indicating notes 5, 6 and 7 but none of which is presented, and a cash flow statement in draft without comparative figures. No audit report is presented.
Did Archibald not READ or did he read but not UNDERSTAND that I wrote that for 2011 there were no audited financial statements or audit opinion but only a Summary Revenue and Expenditure Account, misleadingly referred to as DRAFT FINANCIAL STATEMENT. And did Archibald not READ or did he read but not UNDERSTAND that the 2012 Annual Report includes at page 9 what is described as Draft Financial Statement: Guyana Forestry Commission accompanied with an asterisk and a note “Awaiting Audited Financial Statement from Audit Office of Guyana.”
2. Is Mr. Archibald serious, or is it something else? I would respectfully suggest to Mr. Archibald that he should read the Guyana Forestry Commission Act, published annual reports in Guyana, and any literature on governance before associating his signature with such uninformed and nonsensical writing.
3. In view of my responses at 1 and 2 above, no response is in fact necessary.
4. I should excuse Mr. Archibald for his inability to distinguish between “discrepancies”, a term which I did not use, and “fluctuations”, a term that I did use. Pardon me, Mr. Archibald but this is what I wrote in this regard: “Except for Royalty, there are huge fluctuations in income over the years which are not explained in the narrative annual reports. Surely citizens, if not the unalert parliamentarians, would like to know why License Fees and Fines moved from $181 million in 2007 to $336 million in 2008 only to fall back to $102 million in 2009.”
My e-column continued: “Similar variations in the expenses are also evident [in the case]of operational expenses between 2009 and 2011, and Administrative Expenses which doubled between 2007 and 2008, fell 23% in 2009 and then witnessed a 32% increase the next year.”
I would like Mr. Archibald to respond to two other financial issues raised in my column: (a) the payment by the GFC between 2005 and 2010 of nearly half a billion in professional fees! And (b): whether the GFC has now paid the $1,126 million in tax liabilities owing to the Guyana Revenue Authority.
In closing, let me say that I have a certain level of sympathy and sadness for Mr. Archibald who reminds me of the poem by National Poet Martin Carter who said “But a mouth is always muzzled by the food it eats to live.” Persons like Mr. Archibald must however, place some value on their dignity and self-respect and not sell their honour by submitting themselves to the kind of subservience which his signature to the open letter signifies.
Christopher Ram

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Is Mr. Archibald serious, or is it something else?

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