There is rampant corruption in the forestry sector

Jul 16, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
It was quite shocking, sad and worrying to read about the corruption or alleged corruption by the GFC Monitoring unit and Land Allocation unit staffers with possible or in collusion with the respective supervising officers (KN Saturday July 8th under the Caption ‘Corruption Returns to the GFC’). This type of illicit or nefarious behaviour by staffers put in positions of enforcement is quite common in a lot of revenue agencies like customs, police, mines commission etc. We have not started producing oil so this should be a wakeup call for the authorities to carefully select the best staff to work with the agency that will be monitoring and managing the oil and gas sector.
However, it is what it is and it was only time that a brave stakeholder sums up the courage and bring it to the attention of the relevant authorities. Stakeholders mainly from community logging groups are feeling the squeeze and pressure from certain “rogue monitoring officers” with perhaps direction from their superiors. Apart from turning a blind eyes and refusing to act on reports of illegality if you are not prepared to go in your pocket then you and your group become the target. Also communities and able producers are starved for lands. This is not the GFC we want.
I say sad that the events alluded to occurred after much effort was done by the new administration of the GFC Board to free up the forest sector and make it a transparent, clean and lean sector. I speak of the efforts that have been made to regularise and recapture lands that were under the control of some big Asian tigers/companies. Things were moving along smoothly – good forest planning and governance. But it seems a few rogue elements within the monitoring and land management departments have hijacked this effort and are turning the sector upside down.
Not only is the State losing thousands or possibly millions in revenue but it is reversing good progress. Not so long ago the Minister himself boasted of having a good forestry sector with strong guidelines and a robust system of monitoring. It doesn’t take long to dismantle what took years and efforts to build. Rome was not built in a day.
At a minimum I would like to see the institution of polygraph tests for all staffers (staff and supervising officers) of the land administration and forest monitoring departments of the GFC. As a matter of fact all revenue and enforcement agencies (CANU, Police, customs, mines, oil and gas and of course forestry) should adopt the polygraph test as a standard means to gain employment and undergo it perhaps annually.
This will I believe weed out corrupt officers that are being exposed at the GFC. I am being told it very easy to get a load of wood passed at any of the stations particularly at nights; just make the call and they guys will tell you when to come through. It’s all part of a racket to defraud the state of revenue and enrich the pockets of the few cabals in the enforcement section. These systematic breaches are evidence of a weak monitoring system.
My other worry is that one must bear in mind that the government signed the EU pact for Forest Law Government Transparency Trade Program (EU FLEGT). This is a like a Standard Operating Procedure Program to do business with the EU. It all rests on good forest systems. What we are seeing here now in Guyana is a weak forest monitoring system and hence it puts the entire EU FLEGT program under serious threat and jeopardy. The EU is serious business and hefty fines are imposed for non-compliance. One needs to just look at Brexit and see how challenging it is to get out of the EU system.
Our weak monitoring system is a recipe for disaster and we should pause for a while and reflect whether we are ready for the EU. After all Guyanese are no wiser about the EU program; there has not been a single national public education awareness conference on EU FLEGT. Who is really in charge of the program? The public is in the dark, a miserly text message was received a few weeks back on the program and that’s all the public has been informed of. We need an overhaul of the FLEGT program and have people with the right skills and expertise take it forward, otherwise we will be shooting ourselves in the foot. Why not get our own Dr. Janet Bulkan, a respectable international expert to lead it off. It’s an international program so Dr. Bulkan can also give advice on how to overhaul and strengthen our forest monitoring and allocation department and systems. I am sure she will be more than happy to contribute back to Dear Guyana.
Finally like the other writer, I heard the GFC board is in capable hands of environmental and social activists. Madam Chairperson we call on you to bring sanity to this lawlessness that is taking place in the monitoring systems, lands management and has begun spreading to the FLEGT program. Why don’t we have a national workshop to get ideas on best practices and also form a national steering body give advice? The stakeholders are your friends; and is the best way to obtain information on the ground. Otherwise sitting in offices in GT will get us nowhere; only issues similar to what has been mentioned by Mr. Williams in the media last week, will crop up.
P.Wong (Forestry Expert/Consultant)

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