Local millers under pressure from $1.4B owed by Panama for two years

Apr 17, 2020 News

Local rice millers are upping the pressure for the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) to find an urgent resolution to an outstanding matter of more than a billion dollars owed to them from Panama.

Rice millers are fighting to get paid about US$7M owed to them by the Panamanian government. It has been outstanding for two years now.

Under the government-to-government arrangement, the GRDB would have been the facilitator. However, for more than two years now, rice millers have not been receiving payments.
Yesterday, Essequibo rice miller, Roopan ‘Fowlcock’ Ramotar complained to Kaieteur News that he has read that there have been increased purchases from neighbouring Venezuela, and enough supplies for the local market. Ramotar said he is owed a significant sum.
The statements were attributed to General Manager, Nizam Hassan, who also indicated of an excellent harvest.
The Panamanian market, about six years old, has been an emerging one.
Guyana had lost the Venezuela market in 2015, but it has been recovered, with a major trade ongoing.
With regards to Panama and the outstanding money, of about US$7M, millers are saying that for two years now, there have been no payments for rice supplied to that Spanish-speaking country.
According to Ragindra Persaud, Chairman of the Guyana Rice Millers and Exporters Association, the matter indeed has been engaging operations. He said that the money had been outstanding about two years now, with a government-change in Panama last July compounding the situation.
“We understand that the local dealer in Panama has not been paid. So too Guyana has not been paid.”
According to Persaud, whose family controls Nand Persaud Group of Companies, one of the country’s biggest rice millers, the association and GRDB had sought the intervention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
It was disclosed that headway was made with the Panamanian government, indicating that provisions would be made for the payments in its national budget. The budget appeared to have been passed only recently.
“It is a government-to-government arrangement, so we are working to resolve this matter,” the official explained.
In fact, Kaieteur News was told that the millers’ body has even sent a lawyer’s letter to GRDB asking for the money. However, it appears that GRDB does not have the money.
Kaieteur News was unable to make contact with GRDB’s General Manager, Nizam Hassan, for a comment.
Gold and rice, and now oil, have been the mainstay for the country’s revenues in recent years, with the fallout from COVID-19 placing more importance on food.

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