A group of lumber export businessmen and sawmillers are alleging the local industry is being undermined because of mismanagement and vindictiveness by two senior officials in the Forestry Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries.
The five businessmen, who are well-known in the industry, claim they have each lost millions in revenue since April, as a result of the actions of the senior officials who they accuse of deliberately targeting certain people in the industry.
“I lost a contract when they seized that timber. I lost three, 40-foot containers of timber to go to Italy. It cost me $3 million. Yes, I have been specifically targeted. Right now, I have $3 in my name. I just called England to have $10,000 borrowed. They said no because they don’t know if they will get their money back, the way the government is moving,” said businessman Brent Guiseppi.
“They’re taking their job and making it a personal thing, meaning they have a vendetta against certain sawmillers. It is not favouring the industry. The man responsible is a very victimising fella. If you say something and write him up, man your business is in trouble. That level of arrogance and hate that they have is different,” added sawmiller Darrel Sawh of Premium Carvings Limited Darrel Sawh who was preparing a pre-action protocol letter to send to the Forestry Division when he spoke with Guardian Media.
Sawh said after going through the legitimate process of obtaining permission from the Forestry Division to export multiple containers of lumber to Grenada earlier this year, the Division inexplicably cancelled the order at the last minute.
“I got the go-ahead, I had the material and we were preparing it to load. Upon cutting and preparation, you call Forestry to do an inspection. That’s the normal process. I asked for the inspection and they told me to start to load the material. When I started to load the material, which was good on all sides, smooth and met all the standards, Forestry called me and said, ‘That type of log you cut there, that type of log can’t export’,” he claimed.
“We have someone in a position who is, in my eyes, not fit for the job. He is playing with people’s money, investments and time. For too long, they have been playing.”
In the pre-action protocol letter sent to Minister of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries Kazim Hosein, Sawh’s attorney Renuka Rambhajan said her client received permission by phone from two senior officials in the Forestry Division to prepare plane teak wood on eight sides to be exported.
“After permission was granted by the Forestry Division to Mr Darrel Sawh, he proceeded to prepare a number of Teak logs, planned on eight sides, of varying lengths, ready for export. The processing of lumber was done exactly to the specifications requested and for which permission had been granted,” Rambhajan wrote.
“On April 21, 2022, on the inspection date, the director of FRIM did inspect the material planned on eight sides and granted permission for loading to being and upon completion, permits will be issued. One container was loaded completely, and the second container was about to be loaded when the Director of FRIM indicated to my client that the loading of the second container cannot continue and no export permits would be granted on that day. That clearly took my client by surprise as all instructions from the Ministry and Forestry were complied with and my client had expended great sums in anticipation of exporting those containers on that date.”
Rambahajan said that based on what took place that day it is not unreasonable for her client to feel discriminated against and wronged by senior officers of the Forestry Division and by extension, the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries.
She called for her client to be compensated for all costs incurred for the preparation of the lumber, transport to the port, packing of the containers, the cost of wages for all workers, and costs for processing logs and transforming logs to S8S 2. Cost for trucking of empty containers from port to yard, loading and booking of containers, losses incurred as a result of losing the order to the client in Grenada, consequent loss of professional reputation and standing in a small industry locally and regionally resulting in losses.
Sawh said as a result of Forestry’s actions, he has lost close to $3 million since April. He lamented having to take legal action because while it may eventually lead to justice, he will inconvenience friends and colleagues in the industry if an injunction is granted.
“What is the position of my friends and employees? What is the position of the sawmillers who sell to them? What is the position of the truckmen and brokers? It’s a chain of issues these fellas are causing and it will have an economic backlash in the lumber industry,” he said.
“They think they alone have children. They think they alone have bills to pay at the end of the month. They are wronging their positions badly.”
Mismanagement and victimisation
Guiseppi who made similar claims of mismanagement and victimisation said he
had been operating smoothly in the industry for several decades, but when the two officials appeared on the scene, everything changed. Like Sawh, he believes there is a personal vendetta against him.
“They are putting policies in place. After every week, something else is changed in what they’re asking for to operate. To do an inspection certificate, every time you apply, after you complete your orders after you prepare your timber to export and you go to them, you get an inspection certificate, then they change the requirements of what they need,” he said.
Guiseppi recalled that in 2020 he went for an inspection certificate for containers of teak he planned to export. He claimed Forestry officials told him he needed removal permits to show where the timber came from.
According to Guiseppi, he did not legally require those permits because he is not a sawmiller, but an export businessman. However, he agreed to obtain them. It took him three or four months to get them at a cost of about $35,000.
“On another occasion, I was removing some timber in the normal way that I’ve moved timber for the last 14 years, and my truck had a mechanical problem. Forestry, they stopped my truck and asked the driver of the truck for a removal permit. Forestry called me and asked for the removal permit, I said I don’t have a removal permit for that. I purchased that from a sawmill. The person on the phone said you need a removal permit for this timber and they went ahead and seized my timber,” Guiseppi said.
“I told them I do not require a second removal permit. If I do, every single person—if you have a kitchen in your house, if it’s teak, you will require a removal permit—go and seize everyone’s timber. They said, ‘Do not tell us what to do.’ I went to court, I got my timber back without taking an attorney.”
The businessman said while the court ordered Forestry to return the timber by last August, he only received it this past week. He said the driver, who was charged, also won his matter in court.
“Then I purchased some timber from another sawmill at Morne Diablo. They stopped the truck and seized the timber again. Unfortunately, that matter has not been finished, but it’s still ongoing at the Siparia court,” Guiseppi said.
“I had to essentially shut down my business, and a lot of sawmillers started to shy away, saying we don’t want to deal with you because Forestry will come down hard on us,” he said.
To circumvent some of the issues he was facing, Guiseppi purchased a sawmill in 2021. However, for reasons he claimed are yet to be told to him, he’s yet to be granted his sawmillers’ license to operate.
“In yet another incident, I told them I had a different container from a different sawmill now. They said they are coming to do the inspection and bring the containers. Two days later, they sent an email saying, ‘Don’t bring any containers to the yard to load because the Forestry Division will not be held accountable for it’ after I already brought all the containers,” he said.
“They asked me for a breakdown of what I purchased. I said I never took that stock. You have to ask me this before. I’m waiting six months for an inspection. Their policy is an inspection within two weeks.”
Because of the delay, Guiseppi said he lost a lucrative contract with a UK-based company.
Increased deforestation during pandemic
As a second-generation sawmiller, Neil Ramsahai knows the industry inside out. He believes the industry took a turn for the worse because the market is being undermined by the sheer number of sawmillers involved. The industry lacks regulation, while the Forestry Division tends to take decisions to please the uninformed majority, he said.
Ramsahai said the industry currently favours small-time lumber dealers, who sell unregulated locally to the detriment of larger-scale, export-based operations.
“I’ve shipped to Shanghai, Singapore, Europe, United Kingdom, India, Malaysia and the trouble now is I can’t get into those markets because of the unreliable way the Forestry Division operates,” he complained.
“Germany has 60 registered sawmillers. Trinidad has 120-something. Within the past six or seven years, there have been 60 added to the list. I went from harvesting 25 hectares a year to 2.5 hectares a year. There was no expansion of resources.
“The industry requires heavy regulation, but their idea of regulating is by giving everybody an equal share. It’s like comparing a maxi taxi to a taxi and telling the maxi taxi driver he could only carry five passengers. Why would I buy a maxi to carry five passengers?”
Ramsahai complained about the Forestry Division’s lack of professionalism and efficiency, alleging that they fail to recognise the significance of the industry.
“We have some of the best quality teaks in the world, but I can’t go across to other parts of the world, China or something, and tell a client, ‘Boy, I’m not sure how many containers I could fly in a month. I can’t answer because I don’t know when Forestry is going to give me my teak.’ How can you do business like that?” he asked.
Contacted for comment, the accused officials denied claims of abuse of power and discrimination against certain sawmillers and businessmen. They alleged that despite numerous conversations and pleas for the group of businessmen and sawmillers to respect proper procedure, they have failed to do so. They alleged that it was the actions of the group that caused discrepancies with their exports.
The most senior official also claimed that the Forestry Division had faced serious issues with illegal timber/lumbar over the past two years, as there were significant increases in deforestation during the pandemic.
He claimed some of the businessmen/sawmillers could not account sufficiently for the source of some of their material.
When Acting Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries Coomarie Gooblalsingh was contacted about the issue, she said she was in a meeting and asked that we message her on WhatsApp. However, when the questions were sent via WhatsApp, she did not respond.