TPL contracts out sawmill operations
Stabroek News
April 2, 2004
The Toolsie Persaud Ltd warehouse packaging lumber for export.
Toolsie Persaud Ltd (TPL), which closed its sawmilling operation last April, has now contracted a sawmill to produce its wood, in hopes of making their lumber operation more profitable.
David Persaud, the company's executive director, says they have now restarted in good faith but adds that if the new arrangement does not work, then retrenching more employees or closure are the other options.
The company has retrenched 500 persons over a five-year span but still has over 500 workers.
TPL closed the sawmill on Lombard St due to the general unprofitable state of the business and the depression of the local and foreign markets. Locally, many persons are choosing to build concrete homes instead of wooden ones and internationally more countries are exporting wood, which has slashed world prices, Persaud says.
The shortage of cement on the local market is an indicator that it is the preferred material in home building.
Roy Rampersaud and Gangaram Sewshankar, who have the sawmilling contract with Toolsie Persaud Ltd, will be given a fee to process the wood.
Before closing, the company, through the Forest Products Association(FPA), had lobbied for duty-free concessions for imports of spare parts for logging and sawmilling equipment, but was unsuccessful. Persaud says the concessions that they were and are still asking for, are small in comparison to those granted to foreign loggers who export as well as sell locally.
The government benefits from foreign logging companies through the collection of royalties, acreage fees and employee income taxes, estimated at less than 2.2% of the export value of the logs, according to a 2002 report produced for the FPA.
"So far, without the assistance of these things [concessions] we are not sure we will be able to survive," says Persaud.