Guyana gave no approval to Jamaica's CET waiver
-questions raised over actions of Caricom official
Business September 10, 2004
Stabroek News
September 10, 2004
Guyanese officials are calling highly irregular the manner in which a senior Caricom officer made numerous calls looking to fill an order for 3000 tonnes of white rice that a Jamaican company was seeking a CET waiver to import from outside the region.
A waiver of the 25% CET on rice is only granted to member states when they can show that supplies are unavailable within the region. Guyanese officials have said there is ample rice to fill orders and no approval was given by Guyana for the waiver.
An industry insider says this is the only time they can recall that the official, who has been with the Caricom Secretariat for a number of years, or any other official, had ever used its offices to do such a thing. The official is out of the country and could not be contacted.
Adviser on the Caribbean Single Market and Economy and Sectoral Programme Desiree Field-Ridley had told Stabroek News earlier this week that as far as she was aware the matter had been cleared with a Guyana government minister.
That minister was Agriculture Minister Satyadeow Sawh and a source close to Sawh yesterday categorically denied he had ever given any approval for the waiver. The source said that in the first place Sawh had no standing to do so as this comes under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Foreign Trade, Clement Rohee as outlined in the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and the official must have known that. Rohee was away when the issue of the waiver request came up in late July. As such the only official who could be approached would have been President Bharrat Jagdeo.
The source recalled that the Caricom official had even called a milling company directly as well as Sawh because he was reported as saying he was getting pressure from a minister in the Jamaican government to sort out the matter. The proper procedure in the case of CET waiver requests is that the countries are notified and are given a grace period to lodge an objection. Then Caricom instructs the applicant country to get directly in touch with potential suppliers. It is not the job of the Caricom Secretariat to be a matchmaker, said one local official. The Jamaica Gleaner had also noted that the decision to grant the suspension of the CET was wrapped up in about three weeks even though local officials say it usually takes more than two months.
The source said that when the Caricom official called, Sawh simply said he would look into how the supplies could be sourced and certainly did not make any gesture that the waiver could be granted. Despite this the waiver was granted on July 29 for the 3000 tonnes valued at US$700,000. The source also notes that at the same time that the Jamaican company was asking for the waiver it actually had 1100 tonnes of rice waiting on a Guyanese wharf that it was not collecting and is still there now.
Minister Rohee is said to have written to Caricom to complain about the matter, while other officials are calling for an investigation into how the system broke down.
They point to the previous 65,000 MT paddy waiver granted to Jamaica as an example, as it was a remedial action taken by the industry after the Secretariat inadvertently removed paddy from the list of goods eligible for conditional duty exemption.
And not content with the 3000 MT waiver, the Jamaican company has since asked for waivers on 10,000 MT of milled rice and an additional 10,000 MT of parboiled rice. Guyana and Suriname have protested this request and there are no indications it will be granted.