No movement by Panama to pay $1.9B owed for rice supplied since 2018 

Six months after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation dispatched a letter to the Government of Panama urging that it honours its obligations to Guyana, by clearing its debt of $1.9B for the supply of rice by Guyanese millers, there has been no movement on the part of the Spanish speaking country.

It was through the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) that the millers supplied a substantial amount of rice to Panama based on contracts signed in 2018 and 2019, however, to date only a partial payment has been made on the 2018 agreement.

In a recent interview with Village Voice News, General Secretary of the Guyana Rice Producers Association (GRPA) Dharamkumar Seeraj expressed disappointment at Panama’s failure to fulfil its obligation.

Seeraj, a Government Member of Parliament, said the lack of payment is significantly affecting the rice millers who would have supplied their rice with the expectation that they would have been paid in a timely manner. He said should interest be added to the original debt of US$9.3M or GUY$1.9B, the amount owed would total close to US$11M or approximately GUY$2.3B.

“So there is a responsibility by the Government of Guyana and the Government of Panama to ensure the people who exported that rice get paid because it was a Government to Government arrangement,” Seeraj told this newspaper.

He said while the Rice Producers Association is aware that the Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, has been in contact with his counterpart in Panama, there needs to be a clear payment plan in place.

“Speaking as a representative of the rice sector, I would like to see some sort of budgetary mechanism being put in place to address this payment because the fact of the matter is that the rice was supplied to the GRDB for export to Panama, and so the government is a party in this transaction” the GRPA General Secretary said.

Seeraj said while the Government of Panama has acknowledged the debt, it has indicated that it is unable to offset it, due to a downturn in its economy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“They are now saying that…the COVID situation…is placing them in an extremely difficult position. They are not shying away from the debt, it’s just that they are pushing it back because the economy is not doing so well and they are facing a lot of challenges that are related to the pandemic,” Seeraj noted.

However, he said while the pandemic has taken a toll on economies all across the world, it is important that systems be put in place to ensure that the millers are paid soonest.

“I feel that there needs to be a little more effort on the part of the two governments to get this matter resolved at the earliest opportunity,” Seeraj emphasized.

Village Voice Newspaper was unable to make contact with the Agriculture Minister as calls to his cellular phone went unanswered. However, in March, some two months ago, he had assured rice millers that the issue would have been addressed soon.

In January, 2021, Minister Mustapha had indicated that the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) had been approached to assist Guyana in retrieving the $1.9B owed to rice millers.

Despite the circumstances, Minister Mustapha, at the time, had said that the Panamanian Government was still showing interest in Guyana’s rice.

“They have also indicated their interest that they want to continue with the contract,” he posited.

However, due to the shortfall in payment, Guyana has stopped shipping rice to Panama through the Government to Government mechanism.

Minister Mustapha has blamed the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Government for the delays, contending that if they had shown interest in the farmers, this dilemma would not have existed. But the previous administration has long rejected that contention.