By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

AN Abaco-based timber company said yesterday that its operation had come to a “dead stop” after duty concession issues led to the delay of a shipment of $400,000 worth of vital equipment, its principal telling Tribune Business, “We’re stuck and can’t do anything”.

Lindar Industries principal Rob Roman said: “We have had a few sales. They have been all that brisk because we have been kind of tied up in more government red tape at the moment. We’re fighting with that at the moment and it has to do with duty concessions. We’re back to a dead stop. I have almost $400,000 worth of equipment sitting on the dock in Miami that we were assured we had duty concessions on that – now the government is having second thoughts or having issues with it.”

Mr Roman said that he had been attempting to meet with Ministry of Finance officials to resolve the matter but had been unable to get a meeting up to this point. “I’m trying to get meeting with them but that’s like trying to pull teeth out of a chicken. It’s just round and round trying to get someone on the phone. The implication of this is $200,000 of extra duty and that’s why the equipment is sitting in Miami, not moving and it will blow my budget totally. We had everything ramped up and now we have another delay. It’s hard to sell anything when you don’t even have any product to show,” Mr Roman said.

He added: “ We had one load that we shipped out, we did another order for a lady in Freeport, and an order to get done for St Martin Monastery here but we’re stuck and we can’t do anything. The equipment we need is all related to the process. We had a duty exemption that was from 2013 but some of the equipment, when we went to buy it, the price varied and we asked if we could get an adjustment on some of the pieces. I carried it in to the Ministry of Finance and was told it was fine and then I was told there was an issue and that the whole thing might be cancelled.”

Simon Wilson, the Ministry of Finance’s deputy financial secretary, told Tribune Business via email that he was not personally aware of the matter but noted that the Ministry of Finance “does not act in a haphazard manner”. Mr Wilson said that he was certain that the reason for its actions had been given in writing to the importer.

Lindar took hold of a lease for 6,746 acres of pine forest on Abaco Crown Land from the Ministry of the Environment back in 2011. The company was granted a five-year renewable timber harvesting license. The company is looking to tap into the “niche” market for high-end wood products.