The Heist of Precision Woodworking

THE 592 GUARDIAN

ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM • INDEPENDENT • GUYANESE

INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

The Heist of Precision Woodworking

How Republic Bank, a rogue receiver and a complicit auditor, stripped Guyana’s most decorated manufacturer of its life’s work — and how the judiciary and regulator let them get away with it.

Reported by The 592 Guardian | Investigative Desk Georgetown, Guyana • June 2026

I.THE COMPANY THEY BUILT

In 1983, five Guyanese from Georgetown made a bet against the odds. Howard ,Ronald and Rustum Bulkan along with Gordon Forte and Hakim Rahaman founded Precision Woodworking Limited at the Ruimveldt Industrial Estate — a manufacturing enterprise in a country not known for manufacturing ambition — with a clear and singular vision: to prove that Guyana’s extraordinary tropical hardwoods could become the foundation of a world-class, value-added export industry.

They were right. Over the next two decades, Precision grew into one of the most admired companies in the Caribbean. It manufactured and exported high-quality furniture crafted from indigenous Guyanese hardwoods to the European market, earning a reputation for precision engineering, sustainability and design. The company became a landmark at Ruimveldt, employing scores of Guyanese workers and showcasing what disciplined, innovative entrepreneurship could look like in a post-colonial economy.

The company was awarded the Ernst & Young Caribbean Entrepreneur of the Year title in 2001 — to date, the only Guyanese company to earn that distinction. The following year, Ronald Bulkan was inducted into the World Entrepreneur of the Year Academy in Monte Carlo.

By any measure, Precision Woodworking was a national asset — proof of concept for a manufacturing sector that Guyana’s oil-fixated policy class has never adequately nurtured. Before the first barrel of oil was pumped offshore, Precision demonstrated that Guyana could build, export and compete internationally

In Ruimveldt, they produced fully-manufactured, high value-added products made entirely from local timbers, utilizing an all-local workforce, and sold to the most discerning international markets. A feat that defied not only conventional wisdom but unconventional wisdom.

The company had, over its lending history with Republic Bank (Guyana) Limited, repaid principal in excess of $513 million and paid more than $327 million in interest. It was, in the bank’s own institutional memory, considered an excellent customer. None of that would save it from what was coming.

IITHE CRISIS, THE OFFER AND THE BROKEN PROMISE

By 2010, the global economic contraction had caught up with Precision Woodworking. Export markets softened, operational costs mounted, and the company found itself unable to service its debt to Republic Bank. The company acknowledged the difficulty plainly — writing to the bank in May 2011 to discuss the winding up of affairs and disposal of assets. It was the kind of letter that takes courage to write, and that any reputable bank should receive with a duty of good faith.

What followed instead was a sequence of events that the Bulkans allege was not remediation but orchestrated predation.

In the weeks preceding and following that letter, the company identified not one but two viable buyers for its prime industrial real estate. Neal & Massy offered to purchase Lot 35 at Ruimveldt. A firm agreement of sale (AOS) was executed with Torginol Paints for Lots 32 and E½,21 valued at $230 million, complete with a $30 million deposit — a cheque handed directly to Republic Bank’s Managing Director, John Alves, at a meeting on June 30, 2011.

At that same meeting, according to sworn witness testimony by the Bulkans, Mr. Alves made a three-part commitment: first, to reschedule the company’s remaining debt into a term loan following application of the Torginol proceeds; second, to apply a special concessionary interest rate during a moratorium on capital repayments; and third, to recommend to the Bank’s Board a request for partial debt forgiveness, contingent on a formal business plan.

Both property sales together would have substantially liquidated Precision’s entire indebtedness to Republic Bank — and left the company with manufacturing equipment valued at nearly USD 1 million. The bank refused repayment anyway.

The company submitted its Business Plan, as requested, under cover letter dated August 2, 2011. The Bank’s reply, dated August 9, 2011, bore no relationship to what had been agreed. It claimed the injection of equity had always been a prerequisite to any favorable consideration — a condition that had never been raised at the June 30th meeting, and one that none of the Bank’s employees present that day ever appeared in court to defend or corroborate. The sole bank witness produced at trial was an employee flown in from Trinidad, who the Bulkans allege committed perjury.

III. THE $82 MILLION PHANTOM DEPOSIT

At the center of this affair is a financial transaction that has never been satisfactorily explained, and whose implications the Bank of Guyana appears to have deliberately avoided confronting.

On June 16, 2011 — two weeks before the June 30th meeting at which Republic Bank’s MD accepted the Torginol deposit and made his commitments — a sum of $82,068,617.00 was deposited into Precision Woodworking’s account at Republic Bank without any prior knowledge of the Principals. The depositor, according to the Bulkans, was Shamnarine Narine of Guytrac, a company with no commercial relationship with Precision Woodworking.

The Bulkans allege this was not a commercial transaction but a regulatory manoeuvre. Under Bank of Guyana guidelines, delinquent loan accounts must be reported to the central bank at end-June each year. Precision’s unsecured exposure at the time — the difference between its total indebtedness and the book value of its collateral — was precisely $82,068,616.00. To the dollar, this deposit covered that exposure, preventing the account from being classified as non-performing and reported to the regulator.

The deposit was not a payment. It was a mask — designed to conceal a non-performing account from regulatory scrutiny while the bank’s principals arranged what the Bulkans believe was a pre-determined disposal of the company’s assets.

Republic Bank’s defence, when challenged, was that the deposit was an internal credit pursuant to Bank of Guyana provisioning guidelines — standard procedure for a non-performing loan. The Bulkans contest this characterization absolutely, noting that the deposit was made by a named third party (Shamnarine Narine of Guytrac), that it appeared in account records as an external deposit, and that the bank’s subsequent refusal to provide computerized account statements suggests a deliberate effort to conceal the transaction’s true nature.

In December 2019, the Bulkans filed a $90 million lawsuit against the Bank of Guyana and its Governor, Dr. Gobind Ganga, for failing to investigate what they described as an unauthorized, suspicious and unlawful deposit. The case was dismissed in September 2020 on technical procedural grounds — the action should have been brought in the company’s name rather than by the shareholders personally. The central allegation of regulatory negligence was never examined on its merits. The Bank of Guyana’s posture, expressed in a 2014 letter from Governor Ganga, was simply that the matter was before the courts and the bank would be guided accordingly. A regulator that supervises the integrity of Guyana’s banking system abdicated that duty entirely.

IV.THE RECEIVER — ABOVE THE LAW FOR FIFTEEN YEARS

On or around July 2011, Republic Bank appointed Kashir Khan — an attorney-at-law and accountant — as Receiver of Precision Woodworking Limited. The Bulkans allege this appointment was itself unlawful, made after verbal commitments to restructure the debt and after a signed agreement of sale had already been handed to the bank’s MD.

What followed Khan’s appointment is, on the documented record, a saga of institutional impunity without precedent in Guyanese commercial history.

First, Khan allegedly moved to scuttle the Torginol sale — superseding the signed agreement of sale with one of his own preparation, before ultimately allowing that transaction to collapse. Second, he reportedly refused Neal & Massy’s written offer for Lot 35 — a refusal he was examined on during trial testimony. Together, those two transactions would have liquidated Precision’s entire debt to Republic Bank. Khan blocked both.

Third, and most damning: Kashir Khan has, for more than fifteen years, refused to file accounts with the Registrar as required by law, and refused to provide the directors of Precision Woodworking with any accounts of his receivership administration — despite repeated written requests from the Bulkans’ attorneys and a personal visit to his office by the directors themselves.

A receiver who will not account for his administration is not administering a company. He is occupying it. The refusal to file accounts is not a technicality — it is a direct violation of the statutory framework governing receiverships in Guyana.

This is not a minor procedural lapse. Under Guyana’s Companies Act and the Financial Institutions Act, a receiver has mandatory obligations to file accounts and to provide accounting access to the company’s directors. Kashir Khan has defied those obligations for a decade and a half — without reprimand from the court, without action from the Bar Association, and without response from the Bank of Guyana, which continues to permit Republic Bank to maintain him in place.

Republic Bank’s defense for keeping Khan installed, even after the dismissal of the Bulkans’ primary claim in 2021, is that Precision still owes the bank money. That may be so. But the bank refuses — despite repeated, documented requests — to provide statements of account to demonstrate what that debt actually is. A bank that claims you owe it money, but will not show you the accounting, is not recovering a debt. It is sustaining a fiction.

V. NINE YEARS IN A SPECIALIST COURT — AND AN ILLEGAL RULING

In May 2012, the Bulkans filed their legal action — Action No. 298 C/D 2012 — against Kashir Khan and Republic Bank (Guyana) Limited. The case was heard before Guyana’s Commercial Court, a specialist tribunal established at the direct lobbying of commercial banks who complained the regular courts were too slow for commercial disputes.

The irony is almost too painful to record. The case that gave the commercial banking sector its specialist court became, in the hands of that same sector, a study in procedural obstruction. Khan took four years to file a witness statement after being ordered to do so by the court — without reprimand and without penalty. Interlocutory applications, Full Court appeals and procedural manoeuvres by counsel for the defendants extended the matter year after year.

A judgment was finally delivered on February 15, 2021 — nearly nine years after filing. But the Bulkans and their legal team allege the ruling was itself illegal. The decision, they argue, addressed only sub-paragraphs (B), (F) and (N) of their Statement of Claim — the very sub-paragraphs that had been struck by a prior Full Court ruling. The court ruled, in effect, on claims it had previously struck from the record, while ignoring the surviving claims entirely.

A decision that adjudicates claims already struck by a higher court is not a judgment. It is a nullity — and one that raises grave questions about the integrity of the proceedings.

In March 2022, the Bulkans filed a Motion at the Court of Appeal seeking an expedited hearing of their appeal against Justice Singh’s decision. It was uncontested by Republic Bank and Khan. As of the most recent public reporting in March 2026 — fourteen years after the original action was filed — the appeal has still not been heard on its merits. Ronald Bulkan, writing in Stabroek News in March 2026, expressed the hope that the matter would ‘sooner rather than later receive attention.’

Between January 2017 and January 2024, at least 14 articles and letters were published in the Guyanese press on this matter. Republic Bank, the judiciary, the Bank of Guyana and key public officials have remained silent throughout.

VI.RAM & MCRAE — THE AUDITOR’S SILENCE

No exposé of this affair is complete without confronting the role of Ram & McRae, Chartered Accountants — the external auditors of Republic Bank (Guyana) Limited.

Ram & McRae, the firm co-founded by Christopher Ram, has served as auditor to Republic Bank for decades. Annual reports from 2015, 2017 and 2022 — all publicly available — list Ram & McRae as the Bank’s appointed auditors, with the AGM passing resolutions at each annual meeting to reappoint and remunerate them. The relationship between the auditor and the bank is not incidental; it is structural, remunerative and ongoing.

As external auditor, Ram & McRae is required to certify the accounts of Republic Bank and provide an Independent Auditor’s Report at the end of each financial year. Those accounts, certified year after year, contain no disclosure, no qualification and no note concerning the unresolved controversy surrounding the $82 million deposit into Precision Woodworking’s account — an account held on Republic Bank’s books, under a receivership that the Bank controls, and which has never been subject to independent accounting review.

An auditor who certifies a bank’s accounts without qualifying or disclosing a material unresolved liability — a receivership that has filed no accounts in fifteen years, held by a bank that refuses to provide account statements to the company it claims to be owed by — is not auditing. They are covering.

Christopher Ram is a prominent public commentator in Guyana, with a blog and a reputation as a voice on governance and financial integrity. That public persona exists in direct tension with a professional relationship that, the Bulkans allege, has provided material cover for Republic Bank’s conduct. Ram’s public silence on this specific matter — which has been extensively documented in the press — is not a neutral absence. It is itself a statement.

Notably, in March 2026, the Caribbean Court of Justice delivered its judgment in Cara Investments Limited v Christopher Ram and Bank of Nova Scotia — a case in which Ram served as court-appointed Receiver-Manager of Hotel Tower Ltd. The CCJ, in that judgment, articulated an evolving principle that good faith is a foundational organizing principle in contract law, requiring parties to act honestly, reasonably and fairly, and not capriciously or arbitrarily. The CCJ’s language is directly applicable to the conduct alleged against Republic Bank and its receiver in the Precision Woodworking matter — conduct that, if the Bulkans’ account is accurate, represents the antithesis of good faith at every turn.

VII. THE POLITICAL DIMENSION

Ronald Bulkan is not simply an aggrieved businessman. He is a former Minister of Communities in the APNU+AFC coalition government that held office from 2015 to 2020. He was an APNU parliamentarian, an APNU candidate in the 2020 general elections, and a vocal critic of the PPP/C during the years of opposition. He entered politics not out of opportunism, but from a stated commitment — documented in a 2012 interview with Stabroek News — to the kind of institutional reform that would break Guyana’s cycles of ethnic patronage and political retribution.

It is important to note the timing. The events that precipitated Precision’s destruction — the receiver appointment, the scuttled sales, the phantom deposit — occurred in 2011, during the final years of the PPP/C’s near-uninterrupted two-decade hold on government. The Bulkans allege that bank officials at the highest level saw in the company’s financial difficulties an opportunity for personal enrichment through a pre-arranged disposal of prime industrial real estate at Ruimveldt — properties that had significant commercial value — to connected parties.

Their suspicion, stated explicitly in the dossier, is that the properties were targeted for disposal to Guytrac — the same firm whose principal allegedly made the $82 million phantom deposit. H. Sugrim, identified in trial testimony as the owner of an establishment adjacent to Precision’s Lot 35, made a purchase offer for that property that was also refused by the receiver. The identity of the eventual buyers of Precision’s properties — and the prices at which those assets were sold — remain, to this day, a matter of public record that neither the receiver nor the bank will disclose.

The Bulkans allege that no Guyanese staff of the bank would have benefitted from the scheme — and that the local staff’s refusal to testify in support of the bank’s case during trial is itself a form of institutional conscience.

Since the PPP/C’s return to power in 2020, the state’s institutional apparatus — including the Bank of Guyana, the judiciary’s Commercial Court division, and the public prosecutorial machinery — has done nothing to address what is, on the documented record, an unresolved scandal involving an unlawful receivership, an unaccounted asset disposal, a suspicious deposit, and a certified-public-accountant-turned-receiver who has defied his legal obligations for fifteen years without consequence.

Whether the failure to act reflects institutional inertia or deliberate political calculation is a question this newspaper cannot answer definitively. What we can say is this: in a country where the ruling party governs with a demonstrated appetite for using institutional levers against its political adversaries, the continued impunity of those who stripped a former APNU minister of his life’s work does not look like an accident.

VIII. THE HUMAN COST

Precision Woodworking was not just a company. It was the livelihood of scores of Guyanese workers. A Kaieteur News report from 2022 documented that former Precision workers were still owed in excess of $30 million in unpaid salaries and termination benefits — more than a year after the dismissal of the Bulkans’ primary legal action, and with the receiver still installed and still refusing to provide any accounting.

The brothers themselves, having issued personal guarantees to Republic Bank, find themselves unable to restart any commercial enterprise — because in the absence of a final accounting of what the receivership owed or discharged, they cannot establish their own financial standing. A receiver who refuses to account does not merely harm a company. He poisons the financial futures of every individual attached to it.

Precision Woodworking had been, in its prime, proof of what Guyana’s non-oil productive sector could achieve. It had won the region’s most prestigious entrepreneurial honor. It had attracted international investment, exported Guyanese manufacturing excellence to Europe, and demonstrated the viability of sustainable value-added processing in the timber sector. That enterprise is gone — not because it failed on its merits, but because the institutional framework that should have protected it was turned against it instead.

IX. WHAT MUST HAPPEN NOW

The 592 Guardian calls for the following:

The Court of Appeal must hear and determine the Bulkans’ appeal without further delay. Fourteen years is not a judicial process. It is a denial of justice dressed in procedural garb.
The Bank of Guyana must exercise its supervisory authority under the Financial Institutions Act and investigate the circumstances of the June 2011 deposit, the administration of the Precision Woodworking receivership, and Kashir Khan’s failure to file accounts with the Registrar. Regulatory silence is regulatory complicity.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Guyana (ICAG) must examine the conduct of Ram & McRae as auditors to Republic Bank in the context of their statutory obligations and the unresolved controversy documented in this report.
Republic Bank (Guyana) Limited must provide full account statements to the directors of Precision Woodworking from the date of the receiver’s appointment to the present. A bank that will not show its accounting to the party it claims to be owed cannot claim to be acting within the law.
Kashir Khan must immediately file all outstanding receivership accounts with the Registrar and provide the directors of Precision Woodworking with a full accounting of his administration. Failure to do so should result in professional sanction, civil contempt proceedings, and referral to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

CONCLUSION

In Guyana’s current moment of oil-driven exuberance, it is easy to look past the small-scale institutional corruptions that have always characterized the relationship between capital, the state and the courts. Easy — but inexcusable.

The story of Precision Woodworking is not ancient history. It is ongoing. As Republic Bank celebrates record profits of $7.26 billion for its 2024 financial year — a 47.9 percent increase — the men who built one of the country’s finest manufacturing enterprises remain unable to account for what was taken from them, unable to restart, and without recourse in a court system that has consumed fourteen years of their lives.

Ronald Bulkan entered politics because he believed that the nature of a society is determined by its leaders. He believed Guyana could be better. The institutional apparatus that stripped him and others of Precision Woodworking, and has since refused to provide any accounting of what was done with it, is a precise measure of how much further Guyana still has to go.

The heist of Precision Woodworking is not a dispute between a bank and a defaulting borrower. It is a case study in how Guyana’s institutional infrastructure — banking, regulatory, judicial and professional — can be assembled into an instrument of dispossession when the political conditions are right.

The 592 Guardian will continue to report on this matter until there is a full accounting.

KEY FACTS AT A GLANCE

Company founded: 1983, by Howard ,Ronald, Rustum Bulkan, Gordon Forte and Hakim Rahaman

Peak recognition: Ernst & Young Caribbean Entrepreneur of the Year, 2001 — the only Guyanese company to hold this honour

World Academy induction: Ronald Bulkan, World Entrepreneur of the Year Academy, Monaco, 2002

Total debt repaid (principal): Over $513 million

Total interest paid: Over $327 million

Disputed deposit: $82,068,617 — deposited June 16, 2011 by Shamnarine Narine (Guytrac)

Receiver appointed: Kashir Khan, attorney-at-law and accountant — July 2011

Legal action filed: May 15, 2012 — Action No. 298 C/D 2012

Commercial Court judgment: February 15, 2021 — alleged by plaintiffs to be illegal

Court of Appeal motion: Filed March 7, 2022 — uncontested — still pending as of 2026