Guyana has fined a Malaysian timber company more than US$480,000 (RM1.6 million) for allegedly under-reporting the number of logs it bought from Guyanese firms.

The Guyanese government said forestry regulators had uncovered the alleged false reporting by Barama Company Limited, which is 80% owned by Malaysian logging giant Samling.

The Malaysian-owned firm has been operating in the northwestern Amazon jungle of the impoverished South American country for more than 20 years.

According to environment group Greenpeace, Barama won an investment contract, giving the company rights to log 1,690,000 hectares - about eight percent of the country - in the northwest of Guyana, near the Venezuelan border.

Barama is wholly owned joined venture incorporated in Guyana between Samling Strategic Corporation of Malaysia (80%) and Sunkyong Limited of Korea (20%).

Greenpeace said that Barama has a 25-year logging licence, automatically renewable for another 25 years, with a five-year tax holiday automatically renewable for a further five years for the export of raw logs, sawn lumber, veneer and processed plywood.

Large-scale breaches

"They (BCL) entered into arrangements with other concession-holders and the products that came from those were under-declared," Jaime Hall, a spokesman for the Guyana Forestry Commission, told AFP .

The forestry commission said in a statement that two of its field officers who were stationed in the jungle area were dismissed because they had contributed to the alleged breaches.

Hall said the regulator had detected alleged irregularities that led to the uncovering of the alleged large-scale breaches involving three concessions.

Barama's managing director, Peter Ho, refused to immediately comment on the allegations and the penalties.

He said the company would issue a statement soon.

Barama's parent company, Samling, has been criticised by environment groups for its logging practices both in Malaysia and overseas.