THIS DAY IN OUR PAST
The following events took place on August 18 in the years identified:
1993:Agricultural The Rural Development Authority (RADA) wants the commissioner of lands and the Ministry of Agriculture to speed up the divestment of more than 900 acres of land in St James. According to the local chairman of the RADA Parish Advisory Committee, Rudolph Scarlett, attempts over the past five years to divest the lands have not been successful. He has blamed this on the lack of surveying assistance from the Ministry of Agriculture. “Foot-dragging” by the Government, in his view, has led to a problem where people are capturing idle lands in the parish, a factor that can impact negatively on the agricultural sector. Scarlett says the RADA parish office has not been able to distribute a single lot of land to farmers under the Government Divestment Programme, which came on stream in 1992. The aim of the programme is to divest idle government-owned properties to farmers islandwide. In St James, the properties include Seven Rivers, Mafoota, Mahogony Hall, Montego Valley, Retirement, Irwin, Sweet Water, Spring Mount, Horse Garden, Garlands, Eden and Richmond Hill.
1999:Against the background of Cabinet approval of J$3 billion to bail out the coffee industry, the restructuring of the cash-strapped Coffee Industry Board (CIB) will begin officially on October 1. CIB Chairman Richard Downer says that as of that date, the regulatory and commercial functions of the board will be separated, with each division having its own chief executive officer. He says the regulatory arm will handle the statutory functions of the coffee industry with, emphasis on quality control and the certification of coffee. It will also be responsible for the issuing of licences to processors and traders, and research and development to improve coffee productivity and marketability. The commercial arm will concentrate on the purchase and processing of coffee for sale to customers in addition to the processing of cherry coffee for a fee to other parties.