... Coconut growers feel betrayed by minister
COCONUT GROWERS say the refusal of Karl Samuda, minister of industry, commerce, agriculture and fisheries, to respond in a timely manner regarding the acquisition of the Water Valley property in St Mary might have already cost them dearly.
According to Granville Marsh, a longstanding director of the Coconut Industry Board (CIB), they feel betrayed by the minister ’s handling of the situation.
“We had sent a letter to him for him to just sign off on it because he had said t o us verbally, ‘Yeah, man, go ahead and buy the property’ last year some time. And then, after the negotiations and all of that took place, we send the letter to him. To this day, he has not signed the letter, so we couldn’t acquire
Water Valley.”
The decision to keep the minister abreast of their long-
term plans was a matter of courtesy that has now backfired, the director explained, since the board has conducted at least one major business deal, without the agriculture minister’s consent or knowledge.
“Precedent had been set where we bought a property already and never go to nuh minister for permission, but out of decency we decide to go to him. We had bought a property up in Esher (St Mary) where we have one of our seed gardens. This time, some of the directors say, let us make him sign off on it and then he said, “Oh, yeah, you have to get my permission” but in truth and in fact, there was a precedent,” said Marsh.
“We had it in our budget and because it’s more than $100 million we spending, we say, let us bring the minister into it, but him adamant that a his money, and the money don’t belong to him.”