Coffee firm seeks loan to pay farmers
Published:Thursday | September 1, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Christopher Serju, Gleaner Writer
The Wallenford Coffee Company needs an interim loan of at least $40 million to meet today's deadline for the payment of all outstanding sums to coffee farmers, as dictated by Agriculture Minister Robert Montague on Tuesday.
George McPherson, acting chief executive officer of Wallenford, told The Gleaner on Wednesday that the company had in fact been making payments since Monday. With 30-35 per cent of its crop yet to be sold, it was projected that the process would not be completed before October.
Pay within 48 hours
However, on Tuesday, Montague instructed the Coffee Industry Board (CIB), through Chairman Howard Mitchell, to ensure that farmers are paid over the next 48 hours as a matter of urgency.
"It is totally unacceptable that farmers should not have been paid, or do not have a clear idea at this date when they will be paid or how much they will be paid," the minister said in a press release.
However, McPherson said he had not received the document and had only learnt of Montague's directive from director general of the CIB, Christopher Gentles.
"If the minister has instructed the CIB and it makes the funds available to us, then we can more than make the final payment to everybody," he explained.
During Saturday's meeting of the All-Island Jamaica Coffee Growers Association, held at the Papine High School, Littleton Phillips of Wallenford had advised that the company would begin to make payments. He explained that farmers who supplied fewer than 50 boxes of coffee would receive their final payment of $800 per box in full. Those who had supplied more than 50 boxes would be paid an interim sum of $500 per box, with the rest to be paid before end of the year.