New coffee quarrel brewing
Disgruntled coffee farmers yesterday demonstrated outside the Coffee Industry Board in Kingston to vent their dissatisfaction with interim insurance payments received from Government for damage to their crops caused by Hurricane Ivan.
Derrick Simon, the coffee farmers' representative, yesterday complained that as many as 40 per cent of the almost 6,000 claims had been referred for appeal as there were discrepancies with the method of computation used to determine the amount each farmer received. He said some received payment while others got nothing because of lack of information or on the grounds that they were not qualified for any payment at all.
Furthermore, Mr. Simon said the farmers were upset that despite several notices of the impending payment, some coffee marketing companies did not submit the relevant information to the trustees of the Coffee Farmers' Insurance Fund in order for them to get the money.
Ezekiel Gibbons, one of the disgruntled farmers, told The Gleaner that while he had received payment, his wife had not.
"Well, me kind of satisfied still but true a part payment, so me just easy with what me get because plenty more people fi get," he said. "But my wife nuh get any payment and plenty a my brother dem who sell plenty coffee nuh get any."
Mr. Gibbons said the board informed his wife that it could not find any claims for her or verify that she sold any coffee at all. But he said that this was not the case as his wife had sold coffee to the Mavis Bank Central Factory.
Meanwhile, Loreen Walker, legal officer and board secretary, said a unit was set up yesterday to address the concerns of the farmers.
"We try to tell them to get receipts and we have offered to call some of the entities (which they sold to) to try and help them," she said.
Last month, the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands handed over $40 million in grant funding and $60 million as interim payment for coffee farmers whose crops were destroyed in 2004 by Hurricane Ivan, which at one point ripped a Category Five wind force.
In July, the Supreme Court ruled that liquidators of the failed Dyoll Insurance Company with whom the farmers were insured should disburse insurance money to the coffee farmers. The liquidators have since appealed the ruling.
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