A SPECIAL facility granted by a local bank will make $300M available to the Principal of Mahaicony Rice Mill (MRM), Mr. Jai Beni to settle outstanding payments to farmers. The disbursements are to begin today, following a meeting attended by Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud, General Secretary of Rice Producers Association (RPA), Mr. Dharamkumar Seeraj and other stakeholders.
MRM had signed agreements with rice farmers to make half the payments after the first 14 days of paddy receipt and the rest after 41 days and delays were to attract two per cent plus the current lending rate at banks as interest.
But the company did not meet those obligations and, recently, farmer Mohamed Shariff, who took legal action against MRM, claiming $84M said he only received $15M.
For the benefit of farmers, the National Assembly is to pass the Rice Factories (Amendment) Bill 2010, already read for the first time, to compel millers to pay every farmer 95 per cent, as a prerequisite for licensing, within 42 days of supply.
Meanwhile, Seeraj said harvesting of the Autumn crop is 60 per cent complete in Regions Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam), Three (Essequibo Islands/West Demerara), Five (Mahaica/Berbice) and Six (East Berbice/Corentyne), Guyana’s main rice producers.
This year the production target is 4.2 million bags of paddy from 175,000 acres. (Vanessa Narine)