REFUTING claims made by the Guyana Times newspaper that consultations were not held with industry stakeholders prior to issuing licences to chicken importers for 2016, the Ministry of Business (MoB), on Tuesday in a statement, said: “…the Ministry of Business wishes to inform the public that consultations were held with industry stakeholders prior to issuing any import licences to chicken importers for 2016.”

In its October 22, 2016 editorial, the Guyana Times contended that Government officials had met only with local producers after those licences were issued.

“Based on some prior investigation, we understand that the responsible governmental officials only met with the local producers after the licences had been issued. Some local producers have queried exactly how 19 companies were granted licences by the Government without any consultation with the local industry,” the editorial detailed.

However, the MoB explained that those consultations resulted in a meeting being held in its Boardroom on January 8, 2016 at 13:30 hrs. Here, the statement added, it was agreed that import licences for frozen chicken would be issued in two batches for the year 2016 — one for the first half and another for the second half of the year.

The MoB has said it has a list of names of those who attended the January 8th meeting of industry stakeholders, and can make same available to persons who wish to know.

“It was also agreed during that meeting that licences would be issued for the importation of 950,000 pounds of chicken for the first half of 2016” the MoB statement pointed out.

The Department of Commerce of the Ministry of Business is presently responsible for issuing import and export licences for a number of items, including frozen chicken.

The MoB says it is fully supportive of Guyana’s productive industries; and, as such, the purpose of its statement is simply to correct the misleading information contained in the Guyana Times editorial.

“The Ministry is not seeking to dispute the reasons listed in the editorial for why it is not in the national interest to import large quantities of frozen chicken into Guyana.”