C.G.A. goes to court to protect souring citrus industry

Citrus should be sweet, but the industry has been going sour for quite a while. The Citrus Growers Association wanted to unseat three of its directors on the board of the Citrus Products of Belize Limited (C.P.B.L.). CPBL’s Chief Executive Officer, Henry Canton and directors Frank Redmond and Mike Dunker should have been replaced with Rosella Zabaneh, Tony Zabaneh, and Denzil Jenkins. But the attempt failed because Banks Holdings of Barbados, which holds forty-six point eight percent of shares in the company, helped to defeat the CGA’s move to unseat the directors. The fight for control of the industry has landed all parties in court. This morning Attorney for Citrus Growers Association, Eamon Courtenay appeared in Supreme Court in front of Justice Minnet Hafiz to plea the case for change on the behalf of over five hundred growers.

Eamon Courtenay, Attorney for Citrus Growers Association
“A few citrus growers want to leave the association. Under the law it stands, for you to deliver citrus to the factory, you have to be a member of the Citrus Growers Association and you have to get a license. In order to get a license, you have to be a member. Now, these growers have resigned from the association and yet they want to deliver fruits. So, they were in court today saying it would be unconstitutional to insist, force them to be a member of the association. We were saying to the court that the whole case should be struck out because the government had already said that the agreement is unconstitutional and they are going to change the law to fix that. But the judge said since the government is in discussion with the citrus growers, they would allow them time and adjourn the matter for it to be fixed. So that is why I was in court this morning.”

Jose Sanchez
“So they want to essentially have their own association?”

Eamon Courtenay
“Essentially what these growers are trying to do is establish a new association. What they don’t like about the current Citrus Growers Association is that that is based on a principle of each farmer having one vote. They have expressly said in writing that what they want is an association in which you vote by the number of citrus you deliver. So if you deliver a million boxes you get a million votes, and if I deliver five hundred thousand boxes, I get five hundred thousand votes. So, in other words the bigger growers would control the association. Now, obviously, that is unfair. The citrus growers association, over five hundred citrus growers, they own over fifty-one percent of the factory. So, what the big growers are trying to do is to take over the association, and by extension, they will take over the factory. So they would own the association, they would own the factory and the small grower would be totally marginalized.”