P.M. Barrow says no money to be given to CGA

Dean Barrow

At the start of the conference, Prime Minister Dean Barrow made reference to lining up the directors of Banks Holdings Limited against the wall and shooting them. That is testament to how tense relations have become between the two majority shareholders in CPBL. But PM Barrow reiterated that no money is being given to the Citrus Growers Association, and this is not about facilitating a buyout of Banks Holdings Limited.…the moves that are being made are designed to give an infusion to the CPBL. The intention is only to allow the company to function without the multiple imbroglios created by hostilities and tensions between the majority shareholders.

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Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“We all know that there is a desire…the CGA would say an intention for them to purchase the Banks Holdings Limited shareholding. Now that may well be a consummation devoutly to be wished. And they had approached me for government to assist with the purchase price. I absolutely and flatly refused. I don’t think that government has any right to give public funds to what is in fact…CGA is this hybrid, it is an association but you’ve got to treat it certainly as a sort of private sector entity – I don’t believe that government has any right to provide public funds for that sort of an undertaking. So let’s be very clear – the question of whether if CGA were to be able to buy out Banks Holdings and become cock of the walk completely in terms of CPBL….how that would work, the merits and demerits of such a proposition is not relevant at this time because what we are talking about is a situation in which public money is being used to facilitate a set of arrangements that will see CPBL given the oxygen to continue functioning in the interest of the growers and in the interest of profit making for all concerned, under a new regime that will hopefully avoid the deadlock that has hitherto confounded the operation of CPBL.”

News Five understands that in discussions regarding a possible buyout of shares held by Banks Holdings Limited, the figure of eighteen point five million dollars US has been thrown out as the asking price for those shares.