Secretary of the Cane Producers Association Seukeran Tambie is challenging statements made on Thursday by Stelios Christopoulous, Charge D’Affaires of the Delegation of the European Union, that producers are not entitled to the EU grant funding. Tambie charged that there seemed to be some attempt to deny the cane farmers their legitimate rights. He called on Winston Dookeran, Minister of Finance and chairman of the Cabinet appointed inter-ministerial committee looking into the issue to ensure this did not happen. Christopoulous has agreed to meet the cane producers in two weeks’ time to discuss the issue. Tambie is also seeking a meeting with Agriculture Minister Vasant Bharath.
“Mr Christopoulous seems to be playing with words, sending the wrong message to the population in respect of this funding and causing anxiety among cane farmers,” Tambie said in an interview. For years cane farmers have been arguing that they have an entitlement to a €72 million package from the European Union (EU), which was promised to the farmers as an exit strategy, following the closure of Caroni (1975) Limited in 2003. Tambie said all other (African Caribbean Pacific) ACP countries had moved ahead to access the EU grant funding to the tune of billions of dollars since 2007.
“We are in 2011 and this country has been having serious problems accessing the funding. There seems to be some change along the way, shifting the funding away from the cane farmers,” Tambie said. He noted that the previous PNM administration breached the EU regulations when it attempted to divert the funding from the benefit of cane farmers. “We will not allow this to get out of hand. This government has to address it, because this has far reaching consequences,” Tambie warned. He said on December 17, 2010, the cane producers met with Dookeran and the other members of the team, including Cabinet ministers Prakash Ramadhar, Faizal Karim, Vernella Alleyne-Toppin and Vasant Bharath.
Tambie said at that meeting, Dookeran gave the commitment that in light of the long delay already experienced, the issues would be addressed with full transparency and accountability in the shortest possible time. He explained that Dookeran was supposed to provide a copy of the financing agreement between the Government and the EU, giving access to the EU funding to T&T. That agreement resulted from the European Union Regulations number 266/2006 of the European Parliament and Council, establishing accompanying measures for sugar protocol countries affected by the reform of the EU sugar regime.
“This was to be done early in January 2011, followed by which there would be a meeting between both parties at the end of January for further discussion.” He said Bharath was given the responsibility to co-ordinate this meeting. “Despite numerous letters to the ministers, three months after the scheduled date of the follow-up meeting, there has been no official correspondence on the issue,” Tambie stated. He pointed out that Dookeran was in the process of dealing with the Clico issue, having already resolved the public servants’ issue, and was now moving to pay farmers whose producing fields were bulldozed.
