Saturday, August 22, 2009

BELIZE, CITRUS GROWERS ASSOCIATION INTERNAL BATTLE FOR POWER!

*** 500 member Citrus Growers Association, last Annual General Meeting.


JENKINS AND BOWMAN TO COST SMALL CITRUS GROWERS ALL THEIR PROFITS IN THE MILLIONS, FOR YEARS?

I don’t know beans about the citrus organization. One does get to read the hoorah in the newspapers and can only wonder at what is going on? Saw enough of such infighting over personal vendettas and EGO’s and idiots wanting their moment of fame and POWER, in the fishing industry. Sounds all the same to me!
From the street and third hand gossip at that, so don’t take this interpretation as gospel, but what I got was that JENKINS designed the contract that sold the Citrus growers over to Foreign Investors. The FOREIGN INVESTORS rule the citrus crop. Their representative on the BOARD is one Henry Canton for the foreign investors. He cannot be removed, to protect their investment.
Enter stage right, is a guy by the name of JENKINS and one BRIAN BOWMAN ( hope I got the name right? ) who are now agitating dissatisfaction with their own contract they designed. They want to remove HENRY CANTON from the Board of Directors. If they succeed in doing that; then a clause in the JENKIN contract with the FOREIGN INVESTORS allows the FOREIGN INVESTORS to be indemnified for their investment. One presumes after 4 or 5 years of litigation and court cases going all the way to the PRIVY COUNCIL, this will probably be close to a $100 million dollars. The people who will have to pay are not Brian and Jenkins, but the 500 small citrus growers they represent. Sure sounds like the citrus business is being wrecked?
It seems that Henry Panton at some time, fired Brian Bowman for incompetence, someplace in the CITRUS business, so I was told someplace? So this is pay back time, and is all about EGO and POWER, at the expense of other people of course. ( 500 small citrus growers future dividends and profits, if any )
These two guys also have a hard on, for a small group of producers who have the biggest production. ( Envy and jealousy! ) The article said 15% of the growers produce most of the crop, I think? This small group did manage to get into the JENKINS CONTRACT with the FOREIGN INVESTORS, a small clause that INDEMNIFIES them from lawsuit losses caused by the majority small members actions, represented by JENKINS and BOWMAN. If JENKINS and BOWMAN lose the court fight, or whatever involved, there will be lawsuits flying all over the place and these court costs alone, let alone multi-million dollar judgments will make the lawyers rich if nobody else.
The end result is going to be 500 or so small citrus growers are going to lose a lot of money in the years ahead as they pay for the foolishness of the leadership they have chosen representing their interests. I would think the lawyers in Belize City would be rushing to get a piece of this action, big bucks to be made here.
Ho Hum! Sounds like all those SPECIAL GENERAL MEETINGS we used to have in the LOBSTER COOPERATIVE BUSINESS. Nothing every changes I guess, just human nature at work? Who is the stupid ALPHA male here causing all the trouble? Too much testosterone and not enough common sense!

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