Citrus Factory highlights prior to Annual General Meeting, promise plenty of FIREWORKS of the shouting type.

CPBL, THE CITRUS FACTORY turns the corner and shows a small profit this year.  They made a profit of $4.7 million.  Whereas the previous two years showed losses of $10 and $11 million.  The company says that they have re-invested $3 million dollars into new product lines.  A new company is Belize Citrus Feed, producing Citropulpa organic feed for livestock.  Valley Manufacturing is producing the local natural juices.
  2011 statistics showed about 5.25 million boxes of fruit and a $10 million profit from 6.7 million boxes of fruit in 2012.  Hurricane Richard had devastated citrus production in 2010.
  Directors for the majority citrus growers ( in number anyway, if not in production ) interim chairman Julian Murillo, CGA CEO Henry Anderson, Denzil Jenkins and Antonio and Rosella Zabaneh.
  Minority shareholders appointed Richard Cozier as director, Sir Allan Fields, Dan Stoute and Dr. Henry Canton ( Banks Holdings )  Canton was fired as a director, by the major shareholder, the small large number of lower fruit producing grouping, but a Supreme Court ruling, threw that out.  There is a war among directors, mostly to do with Jenkins, Chanona and Zabaneh's, in continuous power plays against Canton.  This has caused a lot of turmoil in the factory operations.
  A bone of contention was the ownership of majority shares in a subsidiary company, Hummingbird Citrus, supported by the major financiers of developments in the processing and marketing of citrus products, by Dr. Canton, who answered questions and said, he was trying to bring it into profitability.  Anthony Chanona and ICL representatives said they do not recognize him, as either CEO, or director of CPBL.  This is a moot point, as the financiers of the re-built citrus factory operations, Banks Holdings, are all about profit, not feathering the nests of executives of the smaller producing citrus growers association.  Lot of envy and jealousy at play here.  Logic goes out the window.  In past decades, the Small Growers Citrus Association, has bankrupted and brought the citrus factories of the past, over and over again,  to ruin, including homonguous debts. Since HE WHO PAYS THE PIPER CALLS THE TUNE, Banks Holdings from the Eastern Caribbean rule the roost, through a legal agreement, made when they agreed to put in about a $100 million to re-juvenate the industry and factory, paying off all the Small Citrus Growers Association, accumulated millions of dollars in debts, incurred through bad management.  The smaller producing group, but holding majority dividend earning shares in the factory asked to include Orange Growers Trust to attend and participate in future meetings.  The financier Banks Holdings, said it would have to go to legal counsel, as breaching the articles of the company would be a possibility. Individual citrus producers in the Citrus Growers Association, are forbidden it is said, to give their proxy votes to the other side, for the Annual Board Meeting..
Which if I was a small grower, would make me mad as hell.  Either the small growers do not understand their rights, or apathy rules.  Local PLUS TV, has entered the turmoil with a program, that is intended to muddy the waters called 'Rise and Shine'.  Lots of disinformation and a campaign siding politically with Chanona, Jenkins and Zabaneh's on television, and the small growers are being blitzed with campaign ads of disinformation.  A great advertising stunt by PLUS  TV, the station for circulation.  Most people are not savvy enough to understand the slant to this program news.  In Belize, this is live SOAP OPERA.  Lots of fun!
  The real FIREWORKS between rival shareholders will take place in a few weeks time, at the Annual General Meeting.  TV spots for the media will be at a premium, as live proceedings are likely to broadcast.