Last night, we showed you the comments from Alfredo Ortega, the recently elected chairman of the Council of Management of the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association.
He was responding to questions about the latest attempts to resolve the impasse between his BSCFA membership, and the millers, Belize Sugar Industries Limited. As we told you, their commercial disagreement, which started heating up several months before the start of the last crop season, escalated into a very costly protest, which happened just before the first sugar cane deliveries were scheduled to take place at the end of last December.
Eleven months later, the two sides are no closer to resolving this dispute, despite extended intervention attempts from the Briceno Government. So, in the hopes of a last-minute compromise, the two sides have agreed to include an independent mediator to help them bridge the divide between their respective positions. But, even the process of identifying a suitable candidate for mediation is delayed. Now, the two sides are pointing figures at each other for the significant amount of time that's not being spent resolving their differences.
Yesterday, the BSCFA Chairman alleged that the millers aren't treating this mediation issue with the proper level of urgency. BSI/ASR responded with an extended rebuttal press conference via Zoom teleconference this afternoon.
Here's how ASR's "Mac" McLachlan insisted that the mediator delay is not their fault:
Alfredo Ortega, Chairman, BSCFA Council of Management
"We called [out] that we have a mediator. We have reached this point, and still, yet, BSI is playing jokes on not coming to the table so that we can get into an agreement on who will be our mediator so that we can continue."
Malcolm "Mac" McLachlan, VP, International Relations, ASR/BSI
"I have to be careful about what I say about mediation because we had agreed with the BSCFA that we would not go into great detail on that issue. Look, it's in all of our interests to get this issue resolved. Nobody wants to have interruptions to the next crops, least of all the mill and least of all cane farmers. The prices are pretty good right now, and it would be a travesty if we ended up in another illegal blockade as we did last December. When it comes to mediation, all I can tell us is that there is a name around, and we've agreed to it. We've been waiting for several days now for the BSCFA to respond. So, I'm not sure about foot-dragging. I think that mediation could have started by now, to be honest with you, and we welcome it because I think anybody who looks at the facts and the figures that underpin what would become a commercial agreement, I think, would very much see things for what they are, and that's the lot of the investment that we've made over the last four-five years is really helping to grow the pie, so everybody gets a bigger share of it. I think the cane price for this current, last crop is a testament to that. There are not many people who get a 30% pay raise, which is the equivalent of what happened there. So, as far as we're concerned, look, we don't want any kind of interruptions. We don't want any problems. We want to have a fair outcome, and all along, we've offered a series of suggestions to BSCFA, and frankly, if anyone has been dragging their feet, it's been BSCFA, who have been very slow to respond to some of those issues, and have continually failed to provide any kind of economic rationale for what their demands are."
