BSCFA Chairman weighs in on Florencio Marin Sr.

The Belize Sugar Cane Farmers’ Association continues to press ahead with their lobby for a change in the profit-sharing split for sugar between the farmers and the miller. It’s one of many issues that exists in the sugar industry at this time and former Deputy Prime Minister Florencio Marin, Sr. was appointed as a special advisor, whose input is to resolve some of these longstanding challenges the industry faces. Prime Minister John Briceño, as recently as last Monday, said that Marin’s input has been effective and his presence has maintained some calm in the often-volatile industry. Today, we asked the BSCFA Chairman, Andy Westby for his view on the former senior minister’s input in resolving some of the challenges. Here’s what he had to say about that.

Andy Westby, Chairman of the BSCFA: “As we know he is the advisor to the SICB chairman and on our side as the BSCFA hasn’t been too productive on our side of our association and with all respect he has his own way of thinking. What we have is our way to get the best for our members and we will point out that he has been playing his role but ot seriously with us as the association. From the moment we got into this negotiation things are very tense, are very delicate and even at the level of government they wish not to put hand, they still draw back saying that we are two independent entities that should come and negotiate and get to an agreement. So to put forward Florencio Marin is for us just the advisor of the sugar industry. He has come in and out giving his professional way of seeing things and you know we back and forth in changing ideas and thing but that’s about it.”

As we reported in June, the father of both the current Minister of National Defence and the Attorney General was awarded a one-year contract as an advisor to the Ministry of Agriculture with an annual salary of $36,000.