PRESIDENT OF the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), Senator Norman Grant, said he would be seeking the intervention of the ministers of agriculture and finance to bring an end to the ensuing legal battle to access more than US$3 million in insurance claims for coffee farmers.
According to Senator Grant, the coffee farmers have been languishing while the process gets drawn out in the courts. He said some sort of intervention was urgently needed to protect the interests of the farmers and prevent it from being drawn out any further.
Mr. Justice Bryan Sykes, in ruling on the case in the Supreme Court, last Thursday, directed that the insurance proceeds, which amount to just over US$3 million, were for the sole benefit of the coffee farmers and should be made accessible to them.
But, there are indications that the lawyers representing the liquidators could appeal the ruling which could lengthen the waiting period.
Graham Dunkley, director-general of the Coffee Industry Board (CIB) explained that the lawyers for the trustees of the farmers' insurance fund and the liquidators of the now defunct Dyoll Insurance Company were awaiting the written judgement of the Supreme Court, which gave approval for the farmers to access the claims.
Mr. Dunkley said the written judgement should be ready by the week of July 17, at which time the lawyers representing the liquidators will decide whether to appeal the Supreme Court's ruling.
"They (the liquidators lawyers) will probably apply for a stay of execution because they are going to want time to get the written judgement to see what cases the judge looked at and how he reasoned - to see whether there were any administrative or legal grounds to overturn the ruling," he noted.
If they decided to appeal the ruling, the CIB director-general said it could take up to two years before coffee farmers could access the funds, depending on the outcome of the appeal. The island's more than 6,000 coffee farmers have been awaiting payments since 2004 for insurance claims made for damage sustained during the passage of Hurricane Ivan. Their claims were stalled when Dyoll Insurance Company filed for bankruptcy shortly after the hurricane.
