John Myers Jr., Coordinator
THE GOVERNMENT is planning to relax import duties to facilitate the importation of agricultural produce in a bid to ease the shortage of vegetables and other agricultural produce which suffered extensive damage from heavy rains in the last two weeks.
"There is a 260 per cent duty regime on certain imported items, like vegetables, and what we are looking at is how we could relax some of that duty as we did last time (after Hurricane Ivan)," Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke told Farmers Weekly on Tuesday. However, the minister emphasised that the Agriculture Ministry would have to put in place adequate measures to prevent a repeat of what appeared to have been widespread occurrence of price gouging by some suppliers in the aftermath of the hurricane last year.
"Last time even though the duty was reduced, the consumers did not benefit from that reduced duty and we have to put the modalities in place," Mr. Clarke said. He said a decision has not yet been taken on the level of reduction that would be applied.
OPPOSITION
But president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), Senator Norman Grant, is opposed to the Government reducing the duty on imported agricultural products. He is urging the Government to revise its decision as this could further harm the fragile sector which has been reeling from the effects of a series of adverse weather conditions in the last year, as well as competition from cheap imports.
"If there is any need to import products, there should be no special waivers as the Government would only be giving away revenue," he argued. "After Ivan, we rushed to import and consumers did not benefit from the prices of those products, even after the Government had rolled back duty on imported produce," he pointed out.
According to Senator Grant, the shortage would not be for long as the agriculture sector could rebound in as little as a month, citing the quick recovery of the sector in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan.
