After double delay, farmers’ AGM set for February 23
Published:Wednesday | February 9, 2022 | 12:10 AM
The long-overdue annual general meeting (AGM) of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) is now finally set to get under way at its Church Street head office in downtown Kingston on Wednesday, February 23.
Only a core group of executives will be in office, while the other participants will take part via the Zoom platform in keeping with COVID-19 protocols.
JAS President Lenworth Fulton, who postponed the AGM twice late last year to await financial statements from three associations of branch societies, in Westmoreland, Manchester and St James, confirmed to The Gleaner that the relevant documents were now in hand. That has paved the way for the meeting to be held.
“We have sent them off to the external auditor and the JAS is in the process of having them journalised by the chief financial officer, so that they can be printed and signed and put into our records,” he said.
Fulton, along with his first vice-president, Denton Alvaranga, will not be contesting the next polls for the JAS executive that are constitutionally due but have been delayed because of COVID-19.
He had vowed not to demit office until all other outstanding matters were resolved.
In July 2018, Fulton beat back the challenge of former president Glendon Harris and his team.
Now the way is clear for a clean slate of executives, with second vice-president Owen Dobson the only likely returning contender.
“The JAS needs to have an audited financial statement that speaks to all its rental income and I have set out on a mission to get those in the records for the first time probably in 35 or 40 years,” Fulton had said in an earlier interview. He estimates that the JAS is sitting on marginalised assets believed to be well in excess of J$1 billion.
Meanwhile, chief executive officer of the JAS, Christopher Emmanuel, confirmed that things were on track for the eagerly anticipated meeting.
“Once I have the audited financials in my hands, yes it (AGM) will go on, but we are definitely aiming for 23rd of February, barring any other hold-up,” he told The Gleaner.