Money owed to Reg. 9 peanut factory to be paid next week

Oct 19, 2023 News

Kaieteur News – The outstanding sum of $1.2 million which has been owed to the Aranaputa Processers Friendly Society peanut-butter factory located at Aranaputa Village, Region Nine for some years now, is expected to be paid off by the region’s Regional Democratic Council (RDC) mid next week.

This was disclosed by the Chairperson of Aranaputa/ Upper Burro Burro Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC), Gillian Rodrigues when contacted by this publication on Wednesday for an update on the payments.

The chairwoman said the factory is in the process of sending in its invoice to the Regional Executive Officer (REO), Karl Singh for the payment to be released to them. According to her, by Monday the invoice is expected to be sent in and no later than Wednesday, the REO would release the payments. She added that this was finalised following a meeting the REO held with them during this week.

Kaieteur News had reported that at the recently concluded National Toshao’s Council (NTC) Conference, Rodrigues had raised the issue there stating that “The community has a peanut factory and for some time now, from 2016 to 2020 the factory has not been producing peanut butter. Reason being is because the factory is saying that the Ministry of Education owed them from 2016 to March 2020, the sum of $1,220,160.”

The Aranaputa Village peanut butter factory.

The Chairperson explained that those in charge of the factory’s operations are asking the government to make the outstanding payment, “So they can have their factory up and running.” Present at the time at the conference was Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo who responded that the payment will be made so that operations could resume at the factory

“We will have to do it because APNU left a lot of bills in many places, even before you leave, we will pay it. If that is what it will take to put you back in production, we will pay them the money, okay,” Jagdeo mentioned.

After raising the matter at the conference, this publication had later learned that the money owed to the factory is for supplying snacks to the Aranaputa Primary School over the identified period. It was reported in the media that the factory supplied the snacks through the National School Feeding Programme. When asked about the present status of the factory’s operations, Rodrigues related that the factory is operating when it can afford raw materials to process peanut butter.

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Aranaputa Processers Friendly Society, Aranaputa Village, factory, peanut-butter, Upper Burro Burro Neighbourhood Democratic Council

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