Three THA companies to be subsumed

Three THA companies under the management of the Division of Food Production, Forestry and Fisheries will be incorporated into one with a new mandate and a fresh vision going forward, to ensure the desired objectives are achieved.

THA Chief Secretary Ancil Dennis made the disclosure whilst addressing Wednesday’s post Executive Council media briefing at the Anne Mitchell Gift Auditorium of the Scarborough Library, noting that the decision was approved by the Executive Council to wind down the three companies.

Those three companies, according to Dennis, are the Cassava Company, the Fish Processing Company and the Tobago Cold Storage Company.

“Those companies will be subsumed eventually into one company called the Tobago Agri-Business Company Ltd. All the responsibilities of those three companies and the mandate of those three companies, of course it will be reviewed and going forward it would fall under the remit of that one new company that would be soon established,” he said.

He noted that the decision was taken based on research.

“A lot of work has been done over the years, looking at our situation in agriculture, in terms of what we should be doing, as it relates to marketing, agro processing and other areas of the sector and we have taken that advice and given the authority to subsume those three companies into one company,” he said.

Dennis said over the years, the Assembly has not been able to achieve the intended objectives and hence the reason for this change.

“We believe that in order for us to improve our food production capacity on the island, in order for us to give our farmers and our citizens here the kind of support and the kind of value that they expect from this administration, we ought to make changes where necessary and of course sometimes, tough decisions ought to be made and this is one of the decisions we would make at this point in time.”

While Dennis could provide no timeline in terms of when the incorporating will take place, he noted that the Secretary with responsibility for the Division, Hayden Spencer did indicate that the new company should be established by October 1.