Chamber head: Let WINFA, NLC run Food City

by Kenton X. Chance Fri, Aug 6, 2010

Let the Windward Island Farmers Association (WINFA) run Food City, the state-owned supermarket.{{more}}

That is the Chamber of Industry and Commerce’s proposal to Cabinet after government decided to offer the two Chamber-operated car parks to WINFA and the National Labour Congress (NLC).

After two five-year terms, the Cabinet this week confirmed to the Chamber that the government will not renew its lease of the car parks on Bay Street, Kingstown, and at the E.T. Joshua Airport in Arnos Vale.

But while the 76-spot airport car park is in the mix, the real cream is the 164-spot car park next to the Administrative Centre in Kingstown.

The Chamber, 10 years ago, spent $500,000 to build on lands leased from the government the car park which generated $346,038 in revenue in 2008 and $375,198 last year.

The lease was approved on the condition that the Chamber was also to manage the pre-existing car park at Arnos Vale, London told SEARCHLIGHT.

The Chamber this week asked the business community for support in pleading its case for renewal of the lease, even as it tried to collect “thousands” of signatures for a petition.

Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves told reporters on Tuesday that the car parks will be offered to the NLC and WINFA, much to the chagrin of the Chamber.

“Why not let them run Food City? What is wrong with that?” Shafia London, Executive Director of the Chamber, told SEARCHLIGHT on Wednesday.

“I mean they work with farmers anyway — direct input from farmers. Nothing is wrong with that. The car park has nothing to do with them. It’s not related,” London added.

She further said WINFA is a member of the Chamber and awarding them the lease to the car park could hurt both entities.

“It’s like you are dividing the Chamber in addition to undermining its existence,” she said of the proposed lease award.

But Gonsalves on Tuesday described as “rubbish, total rubbish” talks that the Chamber’s cash cow was being butchered because some of the organisation’s stances have contradicted his administration’s policies.

“We will hope that a visionary government will not go down that road,” London told SEARCHLIGHT, adding that while the Chamber has identified issues to which the government had not paid particular attention, it also supported some government policies.

“So, government may at times be upset with us. But there are times the Chamber speaks in agreement with government,” she said.

“It’s totally a question of fairness,” Gonsalves said of the Cabinet’s decision, adding that the Chamber last year grossed $375, 000 from the car park in Kingstown.

He said this, along with membership subscription of $90,000 to $100,000 annually, “can certainly pay for the operation of the Chamber”.

Gonsalves said the money generated by the car park was “a subsidy”, adding that other “productive interest groups” deserved similar benefits, saying, “I don’t think anybody can seriously quarrel with that.”

“The workers hardly have money to carry out a proper Labour Day or to carry out educational activities. Why shouldn’t they be able to have an income source?” he said.

“Why shouldn’t the farmers? Because we are talking about diversifying products and the state does something, the farmers have to do something of their own,” Gonsalves further said, noting that the car parks are state assets.

But London told SEARCHLIGHT the Chamber does not consider the car park as a subsidy, saying the land on which the facility is built was “a safety risk, a health risk”.

“We turned it into a car park. … It’s not a subsidy from government. It’s not a gift. It’s not a subvention,” London said.

“It is something that we developed for our own purposes. We have leased the land, not the car park,” she added.

“It is your (the government’s) land. You can do whatever you feel with it, but you are giving it to another entity on the mere argument that it’s time for someone else to run it. That is unfair. That is grossly unfair in our opinion,” she said.

London, however, said that Gonsalves’ citing the $375,000 that the car park generated last year was “a little misleading”, adding that this was revenue, not profit and that it costs $500,000 to finance the Chamber for a year.

She said that in the first five years of the car park’s operation, the Chamber had to pay back for the investment, with members receiving 13 per cent on their contribution to the project.

The Chamber’s accounts show losses of $85,609 in 2008 and $64,508 in 2009, even as its reserves are in jeopardy as the result of the effect of the global financial crisis on CL Financial.

London said she was not in a position to show to SEARCHLIGHT copies of the lease agreement or the communiqué from Cabinet Secretary Susan Dougan.

She, however, said that the Chamber was seeking legal advice on the matter.

“We are having discussions with our legal counsel. But where that will go, I can’t disclose at the moment,” she told SEARCHLIGHT.

A Chamber communiqué issued on Sunday suggested that if the lease is not renewed, the organisation might seek to recover the $500, 000 spent to develop the car park.

“We would like to remain confident that should withdrawal of the lease arrangement from the Chamber be considered that any noble administration would compensate this non-profit organization for the developmental work it has carried out on the property with due consideration for inflation,” the Chamber said on Sunday, even as it said the “existence of the independent voice of the business community [is] at risk”.

But Gonsalves, who is a trained lawyer, told reporters on Tuesday that in the absence of a lease renewal, “what is the state of the items that are there (at the car park) is a legal question”.

“I have my legal view on it, but I wouldn’t offer my legal view,” he said.

But even amidst the suggestion of a legal battle, London said the Chamber “really would like to have the car park at least for another term.”

She said that in the absence of the car park revenue, it would take a 400-500 per cent spike in membership subscription to keep the Chamber at its current buoyancy.

“We are not giving up hope. We have the determination. We have the will. We have a staff who are very dedicated. We have a counsel who is very dedicated. So right now, we are in strategic mode, where we are coming up with other ideas,” London told SEARCHLIGHT.