KFC franchise taken from Boyea – Gonsalves

Despite a statement by Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves that the KFC franchise has been “yanked,” Ormiston “Ken” Boyea, the man who has operated the KFC businesses here for the past 29 years, says he thinks the situation can be rectified.

On Monday, the three KFC outlets in this country were shut down by receivers from auditing{{more}} firm Grant Thornton, acting on instructions from the Bank of Nova Scotia.

The prime minister, speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, expressed regret about the situation, and disclosed that information reaching him suggests that the international owners of the KFC franchise are considering other persons to run the local operations.

“I will expect maybe sometime in the not too distant future, we will hear about which entity has been awarded the franchise and business will restart. I’m hopeful that it will be a Vincentian entity which gets the franchise to operate,” Gonsalves said.

“…I think the private sector entities in this country have a fair idea as to the reasons for the yanking of the KFC licence, the franchise. I believe that is very clear.”

However, Boyea, managing director of St Clair Investments Ltd, the parent company for KFC (St Vincent) Ltd, in an interview with SEARCHLIGHT on Wednesday, said no other entity has been tapped to oversee the operations of the KFC franchise in St Vincent and the Grenadines and he was in the process of sorting out his issues with both Scotiabank and the fast food chain.

“The KFC thing; I was late in some payments but that I think could be rectified. My problem really isn’t in KFC, as I was saying, my problem is our local bank,” he said.

“Let me put it this way, there has not been another franchisee appointed and I have broken a couple of rules with late payment to KFC. Obviously KFC isn’t going to be happy if your buildings are in receivership, so I have to clear up both things. They are both bad. I’m hoping that when I clear them up, one fixes the other. The KFC has been my bread and butter, as it were and I have to sort out whatever payments I have with the bank.”

Furthermore, Boyea stated that his concerns lie with his 150 staff members at KFC plus about 40 other workers at WJ Abbott and Sons Ltd and St Clair Investments Ltd and that he is focusing on trying to rectify the situation at hand. (BK)