Rice import process to undergo comprehensive review
Published:Sunday | December 18, 2022 | 2:26 AMJovan Johnson - Senior Staff Reporter
The Government has initiated a “comprehensive review” of Jamaica’s rice importation regime following a Sunday Gleaner probe that exposed the release of a substandard shipment of the popular staple linked to a company in which a Cabinet minister is the sole shareholder.
“ … In light of the concerns raised, the ministry is undertaking a comprehensive review of the existing policy, procedures and processes governing the importation of rice to Jamaica,” said a statement from Sancia Bennett Templer, permanent secretary in the Aubyn Hill-led Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce.
A timeline for the review was not disclosed.
The ministry was responding to Sunday Gleaner questions on whether it has established that there was any breach of laws or protocols in the release of rice imported in July by Blue Zone Limited, despite test results showing that the product failed one of the compulsory standards.
The CEO of the National Compliance and Regulatory Authority (NCRA), Dr Lorice Edwards Brown, authorised the release of the detained products on July 20, the same day that test results from the Bureau of Standards Jamaica showed that the rice exceeded the maximum allowed broken kernels for Grade A rice.
Some 2,780 bags of long-grain Dew Prem-branded rice were detained on July 7.
Edwards Brown has not answered questions on why she, as head of a state entity tasked with protecting Jamaicans from substandard products, released the shipment given the unfavourable test results and without the NCRA’s investigative processes being triggered.
Attorney-at-Law Stephanie Sterling, who chairs the NCRA’s advisory board, is also remaining mum, only offering “no comment” when contacted for a response to the situation, which senior figures in the industry ministry have described as “alarming” and “deeply troubling”.
Blue Zone’s managing director is Charles Tufton, the son of Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton. The government minister is the entity’s only shareholder.
Charles is listed among three directors of the company that was incorporated in January 2021, records show.
Dr Tufton, who ceased being a director in July 2021, has said he has not been involved in the operations of Blue Zone.
“I am neither an officer nor a director,” he told The Sunday Gleaner when asked whether he was aware of the matter or had played a role in its resolution.
Charles, meanwhile, confirmed that the situation with his company’s rice shipment was resolved after the “intervention” of the NCRA boss, the circumstances of which remain unclear.
“The ingredients or composition of the product was never in question, but rather how it was labelled,” he sought to explain.
Blue Zone’s rice was imported as a Grade A milled product, the standard for which includes a maximum moisture content of 14 per cent and maximum broken kernels of 10 per cent. Sample one had 22.34 per cent breakage; sample two, 17.54 per cent; and sample three was at 17.04 per cent, according to test results seen by The Sunday Gleaner.
The greater the number of broken grains, the lower the quality of the product, which typically attracts a lower price than rice with higher levels of whole grains.
The NCRA has reportedly hammered out a solution with Blue Zone Limited, which is now allowed to import the same product under an acceptable classification.
Charles, who accused the regulator of poor communication, said the experience has left Blue Zone feeling “victimised and unfairly treated by a regulator who selectively enforces its mandate”, charging that more established companies which import the same product are not subject to the same level of scrutiny.
He accepted that his company may not have been thorough in its due diligence to determine the Jamaican standard prior to entering the rice business in October 2021. The registered core activity of the company, which was incorporated in January 2021, is construction.
Blue Zone’s rice shipment was bought in Suriname, which, along with Guyana, accounts for 90 per cent of rice imported into Jamaica in 2021.
The NCRA has admitted that it is concerned that the maximum level of broken kernels “is not met” by importers of Premium Grade A and Grade A rice.