SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Agri­cul­tur­al De­vel­op­ment Bank Chair­man Rudy Ma­haraj is call­ing for a foren­sic au­dit of the op­er­a­tions of the ADB from the pe­ri­od 2005-2010. Ma­haraj said the bank has lost more than $100 mil­lion in the past few years dur­ing the PNM regime. He is de­mand­ing that the Food Pro­duc­tion Min­ster launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. He said it was on­ly dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2010-2011 that the bank was able to achieve a prof­it of $700,000. The ADB chair­man said since the in­cep­tion of the ADB this was the first time the bank had made a prof­it. He was speak­ing at the launch of the School Nu­tri­tion Caters Loan scheme of the ADB at the Cen­tre Pointe Mall, Ch­agua­nas on Fri­day.

Ma­haraj said the ABD has cut wastage through a ro­bust cost man­age­ment sys­tem. He said a $5 mil­lion an­nu­al rent for the chair­man's of­fice was ter­mi­nat­ed and this of­fice was re­lo­cat­ed to the bank's head of­fice. Ma­haraj said in 2010 the food pro­duc­tion sec­tor con­tin­ued its more that 20-year lack­lus­ter per­for­mance.

He said with the ex­cep­tion of the poul­try and sea­son­al veg­eta­bles, the coun­try was worse off in 2010 in terms of food se­cu­ri­ty and food self suf­fi­cien­cy when com­pared to the 1980s and 1990s. He said the lat­est es­ti­mat­ed gap be­tween an­nu­al ag­gre­gate food con­sump­tion and do­mes­tic food pro­duc­tion is a stag­ger­ing $4 bil­lion.

Ma­haraj said the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor has been ne­glect­ed for the past 50 years and farm­ers have been treat­ed like sec­ond class cit­i­zens for too long. The ADB, he said, was com­mit­ted to see­ing the sec­tor grow. He said from the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 2010 to May 2012 lend­ing in­creased from $50 mil­lion to $300 mil­lion at a low­er rate of 3 to five per cent. Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj said he plans to speak with the ADB chair­man on the is­sue of a foren­sic au­dit.