JAS calls for restructuring of PC Banks to better serve farmers

 

The Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) is calling for a restructuring of PC Banks to better serve the interest of farmers.

 

The country's PC Bank network has financed Jamaica's small farmers for more than 112 years.

 

In recent years the banks have been dogged by claims of mismanagement.

 

Manager of Training, Marketing and Projects at the JAS, Janet Pullen, said the banks have moved away from their original intent.

 

Mrs. Pullen lamented that PC Banks have become more commercialised in their approach but are also now few and far between.

 

"When I was growing, every community literally had a PC Bank, and what that offered to the management and the board members was that 90% of the membership were people of the community and everybody know everybody. So when they go to the bank, there [was] no great hesitation or Mr. Clarke would say 'No man, your history too bad, you do this, you do that.' 

 

"Now...you have to search to find a PC Bank. And that is what is causing some of the great issues. I'm not knocking what it is, but I'm saying that if the PC Bank is to become effective and to do what its original plan is, they've have got to look at where they were, where they are now, and where we really want them to be," she asserted.