Submitted by Black Man

The elections were highly irregular and totally improper. Below are a list of anomalies:

The presiding officer, Mr. James Paul- CEO of BAS, allowed all person(s)  present to vote once they had paid the $50 registration fee before the election. This was despite vehement protests from bona fide members. This is in breach of Article 5, section (iv) of the FAVGA constitution that says “Application for membership shall be made to the Headquarter’s Office on the form prescribed by the Association. All applications must be approved by the Committee of management before the applicant may be admitted to membership.”

The persons who turned up for the first time and registered to be a member of the FAVGA and voted, were never approved by the FAVGA management committee as required by the Constitution.

There were instances where more than one member of a farming enterprise was allowed to vote, even though only one member had been approved as a registered member by the committee of management.

At least one person there, Mr. Jeffrey Nurse of BADMC indicated that he had received correspondence about two months ago accepting him as a member of the association. Yet the last correspondence the committee of management received for consideration of membership was at the April 14th Committee of Management meeting. Mr. Nurse went on to be elected as the Vice President of the Association.

The wife, daughter and oldest son of the CEO of the BAS, James Paul were all present and allowed to vote even though no application for membership was received for them by the committee of management.

Records from 1998-2009 indicate that neither Ms. Deborah Gill nor her husband Mr. Andrew Gill were ever a member of the Association. No application for membership was received from either of them between 2009 – 2011. Mrs. Gill went on to be President of the Association.

Several bona fide members of the FAVGA received no correspondence about the AGM including Mr. Michael Forde (Former Vice President), Professor Frank Alleyne and Mr. John Daniel.

In the last 3 years attendance at the AGM totaled less than 30. This AGM had 60 voting members.