As we reported last night, BAHA approved the importation of 960 sacks - two containers full - of Uruguayan rice as recently as May of this year.
It wasn't supposed to be sold; the rice was approved for a Charitable Group called A Hand To The Needy.
That group's main warehouse is at the Price Barracks in Ladyville; Lieutenant Colonel James Requena told us it is a NEMO warehouse - which is what we reported. That was an error, the warehouse is only for A Hand To The Needy - which does assist NEMO in times of natural disaster.
But that aside, we're talking about Uruguayan rice, and it turns out that the charitable organization has been bringing in Uruguayan rice for about a year, giving away about twenty two thousand pounds a month to school feeding programmes, and persons living in poverty.
They distribute rice and many other staple foods all over the country - in bulk to feeding programmes and by pounds to poor rural communities.
They've been doing that for over a decade, at times importing low cost rice from Guyana, Surinam and the USA.
Well, this year, it's been Uruguay, and that has brought them right into the cross hairs of rice producers who are looking for someone or something to blame for a sharp dip in rice sales on the local market.
Six sacks of Uruguayan rice were found selling cheap at a Grocery Store in Orange Walk.
We today asked the operations manager for A Hand To the Needy, how could that have happened?:
Jules Vasquez
"What do you think of; first of all, when you heard that your Uruguayan rice had turn up at a supermarket in Orange Walk?"
Brian Sabido - Operations Manager, A Hand To the Needy
"Well it puzzled me to a very great extent because I can't imagine how it got there to begin with. There are really only two possibilities: the people who issued it went back out and sold it, or it was stolen from somewhere. Those are the only two possibilities."
Jules Vasquez
"But are you all selling rice through the backdoor to put on to the market?"
Brian Sabido
"No, we sell nothing. Nothing can be sold. That's a part of the permits we get from the Ministry of Finance that nothing is to be sold. As a matter of fact, if we find anybody selling our stuff, or get complaints that they are selling, they are taken off the program immediately, because there is no chance of us doing something like that and damaging the operation. It's too important to us to do that."
Jules Vasquez
"However, you did have a breach in the building when Tropical Storm Harvey came through Belize in August."
Brian Sabido
"That's right; we lost about 6 or 8 sheets of zinc, as you can see from the building, right, and I understand that the door popped open as well. But when we got up the next morning, there was a BDF guard inside. I imagine that he was there to stop anybody from going in, but like I said, I am not pointing any fingers at BDF, not by any stretch of the imagination. But, there's always a possibility of somebody getting in there."
Jules Vasquez
"Well, a theft has occurred here in the past from BDF."
Brian Sabido
"In the past, yes, as a matter of fact, the last time was late last year, and it was brought to our attention by BDF themselves."
Jules Vasquez
"Don't you have an inventory that you can know that, 'Well, I'm short of 6 sacks. Or, I'm short of a certain amount,'?"
Brian Sabido
"It's not an inventory in the traditional way."
Jules Vasquez
"So you wouldn't notice the disappearance of 6 sacks, but you would notice the disappearance of 60?"
Brian Sabido
"Yes, definitely."
Jules Vasquez
"So, now if it's 60 sacks, or 600, because this Uruguayan rice is being looked at as perhaps the reason that these rice wholesalers have sales that are down 20% and over, and they're saying that it's because this Uruguayan rice is in mass circulation. Is that a plausible theory in your mind?"
Brian Sabido
"As far as I'm concerned, they are being disingenuous because, to begin with, 600 sacks of rice is more than a container. And there is absolutely no way that we could lose a container of rice."
Jules Vasquez
"So, you can have some skimming, maybe somebody tricked the charitable system, but it wouldn't account for a great volume of sacks of rice."
Brian Sabido
"No, certainly not."
Jules Vasquez
"How much is the most you think that might have slipped out unto the market though graft or skimming."
Brian Sabido
"Well, I'll tell you something, this could have only happened somewhere in the last 3 containers that we got in. 2 containers came in. Each container os 480 sacks, and the last one that came in over-lapped those 2, because a container usually lasts about 2 months. So, you're talking about 1,300 sacks of rice. I'd be surprised if they find more than six sacks out there. I really be surprised."
Jules Vasquez
"I would imagine that it greatly concerns you, the reputation of your organization, that you all are now linked with a sort of contraband rice, or backdoor rice that's appearing on the market. It hurts your reputation greatly when this appeared in a Chinese supermarket."
Brian Sabido
"It hurts more than our reputation. It will hurt, depending on what next move that the Government decides on, it will hurt thousands of people who get stuff from us. So, it's more than our reputation. Our reputation is at stake, but we run a very tight ship, as far as possible, as we are concerned."
Jules Vasquez
"How many years have you all been doing this, and how many people depend on subsistence supplies from Hand to the Needy."
Brian Sabido
"Jules, it's quite a few thousand people that get stuff from us."
Jules Vasquez
"And they depend on it regularly for how long"
Brian Sabido
"Every 3 weeks we go out. Our turn over is every 3 weeks."
Jules Vasquez
"And how long have you all been doing this."
Brian Sabido
"Well, I've been here for going on 10 years now, and this was here before me."
Jules Vasquez
"We have so much rice produced locally, and if it's broken rice you want, we have a lot of that produced locally as well."
Brian Sabido
"Don't get me started with broken rice because they way that they quantify their broken rice is not our standards. The rice that we get from Uruguay or from anywhere recently, is like about 35% broken pieces. We have tried to buy from the Marketing Board in the past, and whatever percentage was available, 40%, 50%, it meant that the entire sack was 40% broken pieces. And on top of that, they couldn't supply us with the quantities that we wanted anyway."
Jules Vasquez
"If you make a price comparison between the Uruguayan rice that you get, and if you were to access it locally, what would the price comparison be?"
Brian Sabido
"It would be a big difference in price."
Jules Vasquez
"More locally?"
Brian Sabido
"Yes, for me to get the rice at the price that we get it at, it would be 30 to 40% broken pieces, and that's like dust. It's extremely difficult to cook."
Based on a price comparison, the locally produced rice would cost more than the Uruguayan.
Presently, the Charity has no Uruguayan rice right now - their last container which came in August is finished and they are now distributing pasta instead.
Sabido says the decision on who receives the donations is made by The Charity's Boss, Ralph Fianney.
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