KINGSTON, Jamaica — Prime Minister Andrew Holness says former Minister with Responsibility for Agriculture JC Hutchinson had sought to create an orderly resettlement of farmers at the Holland Estate in St Elizabeth, following the withdrawal of J Wray & Nephew Limited, which had leased the property for growing cane for Appleton Estates and its distillery for several years.

Speaking at a meeting of the Area Council One of his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) at the Girl Guides headquarters on Waterloo Road in Kingston yesterday, Holness said there was evidence that some politicians had been encouraging people to take over the lands following Wray & Nephew’s withdrawal. 

With no orderly plans for occupation of the property, Hutchinson tried to implement measure so that the small farmers could occupy the property without limiting future prospects for its development, the prime minister said. 

However, he noted that Hutchinson should have recognised that there is another layer for dealing with these issues, requiring a higher level of transparency and accountability.

“It requires that we follow the rules and it requires that the process is competitive, and if it is not going to be competitive there should be a process that ensures that there are no special interests involved,” he added.

The prime minister said that Hutchinson has come around to recognise the need for that and had apologised to his colleagues in the Cabinet.

“And I think he is a bigger man for doing that,” he said.

Hutchinson was on Friday stripped of his portfolio responsibilities and reassigned to a desk in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM).

The prime minister’s move came five days after news emerged that Hutchinson — in his capacity as minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries — had written Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ) Holdings instructing it to move speedily to give control of the 2,400-acre Holland Estate to a company in which his child’s mother, Lola Marshall-Williams, was a director.

Hutchinson has denied giving any such instructions, but based on correspondence seen by the Jamaica Observer it appears executives of SCJ Holdings were of the impression that they had been given a directive by a minister in their parent ministry.

He had also rejected charges of nepotism and cronyism, and insisted that he would not be resigning from his Cabinet post.