BY ALPHEA SAUNDERS
Senior staff reporter
saundersa@jamaicaobserver.com
Senior staff reporter
saundersa@jamaicaobserver.com
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Jamaica's legal cannabis industry continues to be severely hampered as banks refuse to handle ganja money, the Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA) has acknowledged.
Speaking at a meeting of Parliament's Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) yesterday, the permanent secretary said that with the strong lobby by the Jamaican Government and the changing environment in the United States for cannabis banking, there were some positive developments in sight for local players.
“Based on the different stages that they have reached in the United States and the lobby that is taking place we are anticipating that the trend continues in terms of the different organs of the US Government that is also pushing for these new regulations, and that there might be a breakthrough,” he told the committee
In the meantime, however, CLA Chairman Hyacinth Lightbourne insisted that the agency's hands are tied.
“We have requested meetings with the Bank of Jamaica numerous times, but what I have been told, not only by the Bank of Jamaica but by private banking institutions, that we cannot force a bank to take an individual's money, and right now [with] the risk of losing their correspondent banking, they will not touch it. We are trying as much as we can but the CLA doesn't have the ability to fix the banking problem,” she said.
Lightbourne was responding to concerns raised by Member of Parliament (MP) for Trelawny Southern Marisa Dalrymple Philibert that farmers were making investments in cannabis but are locked out of the banking system.
“There are several farmers who have put their funds together, formed companies, applied for a licence, and (their) attorneys still cannot put those funds in a bank. What happens to all the investment and all the encouragement and all that you're saying ordinary Jamaican farmers can do?” she asked.
The MP questioned whether small farmers were being given hope which they will not be able to realise.
She stressed that the authority currently has 236 applications in conditional status, having passed the fit and proper assessment, but was unable to go further because of the barrier to banking.
“None of them can get a bank account. The truth is that it is one of the major reasons why we cannot move forward in this country. The only industry that operates without a banking system, and flourishes is an illegal one. I have an individual who is building a processing facility for which the bank of the contractor won't cash the cheque. I [also] have an individual who has foreign investors who, because they can't wire the money into the country, they have to fly people in with an under amount in order to get it in. It is a real life problem,” Lightbourne told the committee.
She pointed out that the CLA itself was unable to set up a bank account for almost a year, despite the fact that it is the industry regulator.
In its submission to the committee, the CLA explained that the country's banking industry is tied to that of the US through correspondent banking arrangements. To protect their correspondent banking arrangements, local banks are cautious and, in most cases, are “unwilling to transact business with individuals and companies operating in the legal cannabis industry”, the report said.
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