Kieran McAnulty announces the Government's loan scheme for primary producers. Photo / Warren Buckland
Kieran McAnulty announces the Government's loan scheme for primary producers. Photo / Warren Buckland
The Government has been forced to backtrack after providing the Hawke’s Bay horticultural industry with incorrect information about its cyclone relief scheme.
Officials from the Ministry for Primary Industries, Treasury and Kanoa (previously known as the Regional Economic Development and Investment Unit) met with growers in Havelock North last week,to discuss details of the North Island Weather Events Primary Producer Finance Scheme.
An official told the meeting that lending terms for the scheme would be 7 per cent, which caused some agitation among growers at the meeting.
Growers, via an email from Horticulture New Zealand, were then informed the following day that the official was incorrect and “this figure does not paint an accurate picture of the situation”.
A spokesman for the Minister of Finance and of Cyclone Recovery, Grant Robertson, confirmed the error.
The spokesman said the information did not “reflect the intent of the scheme to provide the flexibility required to meet the needs of viable firms and get them back up and running”.
The office of Cyclone Recovery Minister Grant Robertson has confirmed growers were given wrong information. Photo / NZME
It remains the role of growers to seek loans from their banks, which the Government will underwrite up to a limit of $10 million.
In announcing the scheme last week, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty admitted the Government did not know if the banks were on board.
Taskforce member Brydon Nisbet told Hawke’s Bay Today they had not been consulted ahead of the Government’s announcement of a three-pronged loan scheme.
McAnulty told Hawke’s Bay Today that “we’re confident, given the feedback that we’ve got from the sector, that we’ve landed this about right”, but did not specify who provided that feedback.
Attempts to clarify that with Robertson’s office weren’t particularly fruitful.
“Consultation on the development of the package took place with the horticulture sector - including viticulture, vegetable and fruit - the meat and farming sector, whenua Māori and recovery agencies,” the spokesman said.
National Party Tukituki electorate candidate Catherine Wedd is a former executive at Bostock New Zealand and a New Zealand Apples and Pears board member.
She’s among those who don’t believe the loan scheme provides the support the sector was looking for.
“The package comprises guarantees that rely on the banks’ appetite to lend, which growers do not regard as relief funding, rather commercial lending. This will mean further debt and risk, which will be unsustainable for many growers,” Wedd said.
Many Hawke's Bay growers were faced with a big clean up after Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / NZME
Tukituki MP Anna Lorck said that while “there has been no agreement to specific interest rates” they will be “highly concessionary to meet the policy intent”.
To be eligible for the scheme producers have to prove they have lost 30 per cent or more of their uninsurable productive capacity, though how that is calculated is yet to be determined.
Hamish Bidwell joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2022 and works out of the Hastings newsroom.
