Waitaki told to repay S.M.P. money

Press, 11 February 1983, Page 3

Waitaki told to repay S.M.P. money

PA Wellington The Government has told Waitaki Refrigerating that it must repay the supplementary minimum price subsidy on meat the company sold on the local market.

The company is seeking a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Maclntyre, in a bid to change his mind. Mr Maclntyre wrote to Waitaki saying that the S.M.P. payment on 55.000 old-season lamb carcases which Waitaki sold to Woolworths supermarkets must be repaid. S.M.P.s are paid only on export meat, not meat sold locally. The company’s managing director, Mr Athol Hutton, said yesterday that Waitaki had never received the S.M.P. from the Government and so should not have to pay it back. “There is a lot of misunderstanding,” he said. “We did not receive the money, we were just the vehicle by which the Government paid

the S.M.P.s to the farmer. “We paid an export schedule price for the lamb and paid the entire S.M.P. to the farmer.” Mr Hutton said he was seeking a meeting with Mr Maclntyre next week to clear up the misunderstanding.

The meat had originally been intended for the Middle East and Mediterranean markets, but the age limit imposed by those markets had expired and the meat could not be sent there.

The company then wanted to ship it to Britain, but the Meat Board, now the sole exporter of lamb, would not allow it any shipping space. The board was reserving all shipping space for new season’s lamb.

There were large stocks of unsold lamb from the last season in Britain, said Mr Hutton.

“The only alternative we had was to render the meat down or sell it on the local market,” said Mr Hutton.