by Linda Straker

• Import-Export Agromart (IMEXA) Ltd., established to replace MNIB
• 87 MNIB staff members on record as of 28 February 2023 paid from Consolidated Fund
• In August 2023, government refinanced debt owed by MNIB to local commercial bank 

Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said that the lack of financial statements showing the historic performance of the Grenada Marketing and National Importing Board (MNIB) is contributing to the delay in government’s ability to reach an agreement with a new partner.

“The main challenge we had was that the MNIB was so poorly run that there were no financial statements for many many years, and as we attempt to get a private partner to partner with us, we have to have those financial statements,” he disclosed while answering questions about agriculture and innovation during the first episode of the second season of the interactive talk show called “DMs with the PM.”

“So, we have given instructions to try and accelerate this but when statutory bodies don’t do their financials, and are not run properly and the government has to bail it out, that is the kind of challenge we face; where we can’t even present an investor with a financial statement to tell the historic performance of the entity,” the Prime Minister told his audience last Tuesday.

In July 2022, during his first news conference, the prime minister who was then serving as finance minister announced that MNIB would be shut down, the law establishing the statutory body will be repealed, and at the same time, a new entity will be created as a public private partnership. At the time the MNIB was facing financial challenges and as an entity of the state, the government had given it a financial bail out.

Government paid severance and other termination benefits totalling $2,667,892.73 from the Consolidated Fund to all 87 staff members of the MNIB on record as of 28 February 2023.

On that same day, a 6-member broad-based Technical Working Group was appointed to treat the establishment of an appropriate public-private partnership to support the sustainable growth of the agriculture sector.

In August 2023, government said that it was pleased to announce the successful refinancing of approximately EC$5 million of debt owed by the MNIB to a local commercial bank. The terms of the new arrangement included consolidating all outstanding principal balances of debt owed by MNIB at an interest rate of 4.0% to be repaid over 10 years; an interest free loan for all outstanding interest to date to be repaid over 10 years; and release of all existing securities to be replaced with a charge on the Consolidated Fund.

In March 2025, Finance Minister Dennis Cornwall announced that the lifespan of the entity known as the Marketing and National Importing Board would end before the third quarter of 2025, because government has established a new entity to replace the statutory body, which was established more than 45 years ago.

Delivering the 2025 budget in the Lower House of Parliament on 7 March 2025, Cornwall said that government had taken decisive steps to address the longstanding financial management and inefficiencies plaguing the MNIB.

To this end, a new company, the Import-Export Agromart (IMEXA) Ltd., had been established to replace the MNIB. “Legal and financial experts are developing a prospectus and legal agreements to engage a suitable strategic partner and have the new entity up and running before the end of the third quarter of 2025,” Cornwall told the House.

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