COLE BAY--Prime Distributors Managing Director Danny Ramchandani on Tuesday dismissed accusations that the company had been selling items donated for residents affected by Hurricane Irma.
His comments were made after a photograph of a pallet of items with the word “Donations” affixed to it was snapped recently in the company’s Cash and Carry location in Cole Bay. Prime Distributors is now owned by CC1 and is managed by Ramchandani.
Ramchandani said that shortly after the hurricane some of the company’s suppliers had promised to send relief items to be distributed locally. However, he said that due to the state of the harbour, the items did not arrive in the country until November.
Just after the hurricane there was an immediate need for relief items and Prime officials took it upon themselves to take US $300,000 to $400,000 worth of food items from its stock and donated them. He provided The Daily Herald with several photos to substantiate that donations had been made.
When the items slated for donations finally arrived in November and there was no longer an immediate need for relief food items, he said Prime had decided to use the donated items to replace the items from its company stock that it used for the donations.
“As soon as hurricane happened, we started donating a lot of stuff for food drives since we couldn’t wait for our suppliers to send the products,” he explained. “We couldn’t wait because people needed items right away and we donated more than US $300,000 to $400,000 worth of food. We are not using any donation to put in our pocket. As a matter of fact, we donated 25 times more products than we will ever get from anyone.”
He said it had been a slight human error that the pallet with the donation paper still affixed to it was in Prime’s Cash and Carry section. “It was a mistake that it even went to Cash and Carry. These are goods that have only reached now in November, while people needed food in September and October and we gave all goods that we had from our stock at that time.”
