Agric Investment Platform, Green Partners Responds to Accusations of Fraud and Failure to Pay Investor Dividends

Agricultural products investment platform, Green Partners has responded to accusations of ‘reneging’ on its agreement to its investors and failing to remit the return on their investment after several months failed to remit return on their investments.

The allegations were made by an Executive of Alder Consulting, Subomi Plumptre. According to the exec, the agric investment platform had been dribbling its investors since the maturity of their investments and have refused to pay them, even before Covid-19 struck.

She claims Green Partners is blaming its inability to pay up on Covid-19 even though it had stopped refunding its investors long before the pandemic forced the economy to shutdown.

Stop using COVID-19 as an excuse to not pay, (it) can be taken as a high display of insensitivity and callousness. It makes nonsense of the global epidemic and the genuine suffering being felt by businesses across Nigeria. Hence, no one should fall for their excuse or accept it. In my opinion, it is a display of bad faith.

Subomi went on to accuse the platform of still raising funds and receiving money from members of the public for investment into agriculture projects even when it is yet to pay investors their dividend. She then doubted the company’s indebtedness insisting that it has been making money.

According to its platform, the Green Partners is in partnership with insurance companies like Trustforte Insurance Brokers, Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) and Prestige Assurance PLC.

But Green Partners has reacted to the allegations. In response to TechNext‘s query into the matter, the company admitted to reneging on its agreement but claimed it wasn’t intended to defraud its investors.

It is true we indeed reneged on our promises to pay. This was not in any way pre-planned or premeditated.

Green Partners

The company went on to explain that with the outbreak of Covid-19 in January, its international partner was unable to meet up with its own responsibilities. This alongside the massive loss incurred from the invasion of swine flu on its pig farm in Ogun state pushed the platform into stalling payments.

Seeing as Covid-19 didn’t exactly become a global emergency until January 31st, one could see why the Covid-19 excuse just isn’t sticking and why investors would think it is nothing but an excuse fabricated by the agric investment platform not to pay what they owe.

But the company has debunked that claim, insisting it is determined to pay up its investors despite the pandemic.

“We are not using the COVID 19 as a shield to avoid payments. We do not intend to run away or renege on our promises neither do we intend to remove a penny from our Agreement.”

Green Partners

The company said it was working hard, not only to pay its investors, but also to fix the problems which led to the accusations in the first place. Also, in its bid to maintain investor confidence, the company claims it has been paying its investors in bits and instalments despite the huge challenges.

Green Partners also claimed it has discontinued ‘all campaigns’ for months and won’t restart until the matter at hand has been resolved. While the real nature of ‘campaigns’ may not be clear, it is imperative to note that Green Partner’s website still shows different investment opportunities (campaigns?) still listed there. They include adverts for catfish farming, plantain plantations and poultry.

Nigerians have always looked upon agric investment schemes as very risky investments due to the relative anonymity of the business and how little control they could exert over it. Many people actually consider them a kind of Ponzi scheme which they expect to suddenly crash one day, with every penny invested going up in flames.

Allegations like these ones against Green Partners would only be fuelling such thoughts and quickly turn them to public opinion. There are several agric investment platforms with proven track records doing a lot of good work. With many people needing to invest their hard-earned money somewhere, discouraging stories like this will always reduce trust in the entire sector.