Kaieteur News

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December 04, 2012 - Vol. 5 No. 49 - Price $80

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Guyana’s largest selling daily & New York’s most popular weekly

Anger boils over at EZjet’s - CEO remains in office for refunds hiding from FBI N/A hospital overcrowded or just using up the space?

Parliament grills PS over $10M taxi bill Depositor disappointed with Globe Trust payout Govt withdraws court challenge against

'no confidence' motion

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Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 04, 2012

US$840M Amaila Falls hydro …

Govt. willing to answer any question on project Government has committed to answering questions on the multimillion-dollar Amaila Falls hydro project which should down costs of power for especially businesses.

The commitment was made on Thursday by Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh, during the annual awards ceremony of the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GM&SA) at the Pegasus Hotel.

The invitees included several business leaders and Prime Minister Sam Hinds.

According to the Minister, earlier this year, a technical presentation was made to the opposition parties of the National Assembly.

There is now a need, he said, to build support and develop a sense of national ownership of the project which is expected to cost at least US$840M, the country’s

most expensive infrastructure project to date.

The Minister opened the invitation to political parties and other “stakeholders”.

Over the weekend, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), of which Guyana is a member, urged Government to take steps to ensure the 165 megawatts project slated for Region Eight, is economically viable.

The lending institution, which wields considerable influence globally, also in a report of Guyana’s economy completed early November, recommended careful considerations of the risks and contingent liabilities of the hydro project.

Over the weekend, both the Alliance For Change (AFC) and the A Partnership For National Unity (APNU), the two opposition parties in the National Assembly which share a one-seat majority, called for an urgent review of

the project which Government is banking on to solve its power woes. High oil prices have over the years remained a big taker of Guyana’s foreign currency.

The GMSA, an advocacy group for especially the manufacturing and services sector, raised the issue of high electricity rates saying it is affecting especially businesses in the manufacturing sector.

Responding to GMSA’s President, Mohinder Chand, the Minister said that cheap and reliable energy remains the biggest challenge for Guyana if it wants to truly become competitive and remain sustainable.

Both the AFC and APNU have been questioning the costs of the project, saying that they are not convinced that consumers would not be saddled with higher electricity costs.

Meanwhile, the GMSA President also called for a review of the level of personal income tax with a view to possible reduction. But Minister Singh later noted that while Government was willing, there were repercussions in making

Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh

GMSA’s President, Mohinder Chand

such decisions.

According to GMSA, high energy costs are affecting businesses.

Shipping services and infrastructure limitations are also problems, Chand said.

“There are a number of challenges faced in expanding non-traditional Guyanese exports. One medium-level risk that could affect the desired outcome of increased agro-food exports is the limitations of infrastructure and shipping

services available, particularly to SMEs, due in part to current limitations of the main ports (e.g. the lack of a deepwater port for modern container ships).”

This risk has been mitigated by work undertaken during the current Canada project in Guyana to identify the most effective means of freighting agro-food products from Guyana to Canada.

Chand said that GMSA is examining the possibilities of expanding its export market

opportunities more aggressively, especially in the Free Trade Agreements with the EU, Canada and in the Partial Scope Agreements with Brazil, China and other developed countries.

“We must intensify the industrial development process by promoting incountry joint ventures and partnerships. Manufacturing of goods is critical to a country’s development.”

Chand also tagged access to affordable credit facilities and emphasized that it needs to be addressed including a substantial reduction in interest rates for borrowing from commercial banks.

Customs improvement to reduce time for transactions is also a priority with several meetings already held by GRA. “The financial services sector and particularly the commercial banks should also increase their presence in the hinterland and remote communities.”

“We need to monitor closely the quality and standards of imported goods into Guyana with a view of being fair, transparent and objective.”

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Kaieteur News

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Anger boils over at EZjet’s office for refunds - CEO remains in hiding from FBI Refunds to passengers have not been an easy ride for the embattled air charter, EZjet, as several angry persons converged at the Brickdam offices yesterday for their monies.

Many of them went away and were told to return today.

Some of them were issued with cheques dated December 12.

This is even as news came that passengers in New York are not hearing much from staffers there about their refunds.

EZjet’s founder, Sonny Ramdeo, who is based in the US, has not been returning calls and is only answering emails, an official of the New York office told Kaieteur News last evening.

It was disclosed last month that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was investigating Ramdeo.

It is believed that EZjet owes in excess of 3,000 passengers from the Guyana end which translates to over US$2M ($400M).

It is unclear how many persons in New York are owed

but an official there said that cheques were written but held after it was discovered that EZjet had no money in its account. It is believed that passengers are owed around US$2.5M ($500M) there.

Several passengers, attracted to the low prices of EZjet, had purchased return tickets at low prices of between US$700 and US$800 early for events including the popular Trinidad carnival.

“We don’t know what is going on. The office here closed and nobody talking.

The Guyana Government has money and we may have to ask them to pay us,” one passenger told Kaieteur News.

However, it is unlikely that Government would release the US$200,000 it is holding as security for EZjet, to help passengers.

Public Works Minister, Robeson Benn, made this clear yesterday. He said that he was aware that some payments were made by way

EZjet’s boss, Sonny Ramdeo

Local manager, Rosalinda Rasul

Transport Minister, Robeson Benn

of cheques dated December 12. According to the Minister, the government is still to pronounce on the future of the charter company which had been welcomed by Guyanese for its low fares.

Yesterday also, calls and emails to EZjet’s local manager, Rosalinda Rasul, went unanswered.

Scores of passengers were left stranded early last month as the US Department of Transportation (DOT), suspended E Z j e t ’s

operations after US-based Swift Air which owns several aircrafts, complained that the company owed them.

Guyana and Canada also took similar actions, effectively leaving hundreds of passengers in the lurch.

Caribbean Airlines and Delta, two airlines operating in Guyana, agreed to help with the stranded passengers and even added additional flights.

Since starting its flights last year December, there have been questions about EZjet; its source of financing and whether its financing structure would have allowed it to survive.

Government and EZjet accused Kaieteur News and Opposition politicians of scaring away passengers.

But, the fact is that the Guyana Government had ignored the obvious questions about the airline and, instead of conducting necessary inquiries, had

backed the company.

Ramdeo recently resigned after a US healthcare company sued him and EZjet for allegedly stealing over US$5.4M and passing some of the monies through the bank accounts of the airline.

Ramdeo had vowed to defend the charge and to return as CEO. However, when the United States, Canada and Guyana cancelled his operating licence he re-emerged to take control of EZjet as its Chief Executive Officer.

In late October, Acting CEO Rosalinda Rasul had said that the airline was in a healthy financial position and was not indebted to anyone.

Following the US suspension which effectively grounded all charter flights, EZjet blamed mismanagement and financial hardship for its woes.

EZjet, in its defense, accused Swift Air and another service provider, Dynamic Airways, of abandoning passengers on Wednesday in Trinidad.

Government had said that there may be some 25,000 to 30,000 advance bookings for EZjet for the months of November and December 2012.

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Kaieteur News

Kaieteur News Printed and Published by National Media & Publishing Company Ltd. 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown, Georgetown, Guyana.

Publisher: GLENN LALL Editor: Adam Harris Tel: 225-8465, 225-8491. Fax: 225-8473, 226-8210

EDITORIAL

Remittances are a two-edged sword After some three decades, the phenomenon of the “barrel”, stuffed with the necessities and shipped in by overseas relatives and friends, is now an established fact. A barrel is no longer that which stores liquids such as rum.

The English textbook of our sixth-grade children asks them to “write a thank-you letter to a friend who has sent you a barrel of clothing and foodstuff from the USA”. Our educators obviously expect the barrels to keep flowing in, and are preparing the new generation to be suitably grateful. The question arises: “What has been the effect of the ‘barrel’ on the national economy, and perhaps more importantly the national psyche?”

If the truth be told, the actual “barrel” flow has diminished somewhat since its heyday in the eighties when the goods in those barrels literally kept body and soul together for so many families. It was in that era that Laparkan became a household name, and they were able to lay the financial foundation of their now multibillion merchandising and manufacturing conglomerate. Their shipping operation still goes on, but has essentially lost centre stage. After the opening up of the economy in the late eighties and early nineties by the Hoyte administration, overseas Guyanese gradually shifted to sending home cash since “you could buy the things right in Guyana”. Barrels are now the preferred mode of “helping out at home” during the Christmas holidays”, and the Government has adapted to this bulge by instituting special procedures in the customs department to clear any possible backlogs at this time. The Government does not want to be the Scrooge of the Guyanese Christmas, in which Santa rides in freighters. The flow of the remittances by the overseas-based Guyanese however continues unabated and, by some reckoning, actually continues to grow. There is quite a substantial variance in the estimate of the remittances. The Government’s estimate is the most conservative – in the US$50-70 million range annually as opposed to several independent observers who put the figure at US$150-200 million. By whatever measure accepted, the sum flowing into the country is very substantial. Remittances must have a dramatic impact on the economy. One may ask: why is the Government’s estimate so low? One cynical answer is that it is not in the Government’s interest to promote the fact that much of the increased standard of living for the ordinary tax-payer since 1992 emanates from the help of their overseas friends and relatives. The Government boasts about a “building boom”, but there is nary a new house constructed today in Guyana that is not substantially funded from abroad. Aside from acknowledging what every Guyanese knows, however, the Government could enact regulations in the money-transfer business that would encourage the lowering of the fees that have to be paid to conduct the transactions. All observers agree that the fees are too high and may be a deterrent to even more funds being sent back.

While the remittances have undoubtedly helped to prevent what would have been a greater social and economic crisis in Guyana, the phenomenon has had some deleterious and insidious effects – especially on the Guyanese psyche. Today there are many Guyanese, especially young Guyanese, who depend totally on the cash from abroad to “make a living”. They have no incentive to look for jobs. This takes a big bite out of the prime group that should be motivated to put their shoulders to the wheel to develop Guyana by being gainfully employed. Those who are willing to work will not accept less than US$5-6 per day for even the most unskilled task – such as turning paddy on the roadsides during the rice harvesting period. It is for this reason that, as the Government continues its cost-cutting measures in the sugar industry where it has pumped in huge investments, it will continue to face severe labour problems, especially in Berbice – the site of their expansion, but also the site of the largest bloc of recipients of remittances.

Other entrepreneurs who want to open up businesses in Guyana also face this wage spike. When we compare the wage demands of the unskilled Guyanese, fuelled by remittances, against those of skilled workers such as computer programmers in India or the Philippines (they are in the same range), we would appreciate why the “hi-tech” jobs promised by the Government for over a decade have not materialised. Remittances then are a two-edged sword, especially if the valuable foreign currency received is ploughed only into immediate consumption. The Government has to find ways of encouraging Guyanese recipients of remittances to invest in their country - for increased consumption of all in the future.

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Letters... Where your views make the news

We want changes in the way Georgetown and the Central Government are run DEAR EDITOR, There was a time when I shared similar views in the letters columns with Mr. Harry Gill on deeply disturbing issues affecting good governance standards during the Jagdeo second term, but on reading his missives of late, he has definitely had the political version of a Damascus Road experience.

I have been following, with tepid interest, his recent writings but especially the exchanges that ensued between himself and Georgetown Mayor, Mr. Hamilton Green, and although I hold no brief for Mr. Green, I was shocked to read Mr. Gill’s criticisms of the mayor’s management of the capital, which is far less dreadful than the PPP’s management of the government and country.

Almost every day, without fail, we are constantly bombarded with news stories of government mismanagement and misappropriation of public monies, and Mr. Gill knows that had these stories been happening in any lawabiding democracy, criminal investigations would have been launched, indictments handed down, cases tried, guilty parties would be fined and jailed and their assets, if stolen, seized.

In his latest exchange with Mayor Green, “Cherish a friend who always tells you a harsh truth,” (KN, December 3), I was completely floored when he actually asked Mayor Green to produce hard evidence of corruption by naming people on some list the Mayor Green is

willing to offer as a counter that City Constabulary ranks may be following the lead of ‘big ones’ in government when it comes to corruption.

Mayor Green had merely noted in a prior letter the following as examples of ‘big ones’ engaged in corruption: the latest Auditor General Report – NCN, NICIL – the drug contracts, the road contracts, and the Marriott deal.

This notion of asking for hard evidence in the face of a mountain of evidence is what I would expect from political spinners to deflect attention from calls for criminal probes, and given that Mr. Gill has literally sang with the choir demanding accountability and responsibility, even as names of culprits ripping off the state were being published in the newspapers, I continue to be in shock at his complete volte face asking for hard evidence.

Then there is the highly contentious Amalia Falls Hydro Electric Project (AFHEP), which Mr. Gill and I wrote extensively about, as we raised serious questions about its feasibility, even as then President Jagdeo had Mr. Makeshwar ‘Fip’ Motilall show up in his office to sign a US$15.4M contract to build a road to the AFHEP generating facility.

Mr. Gill knows Mr. Motilall never built a road and today, the AFHEP is back in the news, this time because the IMF is asking hard q u e s t i o n s .

One Kaieteur News column even cited its publisher, Mr. Glenn Lall as a stand-up guy for Guyanese against the AFHEP, and then chided the

parliamentary opposition for focusing too much attention on the Marriott Hotel when the AFHEP, if it goes through as planned, could have much greater consequences for generations of Guyanese to come.

This AFHEP is a very serious undertaking, indeed, and this is why we need to focus on the bigger issues that could devastate our people.

As bad as Georgetown is, it will only get worse if we don’t address potentially more devastating issues, like A F H E P , because subventions from central government to the City Council could dry up if AHEP, like the Marriott, flops.

I am not saying that Mr. Gill shouldn’t address the state of the nation’s capital, and wish we all could join the choir, but the state of the capital is not just the result of mismanagement; it is the result of political fighting among the PPP, PNC/APNU and Mayor Green, because the PPP wants to take over the Council as it has done in other municipalities with PPP IMCs. In other words, do everything to help ensure the City Council fails so the central government could rush in on a wave of public dissatisfaction and install a PPP IMC. I will continue to harp that the same PPP that argued the PNC denied Guyanese the right to free and fair National elections for 24 years, has turned around and denied Guyanese the right to free and fair Local Government elections for 18 years, and this is

why Georgetown is stuck with Mayor Green. He is literally serving at the pleasure of the central government, because he is being used as a whipping boy.

As I look at the state of the capital and then I look at the state of the government, I say if we can save the government, we can save the capital. There is a political stench that emanates from the Guyana Government that is worse than the physical stench of the capital.

I am now forced to borrow some of Mr. Gill’s words and say that for all the so-called good things the PPP has done in its long, distinguished existence, it will sadly be remembered as the party, on whose watch, government was transformed from a veritable servant body of the people to a vile servant body of greedy politicians and their acolytes.

Then after reading Mr. Ralph Ramkarran’s latest to me on the challenges facing the PPP, I felt it is still possible the party has time to save itself and Guyana, but it cannot do so catering to the needs of its selfish, greedy and uncaring leaders.

Truly, while strong and visionary leadership is needed for the PPP to reverse its downward spiral in its public standing, I know of no leader now in the PPP who can provide that strong and visionary leadership, and maybe none exists with the will to rise up and offer change. We want a change in the way Georgetown is run and the way government is run. We want visionary and vibrant leaders.

Emile Mervin

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Kaieteur News

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Letters... Where your views make the news Letters... Where your views make the news

Why are there peaceful protests in Trinidad, and not Guyana?

DEAR EDITOR, Compliance during peaceful protests in which the rule of law is respected and paramount seems to be a lost cause in Guyana, where violence inevitably rules.

Couldn’t Linden and Agricola’s violence have been avoided and unnecessary deaths prevented?

Let’s contrast two simmering political disagreements in Trinidad and Guyana. The Indian-led UNC People’s Partnership government is constructing a superhighway. snaking through the prominently Indian village of Debe. Even though residents have traditionally supported the UNC, they are actively resisting the highway passing through their village.

Debe protestors fear the invasive highway traffic will completely destroy their village’s ambience and way of living. Concerns have been expressed that it will alter and hurt the nearby catchment environment. They are more so in anguish that not only

will the highway attract an influx of outside developers but undergo an escalated crime wave similar to that experienced in other Indian villages. The Trinidad government’s response is the highway will create better infrastructure and many jobs. Debe residents want the highway diverted around their countryside village. But the People’s Partnership government is not budging.

The Peoples Partnership National Security Minister Mr. Jack Warner who is a longtime political heavyweight in the mainly Indian United National Congress (UNC) partnership is in charge of enforcing Trinidad’s security. The protests have been so far peaceful and not blocked any traffic.

Despite Debe residents picketing Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s residence, the predominantly black Trinidadian police/army was ordered to remove protestors encamped on land where the highway is to be constructed. Hindu religious

DEAR EDITOR, The PPP has been adopting a ridiculous approach to the opposition since the election. It blames the opposition and calls it violent, even when it is the PPP’s own actions or inadequacies that lead to violent reprisals from police and violent fight back from citizens.

The PPP is targeting the AFC with the same message it uttered in the last election campaign; “the PNC and AFC ah wan (is one and the same).”

That message backfired during the last election. It will backfire even more in a new election. The problem with this message is that it is a direct attempt to appeal to political racism.

The PNC is seen as an African political instrument

by Indians just as the PPP is seen as an Indian political instrument by Africans.

When the PPP tries to link the AFC to the PNC, it is essentially saying that the AFC is an instrument of the African political instrument.

Not only is this position logically untenable because of the prominent roles of Indians in the leadership of the AFC which voters know,

it is ideologically flawed, because the PPP is appealing to race at a time when racial demographics show a dwindling Indian support base that cannot on its own ever win the PPP a majority again.

The genie is already out of the bottle and it cannot be put back into it. The problem with trying to paint the AFC with the same colour of the PNC/APNU is that it highlights the PPP’s raw appeal to racial politicking and fear politics.

If the election result was closer like 40% PNC/APNU to 42% PPP, those Indian voters who went to the AFC would have likely rushed back into the arms of the PPP because of the fear of the PNC/APNU returning to power.

However, the margin is much larger (9%) and those Indians who voted for the AFC know they have to simply show up and repeat what they did in 2011 in order to get the same result.

Those Indians also know that if Nigel Hughes appears on the AFC ticket as the presidential or prime ministerial candidate, alongside Nagamootoo, the Continued on page 7

What’s wrong with cooperating to confront nefarious acts or dictatorship?

icons (murthis) were disrespectfully seized, altars dismantled and the heirapparent-Prime Minister-inwaiting, Dr Roodal Munilal, criticized protestors whom he claimed were only asking to be dragged like a bag of aloo.

The Trinidad Express of 28-11-12 reported Dr Munilal describing Dr Kubalsingh as a “fraudster” and “trickster” and taking

issue with his family for allowing him to continue his hunger strike. But the Congress of the People (COP) political leader Mr Prakash Ramadhar ( a junior coalition partner ) disassociated himself and COP from UNC Government officials.

“I’ve received a lot of commendation, calls, text messages, e-mails and endorsement from my

constituents and others who believe I did not go far enough, so I intend to go deeper and raise some more issues at (this) week’s meeting,” said Dr Munilal. Asked what he meant by going deeper into issues, he said, “I will speak more about the rise of small cult movements in the United States and Guyana.”

However shouldn’t the

Trinidad government be happy that they are only dealing with a fasting, nonviolent protestor compared to Guyana where its opposition’s only solution is a ready resort to violence? The protestors’ leader Dr Wayne Kubalsingh has been on a hunger strike over two weeks to force the Trinidadian government to Continued on page 6

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Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Letters... Where your views make the news Letters... Where your views make the news Why are there peaceful...

From page 5 change course and he was sometimes subjected to police harassment. Minister Warner mocked him as eating a hearty meal at nighttime.

This Debe protest has similar characteristics as those at Linden and Agricola but also many differences. (1) The protestors have not rioted, indulged in arson or blocked traffic; (2) The protestors have not thrown any missiles at the police (3) Protestors have not burnt any buildings, robbed commuters or extended their protests to other villages to incite any racial flare-up. (4) The National Security Minister Warner has not experienced any no-confidence motion against him or sanctioning by the Speaker to temporarily gag him in parliament. (5) Most importantly Debe protestors are not seeking any unfair advantage or privileges from the rest of the entire nation unlike Linden demands for unfair cheaper electricity rates.

Understandably, no one was shot in Trinidad’s Debe, but nothing provoked its

occurrence either.

How are the instructions to maintain law and order by authorities in Guyana substantially different from those of their Trinidadian counterparts?

Are Trinidadians more civilized or advanced?

If Debe protestors were burning buildings, robbing travellers and disrupting traffic to southern Trinidad should the government have done nothing to their own supporters even when they would have been completely wrong? Would Trinidadians and the official Opposition have automatically supported the Debe protestors?

Until Guyanese can become more civil and compromising during their constitutional rights of protest the country’s march of progress and development will be seriously compromised. Charting a new course if we are to move on harmoniously has always been an urgent necessity. The challenge is to begin the change with urgency.

Vassan Ramracha

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

An absence of transformational and decisive leadership DEAREDITOR, Since assuming office a year ago, President Ramotar has squandered the opportunity to start afresh and lead this nation to prosperity. But his drifting leadership style has established a lasting political legacy which began with his immediate predecessor.

He has not demonstrated an appetite or taken any firm decision to fight corruption and illegal trafficking of drugs, reduce crime, and of course, set the nation on a course of sustained economic stability and robust growth.

The government pledges to continue spending billions on public works projects but much of that will end clandestinely into the pockets of the unrighteous and greedy among us.

So far this year, many projects have been paid for multiple times over the real value by the taxpayers.

All the countries that have successfully completed transformational projects have had to attack corruption frontally, whether the corrupt ones are progovernment, party members or not.

The PPP continues to make the cardinal mistake of thinking that the more it spends, the more

money will trickle down to the poor and the working class, but they are so wrong.

Over the past five years or so, Guyana’s economy developed by less than an average of five per cent a year yet the administration has borrowed heavily, mostly from the Chinese, to fund the construction of several shady projects, all of which were signed secretly during the Jagdeo regime.

If one is to observe all of the projects – Marriott Hotel, Amaila Falls, ICT Cable, Hope Canal, One Laptop Per Family, the Skeldon Sugar Factory, CJIA expansion etc., they have all faced funding crises, low support from the people, lack of trust and transparency issues, and long delays in implementation. It is clear for all to see that the international donors and financing community, and even the local private sector, do not trust the government and are very skeptical in working with them. The PPP has spawned a bureaucracy comprised of their relatives and friends that is inefficient and, in perception and fact, extremely corrupt from top to bottom. These failures are further manifested in Guyana’s poor educational, health and

security sectors, a socially, economically and politically dysfunctional system, and the abuse of power and contempt for the people and the rule of law. But no matter what it does, the PPP knows that it can count on the race card to bail it out of all the mess. All it has to do it try to drive fear into its constituents and provide some of them with projects and hence jobs.

Mr. Ramotar’s chance for personal redemption and to gain the trust and confidence of the people rests on the convergence of two factors: He must forcefully tackle corruption and crime forthwith and implement a sustainable economic programme that will create jobs for the youths and all those who want to work, as well as improve the welfare of the poor and the working class.

Both factors are significant to pulling Guyana from the brink of economic and social disaster.

It is beyond debate that such programmes are urgently needed. The government must begin to attack these problems by lowering VAT and the toll on the Berbice River Bridge, increase pensions for the elderly from $10,000 to $15,000 per month, and provide a 10 percent

wage/salary increase across the board for civil/public servants.

This is a start that may provide some political support for the minority regime and may translate into some semblance of trust for Mr. Ramotar. No one in the PPP Government is better endowed for this task than Mr. Ramotar. But does he have the will for it?

We have said it before and will say it again, we do not believe that Mr. Ramotar will summon enough courage to ‘bell the cat’ in a way that will lead to the reduction of corruption and crime. Guyana needs decisive and transformational leadership.

The most decisive actions by the regime so far have been to do nothing about corruption and protect a questionable few from the laws of the land.

Decisive and transformational leadership is something that the PPP does not possess. The cabal is all about power and self-enrichment; not about the welfare of the people or the country.

Just take a look at the mess in Georgetown, the nation’s capital, the high unemployment, the power blackouts and constant floods. How sad!

Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish S. Singh

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Kaieteur News

Letters... Where your views make the news...

What’s wrong with cooperating...

From page 5 PNC/APNU will lose votes to the AFC because there is no one in the PNC/APNU camp, David Granger included, who can match Hughes’s energy, charisma and appeal. So, Indians who voted for the AFC in 2011 after leaving the PPP have no incentive to return to the PPP. Nothing in this foolish PPP tactic really changes the game. It only exposes the racially destructive politics of the party at exactly a time when its political future is imperiled by pursuit of this very politics.

Strategically and in terms of resource use and allocation, the AFC has to take common positions with the PNC/APNU on certain issues. It is certainly a point of debate whether the AFC is doing enough to distinguish itself, but it is incontrovertible that when two opposition parties form the opposition in Parliament in a minority government situation, they will generally tend to be consistent in their message on major issues.

What the PPP is not telling its supporters is that

it makes it easier for the AFC and PNC/APNU to collude than to distinguish itself. When the PPP sends an internal auditor who discovers fraud at a PPPrun entity on leave, it provides the opposition an easy opportunity to align their attack on the PPP. If the PPP sends the alleged wrongdoer on leave pending an independent audit, it changes the approach of the opposition.

The AFC may agree with the approach while the PNC/APNU may decide it is not enough. Firing the alleged offender will silence the opposition.

Continuing to do wrongful and outlandish things will make it easier for the opposition to join forces. It makes the o p p o s i t i o n ’s j o b e a s i e r because they can maximize their resources as they are not required to distinguish their positions and to spend resources defending their separate positions.

I want PPP supporters to ask themselves this; if t h e WPA o r A F C w o n power in Guyana and became a dictatorship or

engaged in nefariousness, should the PPP and PNC in opposition stand united against those wrongs or should they refuse to cooperate for the good of the country?

If a government steals, rapes, plunders, corrupts and mismanages, should the opposition parties stand apart and take divided opinions when the majority of the citizenry revokes the actions of government?

If the PPP and PNC were in opposition and a government official steals millions of taxpayers’ money and remains in the job, should they take separate positions for the sake of appearing different or should they both agree the act is criminal and wrong and the government is to blame for keeping that officer?

This does not mean the PPP is the PNC or vice versa. It means taking united positions on specific issues that are vital to the entire country. The PPP continues to make a fool of itself and of those who support it.

M. Maxwell

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Tuesday December 04, 2012

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Kaieteur News

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THE PPP IS IN DENIAL The results of the last elections should have led to serious introspection amongst all the political parties in Guyana. For all the parties that took part in the polls, including the AFC, the results of the elections represented bad news.

While APNU did recover from its disastrous performance in the 2006 polls, the party failed to match its performance at the 1992 elections. And this was after there was an unprecedented turnout in the constituencies that normally vote heavily in favour of the PNCR, the main party in APNU. From all the maths done - and APNU had a long time reconciling the statements of poll and studying the trends in all polling divisions-- it must be clear to APNU and the PNCR that trying to win an election based solely on their core base, will not suffice.

The maths will show that even though the PPP underperformed in the elections and APNU’s supporters came out in their numbers, they were still unable to get anywhere near to the PPP, and will never perhaps be able to defeat the PPP with that sort of political strategy.

For APNU there has to be a rethink of just how it will proceed in the future but from all indications it really has no chance of ever closing the gap on the PPP. For the PPP which won close to 49 per

cent of the votes, the elections were a disaster.

It was not just because of the fact that the party was unable to gain a majority.

Even with 48 per cent, it still had a good chance of gaining a majority had it done well in some areas.

The fact that the PPP lost major ground in Region Six really hurt the PPP more than anything else.

The party had anticipated that it would have won easily because the opposition was lethargic between 2006 and 2011. But instead, the PPP lost crucial votes in critical areas.

This performance supports the long held theory

by Mr. Robert Corbin, the former leader of the PNCR, who once said that the PNCR does not need to do anything to cause the PPP to decline; that the party will decline based on its own mistakes.

Corbin was vindicated in the last elections on two counts.

He was vindicated on the count that the PPP will selfdestruct and he was vindicated because the PNCR went into the election without him on the slate and still lost, proving that he was not the reason for the PNCR not winning the 2006 polls .

The AFC may feel that it did well because it increased the number of seats it holds in the National Assembly but the shocking development of the elections was that the AFC did not do as well as it may have anticipated in

Dem boys seh ...

Obeah Man and he wife fuh Donald Dem does got nuff competition and this time of de year dem got more competition that ever. GT&T use to got jingle competition. Digicel always got mingle competition. Ansa McAl. Banks DIH, and DDL got drinking competition while de government got blinking competition. Since you blink dem gone wid everything.

Now de British and dem Canadian and dem American tell dem boys that dem got a competition between de Guyana Government and de Chinee Government. This is de semifinal between dem two fuh de world title. De competition is fuh measure corruption.

Dem boys betting pun Guyana fuh win by a landslide. De Guyana is headed by none other than… we don’t have to call he name. De number two is de Barbie. All de Bees and Irfaat and Rob Earth deh in de team.

De final will be Christmas Eve and dem boys gun bring de result on Christmas Day. And dem boys got a special prize fuh give dem fuh de New Year’s. Dem boys did plan fuh give dem nuff thing but is Christmas and dem boys ease off till in de New Year.

In de New Year dem boys done wid sledge hammer. Dem boys going to beg , borrow or steal a bulldozer fuh go after de Bees. Is more power dem coming wid, more power than a 320R hymac. Dem boys gun root dem out. Dem don’t care if Donald don’t come on board because he and all gun get a rooting. He might even get a licking.

In fact, dem boys might carry he by some obeah man who got a serious obeah wife fuh deal wid he. Is licks till de blind, dumb and deaf spirit that tek over he body gun come out of he.

Dem boys believe that from he recent action that he don’t smell, he don’t taste and he don’t feel. Is nuff licks gun got to straighten he out. Talk half and hope de obeah tek out de stupidness from Donald

Region Four.

Essentially it was abandoned by many of those who had supported it in this Region in the 2006 elections and had it not done hard work in Region Six, it would not have been in the position it is in today where it holds the deciding vote in parliament.

The AFC therefore like the PPP needs to rethink its strategy because five years will descend upon it very quickly and it will find that for all its histrionics in the National Assembly that it may lack an effective strategy to go into the next elections alone and may therefore have

to join APNU, just like the WPA did, if it hopes to survive politically.

The AFC cannot discount what happened to it in Region Four where it should have done much better given its middle class orientation.

All the political parties therefore need to do some serious soul- searching and this past weekend there was an analysis done by the f o r m e r S p eaker of the National Assembly and former PPP member, Mr. Ralph Ramkarran, who analyzed, from his perspective, what went wrong with the PPP and suggested some areas for

consideration.

While his analysis is deeply flawed and in fact impedes the case that he is making, this is the sort of discourse that is needed within the PPP. The PPP has gone into denial about the elections and this is evident in the paranoid reaction to Ramkarran’s article.

There are those who refuse to accept that the market-oriented policies of the Jagdeo administration, the faithful adherence to international donor edicts and the arrogance which permeated its latter days in office were primarily

responsible for it not gaining a majority. But it is often hard for persons to accept they are wrong and this is where an independent perspective can be helpful.

If the PPP continues to bury its head in the proverbial sand, it will not be able to reverse its losses at the last elections and, as Robert Corbin predicted, will disintegrate further.

Page 10

Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 04, 2012

THE FREDDIE KISSOON COLUMN

The chicken and the egg One may find it politically useful to knock Mr. Ralph Ramkarran and Dr. Henry Jeffrey for an outpouring of criticisms on the terrible direction their party and government have gone when one knows that Dr. Henry Jeffrey was a Minister for eighteen years in that very regime and Mr. Ramkarran was in the PPP leadership since the seventies. He broke with the party only in 2012, that is, after the PPP was in power for twenty years

On the academic level, it makes no sense to go on carping about why they didn’t try to change the PPP journey when they saw the beginning of the nakedness.

Castigations of Messrs Ramkarran and Jeffrey aren’t going to make us understand why the PPP has exceeded the excesses of the Burnham era a prospect in 1992 that seems literally impossible.

There isn’t a human being associated with the PPP from the seventies until it acquired power in 1992 who would

have ever conceived of a PPP Government being as vicious, cruel, violent, undemocratic, contemptuous of the working classes and arrogant and pompous as the PPP is today.

And that list includes even the PPP enemies in that period. Simply put; no one would have ever believed that if you told them so in 1992.

Ralph Ramkarran has tried to explain why the PPP went wrong in a three page (yes three full pages) analysis in last Sunday Stabroek News.

U n f o r t u n ately, Mr. Ramkarran falls victim to what the historian calls the syndrome of “being too close.”

When PNC and PPP stalwarts write about their respective parties, they are bound to gloss over crucial details or omit them altogether either out of sentiments or Freudian loyalty.

Mr. Ramkarran’s long newspaper assessment does not do justice to scholarly analysis of the power excesses of the PPP. This reply here (it will have to go into maybe two more columns in the coming weeks because there is so much materials in the PPP’s

evolution to assess) is an attempt to touch the polemical chords that Mr. Ramkarran chose not to put his fingers on.

For the purpose of this discussion, the section of Mr. Ramkarran’s thesis that is relevant is titled, “Failure to Strengthen Measures to improve Governance and Transparency.”

This aspect of Mr. Ramkarran’s analysis is woefully inadequate and shuts out the historical pathways the PPP took after the split with Mr. Burnham in the fifties that today can be cited for the levels of abomination we see in governance.

Mr. Ramkarran located the blame for the present bad governance in two factors.

One is the fall of world socialism led to the PPP having to deal with the reality of a capitalist world economy and its imposition on Guyana and this led the PPP away from its socialist mooring.

Secondly, after 1992 a business class integrated itself into the PPP thus vitiating its working class physiology.

On both levels, Mr. Ramkarran falls down. First, a

socialist government facing IMF impositions does not have to abandon its working class base.

“Lulu” in Brazil ran a capitalist economy but did not neglect the welfare of the masses. In Scandinavia, the labouring classes are the recipients of a fair distribution of the national wealth under capitalist governments.

This still leaves the question as to why the PPP did not look after its traditional base after 1992.

This answer will be in a forthcoming column. Suffice it to say the PPP is not a working class party.

I now turn my attention to Ramkarran’s theory of a relentless business class shifting the PPP from its traditional class alignments From the time the Burnham-Jagan schism rocked British Guiana the PPP entered into association and developed close relationship with the rich Indian strata.

Apart from the money it got from GAWU, the PPP preserved its financial existence from the propertied and land-owning Indian classes.

The natural choice for Minister of Agriculture after

Frederick Kissoon 1992 was Reepu Daman Persaud because as the most popular Hindu pandit from the seventies onwards, he served as the conduit between the PPP and the wealthy Hindu community.

Space does not allow for the elaboration of these two factors. I will expand on them in another article.

This analysis cannot end without a brief note on the authoritarian culture the PNC and PPP were born into which will form the backbone of my follow up column.

The PNC will again become authoritarian if it gets back into power. The PPP will remain an oligarchic autocracy if it continues in government.

The reason is that both of them are victims of the political culture they were born into and that inheres in both of them.

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Kaieteur News

Govt withdraws court challenge against ‘no confidence’ motion Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, in light of his most recently filed High Court action, withdrew his previous challenge against the no confidence motion against Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee. Nandlall said that the action would be a duplication to pursue the previous motion as the one recently filed covers “all the issues”.

The joint parliamentary opposition, by virtue of its one seat majority, had in July passed the no confidence motion against Rohee. The motion called for the Minister to resign or be removed by the President.

The opposition also said that it does not have a problem with Rohee as a Minister, but just not Home Affairs Minister. He is not doing his job efficiently hence does not gain the confidence of the opposition.

However, the government refused and remains adamant that Rohee does not sit as a Minister or a Member of Parliament based in the confidence of the opposition. The government had almost immediately moved to the court. The issue has resulted in a continuous battle between the opposition and the government; and parliament has suffered as a result wasting some $1.7 million per sitting.

After exhausting other av-

enues of silencing Rohee in parliament, the opposition, at the last sitting, tabled another motion to “gag” Rohee. After much debate, Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman ruled that Rohee face the Parliamentary Committee of Privileges.

He additionally ruled that bills and motions in the Minister’s name would not be entertained before the committee’s findings with the government contending that he had given effect to the opposition motion.

The government again moved to the court.

Attorney General Anil Nandlall, last week, filed a “notice of withdrawal and discontinuance” of the matter against the Speaker Raphael Trotman and Leader of the Opposition David Granger whose name the motion was filed in.

Nandlall ‘s petition sought to have Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman’s ruling prohibiting Rohee from speaking on Bills in the Parliament and referring him to the Committee of Privileges, declared “unlawful, unconstitutional, and without jurisdiction”.

According to court documents, the Speaker, who is the second named respondent of the motion, has no power whatsoever under the standing orders,

the laws of Guyana, or the Constitution to impose a prohibition on a member of the National Assembly from speaking or performing the functions which devolve upon that member, either as a member or as a Minister thereof.

According to Nandlall’s motion, the Speaker’s ruling is without any legal or factual base and therefore the privileges committee has no jurisdiction to deal with or determine any issue remitted to it.

The AG is also moving to have an order setting aside, vacating, quashing or rescinding the decision and or ruling of the Speaker as well as any decision arising from the Privileges Committee since the referral with the High Court was also asked to declare that the Privileges Committee had no jurisdiction to deal with or determine any issue remitted to it on the basis of the Speaker’s ruling during the last sitting.

Nandlall said that the motion filed last week by the government incorporates the challenge to the no confidence motion and that it would be duplication to continue with that matter in light of the more recent development. The petition is set to be heard before acting Chief justice Ian Chang on Monday.

Page 11

Australia honours Sir Ronald Sanders Guyanese-born, Sir Ronald Sanders, has been awarded one of the highest honours in Australia... the Order of Australia... for his work in advancing Commonwealth issues there.

Sir Ronald is a member of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group (EPG) and an international consultant, writer and a former senior Caribbean diplomat (1982 1987) and (1996 2004).

According to a release from the Australia Government, Sir Ronald as a result would be appointed an honorary Member in the General Division According to the citation, Sir Ronald’s contribution would be for “service to Australian relations, particularly concerning Commonwealth issues and advancing the interests of small developing states of the Caribbean region.”

Over the past 30 years, Sir Ronald has significantly contributed to expressing the concerns of the Caribbean region, particularly championing the interests of its small

developing states, and the Commonwealth. During his career, he has served on numerous committees and advisory boards formulating and implementing policies that affected the Caribbean and the Commonwealth.

“Sir Ronald has been, and is, a voice for the Commonwealth and developing Caribbean states through his diplomatic work and advocacy as well as his many publications and the media, the release said.

“At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in November 2009, the EPG was established to undertake an examination of options for reform to bring the Commonwealth’s many institutions into a stronger and more effective framework of cooperation and partnership.”

Sir Ronald and nine other EPG members produced the report: A Commonwealth of the People – Time for Urgent Reform.

“He was an important source of advice to the EPG

Sir Ronald Sanders on the Commonwealth as an institution and on its benefits to the governments and people of all its member states.

Sir Ronald also wrote the initial draft of the report which, when finalised by the EPG, was a centrepiece of discussion at the CHOGM in Perth in October 2011.”

Sir Ronald is a weekly columnist for Kaieteur News and contributor to a number of other regional news forums.

Page 12

Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Depositor disappointed with Globe Trust payout A depositor who waited for 11 years to receive money owed to him when Globe Trust and Investments Company Limited (GTICL) failed in 2001 was disappointed with the meager sum paid to him by the Bank of Guyana (BOG).

Wayne St. Jules is puzzled as to how a saving of $100,000 that he had in GTICL at the time of its collapse could translate into $3,666.

He said that even if the institution deducted the $4,000 paid to him last year by the company’s Liquidator, Nizam Ali, the total $7,666 could not amount to his $100,000.

According to the man he was excited when he received a letter from the BOG informing him that he could uplift his money.

The letter dated November 23, 2012 stated, “Pursuant to an order by the Court under Section 55 (1) (f) of the Financial Institutions Act 1995, dated September 21, 2010, we are in progress of making a final apportionment of payment to depositors with accounts of $100,000 and over.”

“Please therefore contact the Banking Division of the Bank of Guyana, with your passbook or any proof of amount owed and National

The cheque paid to Wayne St. Jules after 11 years Identification Card or valid Passport, during working days from 8:00hrs to 12:00 hrs between December 3 - 31, 2012.”

Globe Trust began operating in April 1991 and was licensed in 1999 to conduct depository financial business with authority to engage in Trust business.

However, in 2000 and again in 2001 a series of inspections by the BOG found the institution to be in breach of the Financial Institutions Act, and the BOG, with the intention to liquidate, seized the institution in September 2001.

In 2010, Chief Justice (ag), Ian Chang, made a ruling paving the way for payments to depositors to commence.

Letters disseminated to over

3,000 depositors who had savings accounts with balances $100,000 and below when the Bank of Guyana had stepped in and took control back in 2001.

Though, St. Jules only

had $100,000 in a fixed deposit account with the financial institution he did not qualify to receive his money because of interest that had accumulated. According to the man, he requested that he

be paid his flat sum without interest but this appeal was rejected.

During the initial payout, while an estimated 3,050 depositors whose accumulated payments saw Globe Trust doling out around $45M, St. Jules was among 1,000 more account holders to be paid. And they had to wait, as Guyana’s liquidation laws are specific on how payments are to be made at this time of the winding up process.

According to the man, 11 years is a long time to wait for $7,666 and wants BOG to explain to depositors the Mathematics used to arrive at the small sums paid out. He opined that the amount should have been more if

monies owed to Globe Trust were being collected.

In addition, the head office of Globe Trust in Middle Street was sold for just under $50M. The man reiterated that BOG should be more open about the payments since initially Globe Trust treated depositors with grave disrespect.

St. Jules said that he opened his account with Globe Trust in the 1990s and learned of its financial troubles by word of mouth.

He noted that owing to rumours that the institution was in trouble he visited Globe Trust only to find the doors shut and a sign “Sorry we are closed until further notice”.

Policemen freed of simple larceny charge The three policemen— one corporal and two constables— who were under close arrest for an alleged corrupt transaction, were on Monday charged with simple larceny.

However, the matter was dismissed after the virtual complainant decided that he did not want to offer further evidence in the matter.

The men Corporal Michael Campbell, 34, and constables Reginald Jonas, 32, and Curt Glasgow, 25, all mem-

bers of the Guyana Police Force and stationed at the Central Police Station were charged on November 27, last, at Palmyra, East Coast Berbice. They allegedly stole two flasks of Mercury valued $1M, property of Phillip John Sampson a businessman of No. 78 Village Corentyne.

It is understood that on the day in question the three officers were on duty.

They mounted a road block between 17:00 hrs and

18:00 hrs in the vicinity of the Berbice Bridge. During the time the men stopped a vehicle being driven by Sampson who was returning from Georgetown.

The man had 10 flasks of Mercury in his car. He eventually provided proof that he had legally obtained the items from one Jerome Khan from Georgetown. However the police disregarded his documents and demanded $1M or they will take two flasks of the

mercury. The man did not agree with the bargain and the police seized the two flasks of mercury.

The man then reported the matter and the three policemen were arrested and placed under close arrest.

In court the man swore that he did not want to offer any further evidence in the matter. According to a reliable source, an out of court settlement was arrived at between the parties.

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Kaieteur News

Bosai Minerals Group awards top students Bosai Minerals Group (Guyana) Inc. awarded the t o p t e n B o s a i employees’children at the company’s sixth annual bursary awards ceremony held at the Egbert Benjamin Hall in Linden on Saturday.

Sixty students were awarded. Trophies were also awarded to the top performers of each level in the different categories.

Addressing the students was General Manager of Bosai, George Zhao, who charged the recipients to strive to be Guyana’s Top Student and receive the Bosai special award.

Other speakers were Senior Personnel Officer, Truedel Marks; Secretary of NAACIE, Wayne Halley; and Public Relations Consultant, Owen Hughes. The Master of Ceremony was Community Relations Officer, Ms. Vanessa Davis.

The feature address was delivered by Owen Hughes who encouraged the awardees to continue in the path of intense information gathering. This, he said, will be useful in their future development as aspiring leaders. The awards were for performance in the National Grade Six Exam, CXC and the CAPE exams. Students who were among the top ten

Some of the students at the event employees’ children, the Linden top ten and the Guyana top ten were entitled to bursaries at all three levels.

Timon Garner and Zenel Marks received double awards for being in the top ten employees’ children and the top ten Linden students at their level – CXC and National Grade Six Assessment respectively.

At the National Grade Six level, Zenel Marks received a trophy for being the top student for Employees’ Children. Ashmar Angel and Modesty Hasannah received trophies for being the top students in Linden. Michael Bhopaul and Ramesh Ghir were awarded for being among Guyana’s top students.

At the CXC level Timon Garner received a trophy for being the top student for employees’ children, obtaining ten grade ones.

Roshelle Sparman received the award as Linden’s top student with twelve grade one passes and Sarah Hack for being among Guyana’s top students with sixteen grade one passes.

The students were also awarded with Bosai Minerals Certificate of Achievement.

Guyana gears for Carib Soca Monarch The CARIB Team has announced the launch of the ninth CARIB SOCA MONARCH. In a press release, Ansa McAl stated, “As we get into the spirit of Mashramani, we are looking forward to the pulsating music, electrifying performances and the lyrical sensations that the CARIB SOCA MONARCH usually provides and this year will be no exception.”

The last competition was dubbed ‘one of the best of all time’. “We are promising that this year’s competition will be even better because of the multi-talented, vibrant artistes

that we have in our midst.”

The proposed date for the semifinal is February 2, 2013 in Linden. The Final will be held on February 16, 2013 in Georgetown. The first prize is $1.5M. In addition, there will be a People’s Choice Award prize and appearance fee for contestants that make it to the finals. Entries close on January 3, 2013 and no late entries will be accepted.

The CARIB SOCA MONARCH was first hosted in 2004 and had a successful run until 2010. There was a hiatus in 2011 and then it returned in 2012 with a big bang and did not disappoint.

Page 13

Page 14

Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Port Mourant woman bedridden after rough delivery at N/A Hospital “...They really left me on my own; they did not do anything to me; what they did was not for a normal delivery—it was terrible.”

A young mother of Miss Phoebe, Port Mourant, Corentyne has been bedridden for more than two weeks after a very rough delivery of her baby at the New Amsterdam Hospital.

Padminie Goberdhan, 19, has said that she has become a child all over again since her mother has to do everything for her.

And it hurts her even more that she cannot get to care for her newborn.

Since being discharged from the hospital, she cannot walk properly nor can she have bowel movements and urinate without experiencing severe pain. She is blaming the Gynecologist who delivered her baby.

Goberdhan was admitted to the hospital two Wednesdays ago. After checking in, the doctors left her and returned a few hours later.

“Before he (the doctor) came back, one of the nurses checked me with her fingers in me, twisting and turning.

(The doctor) came back and installed a drip in me…and they did the same thing with a different nurse and left me and told me to push my baby; I had no pain to push the baby. I then fainted “after pushing with all my strength”.

“They decided to cut me…and doctor was over me saying ‘one last time [push] I am begging you one last time…”

“He then pressed my stomach—pressing my stomach—my baby and placenta—everything came out of me! I fainted again!

When I regained consciousness, I saw I had four stitches and when I got up, my dress was full of blood and the floor too. The doctor had to put a paper for me to stand. And I could no longer stand.

“He put me on a wheelchair and changed my clothes and took me to another part of the delivery room, where I could have rested with my child. They brought the child and I could not even look at her; the pain was terrible—I did not even know where I was and they took my child and put her in

the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and left me there. I fainted twice and the next morning; they gave me another drip and put me to the ward and left me there— no doctors, no nurses only pain—no pain killers, no nothing.

I could not do anything on my own. They kept me there just like that until Friday and then I could have seen my child.”

She was discharged the following Monday. While she was in severe pain, Goberdhan was still anxious to get out of the facility “because there was no support; no support there to assist getting up, to assist with going to the washroom.

They don’t know my condition and I cannot handle it”.

Goberdhan is at home for more than 16 days but is bedridden. “I cannot move, walk or stand on my own”.

The young lady believes that the entire situation has been caused by: “the delay and they really left me on my own, they did not do anything to me and what they did was not for a normal delivery—it was terrible.”

The baby, though, is

The young mother in bed

healthy. Her mother, Iserdai Goberdhan, said that “the doctor should be more experienced in doing this; I don’t think they have much experience as to deal with this situation. This is why we are suffering. I think they should have midwives to accompany the doctors. I think the government should do something about this.”

The family is now seeking the services of a private gynecologist. “He [the private doctor] said that she has a low blood count profile and she had to get treatment to bring up the blood levels”.

According to the family, the gynecologist has his opinion of what went wrong.”

Kaieteur News understands that the young

lady’s condition is worsening. When contacted, Senior Doctor at the N/A Hospital Dr Artie Sharma and Chief Executive Officer of the Berbice Regional Health Authority (BRHA), Dr Vishwa Mahadeo stated that the facility welcomes Goberdhan back for additional treatment to get her better.

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Kaieteur News

Page 15

Grove man to be charged for truck driver’s murder A 21-year-old Grove, East Bank Demerara man is likely to be charged today for the murder of truck driver, Aga Khan, who was ambushed and killed last month during a robbery at Craig, East Bank Demerara.

The suspect reportedly confessed last week to firing the shot that killed Khan and wounded Mervin Marcus, a porter who was sitting in the cab near Khan.

Two other suspected members of the same gang are still in custody and police said that further charges are likely. They are from Kitty and Princes Street. A man who is on remand for shooting and robbing Diamond, East Bank Demerara housewife Bibi Samaroo is also likely to be charged with Khan’s murder.

Police believe that the gang is responsible for several recent robberies on

GPHC responds to reported horrifying experience at the hospital The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation yesterday issued a statement in response to an article published in this newspaper under the headline “Maternal complications… two mothers experience “horror” at GPHC. T h e r e s p o n s e w hich came four days after the publication of the two mothers’ experience, sought to clear the hospital and lay blame at the foot of the mothers.

The Kaieteur News article stated that one mother, Andrea Cort, complained that she essentially delivered her baby herself; while the other, Olinda Fredericks, suffered the loss of her daughter mere hours after she was delivered.

The mothers described their experience as “pure horror and terror.”

Cort told this newspaper that she was in labour but nurses told her that she was not dilating.

According to Cort, the day after she was admitted to GPHC she was constantly being monitored; however, after regurgitating twice on the floor of the maternity ward, the nurses became callous and uttered harsh words towards her.

She said that she was subsequently placed in a wheel chair and was left unattended for a period during which she delivered her baby boy.

Cort stated that the “hot” pain “hit me off the wheel chair” and she delivered her baby on the floor of the unit.

She also noted that a nurse was hesitant to cut the umbilical cord that was wrapped around the baby’s neck.

However, GPHC’s statement noted that “Ms. Andrea Cort, age 24 years was admitted to the GPHC on 23/11/2012 at 02.00 hrs complaining of lower abdominal pains.

An examination confirmed that Ms. Cort was in early labour.

“Over time, the patient was observed to be bearing

The dead baby down at every contraction and was advised against this. Ms Cort was eventually placed in a wheel chair to be taken to the delivery room but she proceeded to lie on the floor and delivered a live baby boy.”

This newspaper reported that Fredericks lost her baby girl about 12 hours after going through a “painful” delivery.

Fredericks’s husband told this newspaper that his wife was transferred f r o m We s t D e m e r a r a Hospital after being told that, that institution’s Maternity Theater does not operate on weekends.

The man said that his wife was two weeks over due and was under severe pain so they asked for a C Section to be done.

“They told us that she could do it the natural way.

So I leff them fuh do they thing but they messed up big time cause if they de do the C- Section me baby girl would have still been alive.”

GPHC stated that “…the patient was transferred from the West Demerara Clinic with a history of post maturity and severe pre-eclampsia. Ms. Fredericks delivered a live baby girl by vaginal birth.

The infant appeared to be in distress and resuscitative measures were immediately engaged by the doctors and nurses on duty, but all efforts failed. GPHC is in the process of investigating the circumstances surrounding Ms. Fredericks’ transfer and the death of the infant, as is the standard protocol for any maternal or neo-natal death.”

the East Bank of Demerara.

Khan, of Lot 20 Grove Public Road, East Bank Demerara, was shot at close range in the right side of the neck, after handing over a sum of cash to one of three robbers who had forced him to stop on Busby Dam (also called Buzz Bee Dam), located at Craig, East Bank Demerara.

Sources said that the robbers may have fled with $100,000.

Mervin Marcus, a porter of Kaneville, East Bank Demerara, was shot in the right shoulder. His condition has worsened and he has been re-admitted to the GPHC’s High Dependence

Unit.

Khan and Marcus were employees of Edun’s Poultry and Hatchery, located in Busby Dam, a short distance from where the bandits struck.

They were returning to their employer ’s farm with proceeds of the day’s sales of eggs when they were attacked.

Their employer, Mr. Saeed Edun, had told Kaieteur News that he had expected them earlier but they were delayed after the vehicle suffered a puncture.

Detectives have received reports that a former employee of the poultry

Dead: Aga Khan establishment tipped off the gang to the movements of the vehicle on the night of the robbery.

A second porter, who escaped unhurt, told police that they had just turned into Busby Dam when a man stood in front of the truck, forcing the driver to slow down. He alleged that two other bandits clambered onto both sides of the cab in which both porters were sitting.

One of the bandits reportedly then said “pass the money”, and Marcus reportedly then handed the men the money-bag.

One of the assailants then fired shots which injured both khan and Marcus.

The suspects escaped on foot into Second Street, Craig.

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Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Man butcher’s wife, pleads No evidence of arson in Lusignan blaze - Fire official guilty to manslaughter …sentence deferred to 17 December Th e m u r d e r t r i a l o f We s t B e r b i c e f a r m e r, Anderson Nicholson, called “Andy” and “Cowboy” of D’ Edward Village, West Bank Berbice, came to a halt on Monday.

This was after the accused who had earlier pleaded not guilty to the capital offence of murder changed his plea to guilty of manslaughter.

He was on trial before Justice Roxanne GeorgeWiltshire and a mix jury at the Berbice High Court for the murder of his wife Trevlyn Amelia KingstonNicholson on October 14, 2008 at D’ Edward, West Bank Berbice When the matter began on Monday, attorney at law Tanya Warren Clement told the court that her client wanted to adopt a certain course.

This was put to prosecutor Prithina Kissoon who concurred.

When the matter was read by the Registrar the accused pleaded guilty to the lesser count of

manslaughter.

Justice GeorgeWiltshire then directed the jury to return a verdict of guilty on the lesser county of manslaughter.

She also ordered a probation report which is expected to be presented on December 17.

Before being married, the two had shared a common-law relationship for about four years and since then Nicholson was constantly being abused.

A cousin who lived in the same house, said that whenever the two had an argument he would stand between them so as to prevent the suspect from hitting her.

It was reported that on the day in question the man killed the woman at their home following a misunderstanding over a text message he received.

After she was attacked with a pitchfork and a chopper, she tried to run but fell on a dam next to the house where she bled to death. Her mother was also

Anderson Nicholson severely injured during the incident.

The man then escaped, but subsequently turned himself over to the police a day later with a lawyer.

They had been married for only four months. The woman was the mother of one.

Investigators have so far found no sign that arsonists torched grass track racer Dwarka Gangadin’s Lusignan, East Coast Demerara property.

A senior Guyana Fire Service official told Kaieteur News that investigators are still trying to ascertain what caused the blaze, but there is so far no indication that Friday’s blaze was deliberately set.

According to the official, two children who were in a section of the building claimed that they heard an explosion near an air conditioning unit shortly before the fire started.

The official said that contrary to some reports, firefighters were able to save Gangadin’s furniture store, which was located in the eastern section of the two storey structure.

A neighbour of Gangadin’s said that he was at home at around 17:00 hrs when he saw flames coming from the western side of the house. He raised an alarm and some of the employees from Gangadin’s furniture store rushed over and tried in vain to gain access to the heavilygrilled building.

The neighbour said that he summoned the fire service;

then with water from tanks in the premises, attempted to douse the flames.

Residents alleged that the first fire tender arrived some 45 minutes later. By the time the other fire tenders arrived the western side of the building was already destroyed.

Gangadin also clambered to the top of the two-storey structure in a vain attempt to assist the firefighters, who took over an hour to get the blaze under control. Workers and neighbours managed to remove some furniture and other items from the bottom flat and compound.

Fire tenders from the Campbellville, Alberttown and the Central Fire Station in Georgetown responded but arrived too late to save the building.

Gangadin was charged in

2010 for the murder of his wife, Bridgette, whose body was found near Vigilance, on the East Coast Demerara public road. The grass track racer had told police that his wife had jumped from his truck and he accidentally drove over her body. An autopsy performed

by Government pathologist Dr. Nehaul Singh indicated that the 29-year-old woman died from a fractured skull.

However, a second postmortem by Trinidadian pathologist Professor Hubert Daisley suggested that Mrs. Gangadin was strangled.

Gangadin was charged and committed to stand trial, but was freed almost a month ago after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) reviewed the evidence and ruled that there was not enough evidence against the accused.

Former Trade Minister ...

From page 8 friends; even people whom he found jobs for and for whom he made a difference, perhaps forgot him along the way. But he did not mind.”

Close friend, Trade Unionist, Mr Norman Semple in reflecting on the life of his close friend, stated, “We were

good friends…he wanted me to join the N/A Lions Club…he was very likeable, friendly and made a lot of jokes but he was committed to community service”.

Hilbert Spence’s funeral service will be at the St Sidwell’s Anglican Church at 14:00 hrs on Thursday.

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Kaieteur News

Page 17

Govt. opens GGB branch at Charity Charity is home to a sub-branch of the Guyana Gold Board. The office will be housed in the mega-mall of Alphonso Group Of Companies Ltd, at Charity, on the Essequibo Coast.

D r. G o b i n d G a n g a , Chairman of the Guyana Gold Board of Directors, explained that the branch at Charity could be referred as the key hub, especially at a time when the gold market is quite volatile due to the global political and economic turmoil.

“Like it or not, this is likely to continue in the foreseeable future as global currencies will continue to swing wildly in response to faltering political and fiscal structures around the world.”

Ganga asserted that the volatility will be a tremendous opportunity to make strategic intermediation in gold. The Chairman said that unfortunately this sort of not so objective decision making with a high degree of speculation is not the norm of the Gold Board.

The Guyana Gold Board, Ganga said, is an economically viable entity

that provides intermediation services that benefited a number of stakeholders including the miners, the dealers, GGMC, GRA and the country at large.

Ganga added that the Guyana Gold Board i n t e r m e d i a t e s approximately seventy percent of all gold declared in Guyana and “we hope that this branch will intermediate most of the gold declared in this and the nearby locality.”

Dr Ganga said this year the gold Board is likely to record a historical level of export earnings from gold which is estimated to be in excess of US$600Million.

He said that the level of export earnings undoubtedly provides for the building of resilience in the economy from both external and domestic shocks and as such gold producers are urged to undertake the necessary measures to improve productivity and efficiency so that even if there is a decline in prices, production would remain viable.

Minister of Natural Resources, Robert Persaud, who weighed in on the recent

- Gold earnings to reach US$600M in 2012

At the opening of a sub-branch of the Guyana Gold Board at Charity, Essequibo gold heist in Curacao, said that at present the Government is dealing with a huge phenomenon. The facts are still not clear that gold

left the shores of Guyana, he said. He reminded miners to remain vigilant.

Persaud cautioned miners to be alert, noting

that four licensed dealers were issued with licenses recently.

Also present at the simple cermony were Mr.

Anantram Balram, General Manager, GGB and Mr. Patrick Harding, president of GGDMA (Yannason Duncan)

Page 18

Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Former Trade Minister, Hilbert Spence dies …described as incorruptible, dedicated, service-minded Guyanese

By Leon Suseran “He was one of those politicians (who) never allowed wealth or corruption to stand in his way because he was above corruption and because of that, he died alone and unlike the government officials of today.

“My father was just an average, simple person who lived a very, very simple life— no luxury, no wealth, no nothing and as he told me and some members of this club, corruption was not part of his life. That was the way he was brought up by his parents.”

Former Minister of Trade, Hilbert Spence died on Saturday at his Joseph Pollydore Street, Lodge residence in Georgetown. He was 92. According to his son, Hilbert Foster, Chief Executive Officer of the Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club, his father was a very active member of the business community in Berbice.

“He was a foundermember of the New Amsterdam Lions Club which started on October 23, 1961.

Over the years he was

Hilbert Spence President and Secretary of the club.”

Spence was a senior member of the Berbice Chambers of Commerce and first Insurance Manager of the Colonial Life Insurance Company (Clico), a branch which he started in New Amsterdam in the late 1950s “and was mainly responsible for promoting the company in Berbice”.

On the political level, Mr Spence worked closely with Mr Peter D’Aguiar of The United Force (TUF) party.

After the TUF and People’s National Congress (PNC) merged in 1964, he joined the latter and served as Member of Parliament. He was later appointed, in1967, by Prime Minister Forbes Burnham as Minister of Trade.

His son, Hilbert, added “After D’Aguiar and Burnham parted ways, he stayed with Burnham but after a while, he became tired of the political situation in Guyana. Because my father was very outspoken, he departed the political scene but he still remained quite active and he served as General Manager of Guyana Wrefords in New Amsterdam”.

“Then he went across to the Guyana National Trading Corporation where he served as a senior executive until his retirement in the 1980s,” he stated.

Spence remained active in the Lions Club in Georgetown and also quite active in the

Minister Spence (with pipe) perfoming his duties as Minister Lodge in the city. “My father also played a great part in the establishment of the Esplanade Park in the 1970s in New Amsterdam. Oscar Ramjeet (newspaper columnist) wrote that Hilbert Spence was one of the people in Guyana who really should be honoured; he was a silent hero who was never honoured by the government, I guess because of his outspokenness and free mind to talk whatever came to his lips”,.

Spence played an integral role in setting up a swimming pool in the Esplanade Park in New Amsterdam, which was never completed due to “broken promises by the Town Council”.

Foster stated that despite the fact that his father did not live much with them, “he was a wonderful father to myself and Alex and I think that his leadership style is outstanding and his ability to assist the poor…and he was a role model to both of us in the sense that, his example of

assisting the poor even when he did not have much, taught us to live a good life.”

This kind of living, Foster said, inspired himself and his brother, Alex, to form the St Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Youth Club (now St Francis Community Developers) and the RHTY&SC, both very outstanding groups in Guyana in their own right. The RHTY&SC is Guyana’s number one youth and sports organization/club and indeed one of the more recognized such club in the Caribbean region.

“He encouraged and inspired us to be the best we can and the work that we do at these clubs is our living testimony and tribute to our father who we love and we miss very much”.

“He used to be taking us every single place he went with his friends where they used to discuss business; the political side of it; but his falling out of the political scene robbed off on us, in

that he encouraged his children to stay far away from politics and to serve humanity without supporting any political party”.

Foster added that his father was a very outstanding singer. “I remember clearly listening to him at concerts at the Lions Club…He was quite good. He was also quite active in the Anglican Church and he believed strongly in the values of the Anglican Church. Despite the fact that his children were Catholics, he never encouraged us to switch”.

His dad’s final years were spent in Georgetown. “He spent his entire life assisting people—my father worked beyond the call of duty to make a duty in the life of every single person who came to him for assistance…My father was one of the most wonderful persons; he touched the lives of thousands of people along the way, my father spent his last days quietly by himself and even his political (continued on page 16)

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Kaieteur News

Caribbean committed to Canadian farm programme Bridgetown, Barbados, CMC – Officials from Canada and the Caribbean yesterday began a five-day review of the Canada-Caribbean Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Programme (CCSAWP) with the region indicated it remained committed to the project.

Labour and Social Security Minister Dr. Esther Byer Suckoo, addressing the opening of the meeting, said Caribbean countries recognise that their nationals have benefitted tremendously from employment opportunities under this initiative.

“It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the immeasurable contribution of the programme to the individual empowerment of thousands of Barbadian and Caribbean nationals, and to the building and growth of our nations in this region.”

She said the CCSAWP, commonly referred to as the Farm Labour Programme, has “helped to sustain our families and communities, and ultimately our foreign exchange reserves over the years”.

The Labour Minister said that although the number of workers on the Barbadian leg of the programme had decreased within the last two decades, the island still benefits from remittances related to the initiative.

She described the CCSWAP as an investment and that the annual review meeting is being taken very seriously by regional countries. “(This is) an investment in our people and we commit to doing what is necessary to ensure that our Canadian partners are comfortable with the experience and with the product.

That is why we are here from across the region, because we take this review seriously, as our colleague Ministers of International Business take the Global Forum Peer Review,” she told the meeting.

“The testimonies are many, of workers past and present who have been able to purchase land, construct homes and educate their children through the gains of this programme.”

She said that the

CCSAWP was introduced to the region when it was emerging from “a socially depressed state and c o n t e m p l a t i n g independence,” and that it provides a much needed alternative of empowerment and development of the region’s people.

“We are in debt to the Canadian Government for its continued commitment to this programme, and its commitment to our people and to our development,” she emphasised.

The five-day 2012 CCSAWP meeting is being attended by at least 50 officials including Canadian government representatives; members of the Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services (FARMS) and farmers and employers participating on the CCSAWP. Caribbean delegates will comprise ministers and senior Labour Ministry officials.

The organisers said that the forum will also provide an opportunity for clarification on areas of concern.

Barbados last hosted the CCSAWP meeting in 2006.

Page 19

Rowley: T&T in danger ‘Kamla using race to rally support’ Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley said Sunday that statements by the Prime Minister that she was being betrayed by her own Cabinet were an admission by her that the business of the people of Trinidad and Tobago was not in good hands and the country was in peril.

Rowley also said that as the Congress of the People was attacking PersadBissessar’s leadership, the Prime Minister had chosen t o b l a m e t h e P e o p l e ’s National Movement (PNM).

“Today I want to say to the Prime Minister if you find yourself up a particular creek without a paddle, it has nothing to do with the PNM. It has everything to do with you. ” He said it was not the PNM which appointed Reshmi Ramnarine as head of the SSA, or proclaimed Section 34 or set out to build a highway and was making a “total mess of it”. Rowley also rejected “out of hand the nastiness” of the Prime

Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley Minister using race to rally support for her Government in the face of growing disaffection.

Addressing the PNM’s special convention at the St Augustine Secondary, Rowley said he had been invited to the Divali Nagar this year which he attended, not for the first time.

He said the Prime Minister, and the Minister of National Security, Jack Warner, launched the most vulgar and obscene attack on him for associating with the NCIC (National Council of Indian Culture).

“That was the Prime

Minister seeking to rally support on the basis of race and to disqualify me from associating with fellow citizens on the basis of my race and their race,” he said.

Rowley said on S a t u r d a y, a d d r e s s i n g a UNC party congress, the Prime Minister sought to address a problem which has now surfaced with full fury in the full view of the population where her Cabinet is now being called a cabal and she agreed that she was being blackmailed.

But she turned to the PNM, claiming that the Opposition “only last week” severely criticised the Government for developing the area south of Caroni.

“Where and when did this PNM Opposition severely criticise the Kamla PersadBissessar- Government for developing this country south of Caroni?,” Rowley asked. “So two weeks ago it (she) was trying to rally support based on race.

Last (Saturday) night it (she) was trying to rally support by dividing the country based on geography,” Rowley said.

Page 20

Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Suriname carries out public expenditure reform with US$20 million loan WASHINGTON, USA — The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a US$20 million policy-based loan for Suriname to support public expenditure management reforms that aim to diversify the country’s economic base, raise growth potential and alleviate poverty.

To achieve these goals effective planning, managing, executing and monitoring of

public resources are needed to create the infrastructure for a modern, inclusive and competitive economy.

This program is expected to improve the q u a l i t y, e ff i c i e n c y a n d effectiveness of public expenditure management systems such as public investment, public procurement, public financial management and audit and control.

In the area of public

investment, the program aims to improve the growth contribution of capital spending in line with policy goals, while maintaining fiscal and debt sustainability.

This will include a stronger regulatory framework, modern tools for the public investment cycle, and training of public investment officials.

In public procurement, the program will generate

greater value for money, quality of spending, competition and transparency in the procurement cycle.

This will include the introduction of modern tools and practices, including a functional procurement portal.

This is the second in a series of programmatic policy-based loans the IDB has approved for Suriname’s public expenditure reform.

Barbados plans to object to UN

Joseph Goddard Barbados may not receive much assistance from United Nations agencies, but the world body is asking the island to pay more to help finance UN peacekeeping operations in different parts of the world.

And the Caribbean country is planning to object

to any increase in its share of peacekeeping expenses at this time, according to Joseph Goddard, its top UN diplomat in New York.

“There is really no reason why we should be asked to pay more for peacekeeping than many of our neighbours in the Caribbean, Latin America and elsewhere in the developing world,” said Goddard.

“The matter is now before one of the committees of the General Assembly, and it’s not clear how much we would be called upon to pay. The real issue is that we are being penalized because of our relatively high per capita income and our level of development.

That shouldn’t happen.

We don’t receive much development support from the UN, but we are being asked now to contribute more to peacekeeping.”

I Am Prepared To Die - Kublalsingh ...hunger striker now refusing all medical care, IV fluids

Environmental activist and hunger striker Dr Wayne Kublalsingh with sister Judy Kublalsingh outside the Office of the Prime Minister, at Gray Street, St Clair last week.

Hunger striker Dr Wayne Kublalsingh yesterday refused all medical aid, even his own private ambulance, as he embarked on day 19 of his hunger strike action against the Debe to Mon Desir segment of the highway to Point Fortin.

“There has to be some closure,” he said as he settled into a portable chair under an umbrella yesterday morning.

As the team attempted to set up a tent near the Office of the Prime Minister at Gray Street, St Clair, the police intervened and stopped the

transport vehicles from even off-loading the material to set it up.

A resigned looking Kublalsingh did not react to that. He just sat under an umbrella held by one of his Highway Reroute Movement members. “I have decided today that I will stop having the ambulance here with the doctors, no medical support, basically continue the hunger strike without food and without water,” he said.

He admitted that it was a dangerous step to take at this stage of the hunger strike.

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Kaieteur News

Kamla: I didn’t say Dookeran betrayed party Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar on Sunday denied that she was referring to former Congress of the People leader Winston Dookeran on Saturday, when she spoke of issues of trust and divisions within the People’s Partnership coalition government.

However, National Security Minister Jack Warner lashed out at Dookeran for putting financial supporters before his loyalty to the Government.

Persad-Bissessar, who is political leader of the United National Congress (UNC), which has the largest membership of the now fourparty coalition Government made her remarks at a congress of the UNC at Rienzi Complex, Couva. Warner is the party chairman.

The other coalition members are the Congress of the People (COP), the Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP) and the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC).

She said Saturday, “For those within the Partnership who think otherwise and

PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar would wish to go it on their own, let me also confirm that the electorate will chew and spit out such individuals or political groups who are seen to be betraying the trust that has been placed in the Partnership.

That is why sometimes contrary to your own desires as members of the UNC, I have borne the pains of insults, the stress of threats and sometimes what amounts to blackmail of my leadership.”

Dookeran, who is Foreign Affairs Minister and returned Saturday from Santo

Domingo where he attended a Cariforum meeting last week, sent a statement from that country, appealing to the Prime Minister for compassion in the Dr Wayne Kublalsingh issue.

Kublalsingh’s hunger strike, which entered its 19th day yesterday, is in a bid to impel the Government to undertake an independent technical review of the construction of the Debe to Mon Desir segment of the Point Fortin highway.

In that statement Dookeran said: “In all aspects of public policy, there must be compassion and compromise and Trinidad and Tobago must not be seen in the eyes of the international community as a decadent society.” At a meeting last week Monday, the UNC leaders vilified Kublalsingh for his stance. The Express sent Persad-Bissessar a question by text on whether she was referring to Dookeran in the speech Saturday, Persad-Bissessar simply responded “no”, but in a

telephone interview Sunday, Warner was more vocal on Dookeran’s call for “compassion” from the Government on Kublalsingh’s hunger strike.

“I know that the Kublalsingh family are financial supporters of the COP with millions of dollars through EIL (Electrical Industries Ltd),” Warner said.

Kublalsingh’s younger brother, Hayden Kublalsingh, is a director at EIL. “That does not give Dookeran the right to make a statement contrary to the Prime Minister’s while he was miles away and not fully briefed on the situation,” Warner said.

“No Government can run this way,” he added.

The COP held its executive meeting Sunday at the COP office in Charlieville and both current COP leader, Legal Affairs Minister Prakash Ramadhar and party chairman, Public Administration Minister, Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan refused to comment on the issue.

Page 21

American student killed in Dominica Roseau, Dominica, CMC – A 22-year old United States student has died from injuries received from a boat propeller over the weekend.

Police said that Casey Shulman, a student of the University of Virginia (UVA) was among a group of 54 students who arrived on the island on a ship which offers a semester of studying at sea on Saturday.

The police said that Shulman and a group of students later went snorkelling south of the island and the accident occurred when the students were returning to their base after picking up food supplies.

The authorities said that Shulman sustained injuries all over her body and pronounced dead at the Princess Margaret Hospital.

A statement later issued

by UVA vice president and chief student officer, Patricia Lampkin, said Shulman was a participant in the Semester at Sea programme. “he trip during which the incident occurred was organized independently of the SAS activities.

Casey Shulman Leadership at the Institute for Shipboard Education and senior voyage administrators have also been in contact with Casey’s family, the U.S. Embassy of the Eastern Caribbean and University leadership.”

It said that grief counseling and support services have been made available to all members of the SAS community on a 24-hour basis and that a commemorative service is planned.

The ship was due to leave Dominica on Sunday “as planned and will return to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., on Friday, December 7,” she added in the statement.

Page 22

Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Israel refuses to bend on settlement expansion

(Reuters) - Israel rejected concerted criticism from the United States and Europe yesterday over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to expand settlement building after the United Nations’ de facto recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Washington urged Israel to reconsider its plan to erect 3,000 more homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, saying the move hindered peace efforts with the Palestinians.

Britain, France, Spain, Sweden and Denmark summoned the Israeli ambassadors in their capitals to give similar messages.

An official in Netanyahu’s office said Israel would not bend. “Israel will continue to stand by its vital interests, even in the face of international pressure, and there will be no change in the decision that was made,” the official said. Angered by the U.N. General Assembly’s upgrading on Thursday of the Palestinians’ status in the world body from “observer entity” to “non-member state”, Israel said the next day it would build the new dwellings for settlers.

Such projects, on land Israel captured in a 1967 war, are considered illegal by most world powers and have routinely drawn condemnation from them.

Approximately 500,000 Israelis and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the two areas.

In a shift that raised the alarm among Palestinians and in world capitals, Netanyahu’s pro-settler government also ordered “preliminary zoning and planning work” for thousands of housing units in areas including the “E1” zone east of Jerusalem.

Such construction in the barren hills of E1 has never been put into motion in the face of opposition from Israel’s main ally, the United States. Building in the area could bisect the West Bank, cut off Palestinians from Jerusalem and further dim their hopes for a contiguous state.

Israeli television stations reported Jerusalem’s district planning commission would soon approve plans for several thousand more housing units, including more than 1,000 Israel had shelved

two years ago after angering Washington by publishing the plans before a visit by Vice President Joe Biden.

The settlement plan, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Kimoon said, would deal “an almost fatal blow” to a twostate solution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.

French President Francois Hollande said he was “extremely concerned” and Washington made clear it would not back such Israeli retaliation over the U.N. vote, sought by Palestinians after peace talks collapsed in 2010 over settlement building.

“We urge Israeli leaders to reconsider these unilateral decisions and exercise restraint as these actions are counterproductive and make it harder to resume direct negotiations to achieve a two state solution,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told a briefing.

Ahead of a Netanyahu visit this week, Germany, considered Israel’s closest ally in Europe, urged it to refrain from expanding settlements, and Russia said it viewed the Israeli moves with serious concern.

RETALIATION

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Israel could not have remained indifferent to the Palestinians’ unilateral move at the United Nations.

“I want to tell you that those same Europeans and Americans who are now telling us ‘naughty, naughty’ over our response, understand full-well that we have to respond, and they themselves warned the Palestinian Authority,” he said. Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said building in E1 “destroys the two-state solution,

(establishing) East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine and practically ends the peace process and any opportunity to talk about negotiations in the future”.

The United States, one of the eight countries to vote alongside Israel against the Palestinian resolution at the General Assembly, has said both were counterproductive to the resumption of direct peace talks.

In Europe, only the Czech Republic voted against the status upgrade while many countries, including France, backed it. Netanyahu plans to visit Prague this week to express his thanks.

In the Gaza Strip, Sami Abu Zuhri, spokesman for the governing Hamas Islamist movement, called the settlements “an insult to the international community, which should bear responsibility for Israeli violations and attacks on Palestinians”.

Israeli police arrested three Jewish settlers yesterday whom they suspect of arson and other crimes against Palestinian property in the West Bank, including the torching of a car.

Attackers have often proclaimed they are exacting

a “price tag” for steps taken against the settler movement

by Palestinians, or by the Israeli government.

Alongside the settlement plans, Israel announced it would withhold about $100 million in Palestinian tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, saying Palestinians owed $200 million to Israeli firms. “These are not steps towards peace, these are steps towards the extension of the conflict,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said.

Only three weeks ago, Netanyahu won strong European and U.S. support for a Gaza offensive that Israel said was aimed at curbing persistent cross-border rocket fire. Favored by opinion polls to win a January 22 national election, he brushed off the condemnation and complaints at home that he is deepening Israel’s diplomatic isolation. Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that his government “will carry on building in Jerusalem and in all the places on the map of Israel’s strategic interests”.

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Kaieteur News

Page 23

Prince William, wife Kate expecting a baby (Reuters) - Britain’s Prince William and his wife Catherine are expecting a baby, destined to be the country’s future monarch, although the mother-to-be is in hospital with a type of very acute morning sickness that sometimes indicates twins.

“Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are very pleased to announce that The Duchess of Cambridge is expecting a baby,” the prince’s office said in a statement yesterday, adding that the Elizabeth and the royal family were delighted.

“It’s only been a matter of time. Everyone has been waiting for Kate to announce that she was pregnant,” Claudia Joseph, who has written a biography of the duchess, told Reuters.

A spokeswoman for the

couple said 30-year-old Catherine, widely known as Kate, was in the King Edward VII Hospital in central London suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum, an acute morning sickness which causes severe nausea and vomiting and requires supplementary hydration and nutrients.

Professor Tim Draycott, a consultant obstetrician at the University of Bristol, said the condition was common in the early weeks of pregnancy but did not put the baby at any increased risk, although in extreme cases it can lead to the baby being born with a slightly low birth weight.

Draycott told Reuters it may also indicate more than one royal baby may be in the offing.

“Hyperemesis is slightly more common with twins,”

Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate said Draycott, explaining that the condition affected around one in 100 to 200 pregnant women.

William, a Royal Air Force helicopter pilot, was at her side and she is likely to remain in

Republicans reject tax hike, push cuts in “fiscal cliff” offer

(Reuters) - Republicans proposed steep spending cuts yesterday but gave no ground on President Barack Obama’s call to raise taxes on the wealthiest in their first formal proposal to avert a “fiscal cliff” that could push the U.S. economy into recession.

After days of stalemate, the Republican offer shows deep differences with President Barack Obama as the two sides work to head off across-the-board spending cuts and tax increases due to take effect in January.

The White House dismissed the proposal and said it contained no new ideas.

But it could allow negotiators to begin work in earnest as both sides now have outlined their visions in concrete terms. Analysts say the talks will have to show progress this week to ensure that a deal can be signed into law before the end of the year.

“The American people expect their leaders to find fair middle ground to address the nation’s most pressing challenges,” House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and several other top House Republicans wrote in a letter to Obama.

Both the Republican and White House plans would rely on spending cuts and increased tax revenue to trim budget deficits by more than $4 trillion over the coming 10 years. According to the Republicans, their plan would save $240 billion more than Obama’s proposal.

Beyond the headline numbers, the two plans reveal

House Speaker John Boehner deep philosophical divisions about how the country should balance tax increases and spending cuts to put the country’s finances on a sustainable course.

Republicans envision $1 trillion more in spending cuts than Obama has proposed, while Obama wants $800 billion more in tax increases and $200 billion in measures to boost the sluggish economy.

The Republican proposal would overhaul the complicated U.S. tax code to raise $800 billion in new revenue. Boehner tentatively agreed to that much in new tax revenue, presumably from closing loopholes in deductions, in failed talks with Obama in the summer of 2011.

Monday’s proposal marks the first time his party has floated a budget plan that departs from the anti-tax stance that has defined the party for decades.

But the Republicans said they would oppose raising tax rates on the wealthiest 2 percent of U.S. households,

which is a central element of Obama’s proposal.

“Until the Republicans in Congress are willing to get serious about asking the wealthiest to pay slightly higher tax rates, we won’t be able to achieve a significant, balanced approach to reduce our deficit,” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said in a prepared statement.

The Republican plan would also trim government healthcare costs by $600 billion over a decade, $250 billion more than Obama proposed in his opening bid last week.

It w o u l d s l o w t h e growth of cost-of-living increases on federal benefits by $200 billion by changing the way they are calculated and cut other government spending by $600 billion.

MUTUAL DISTRUST The cuts proposed by Republicans are sure to face fierce resistance from Democrats, who are still smarting over $1.1 trillion in cuts that Republicans extracted in a budget deal last year.

The top Democrats in the House and the Senate said the plan was unacceptable because it would hurt the middle class while protecting the wealthy.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said she would try to force a vote today to raise tax rates for the wealthiest. Negotiators must overcome more than just mutual distrust as they work toward a deal in coming weeks.

hospital for several days.

There was no detail about when the baby was due, although the prince’s spokesman said she was less than 12 weeks pregnant.

“I’m delighted by the news that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting a baby,” Prime Minister David Cameron said on his Twitter website.

“They will make wonderful parents.”

BABY WILL BE KING, OR QUEEN

William, the Queen’s 30year-old grandson, is second in line to the British throne, and their first child will become the third in succession when he or she is born.

Last year Britain and other Commonwealth countries which have the queen as their monarch agreed to change the rules of royal succession so that males would no longer have precedence as heir, regardless of age.

The agreement also means an end to a ban on a future monarch marrying a Catholic, a stipulation dating back some 300 years.

Britain’s royal family is currently riding the crest of popularity on the back of William and Kate’s wedding and the queen’s diamond jubilee this year which has witnessed nationwide celebrations.

The young royal couple has become global stars after some two billion people tuned in to watch their glittering marriage ceremony and the sumptuous display of pageantry that

accompanied it, and barely a day goes by without a picture of Catherine appearing in the pages of Britain’s royalty-obsessed newspapers.

The duchess, the first “commoner” to marry a prince in close proximity to the throne in more than 350 years, is now a fashion icon, with her attire scrutinised every time she steps out in public and followed by legions of women around the world.

U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle were one of the first to send congratulations, an indication of the young royals’ popularity across the Atlantic.

“I know they both feel that having a child is one of the most wonderful parts of their lives. So I’m sure that will be the same for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

With their fame has come unwanted attention, and there was anger in Britain when topless photos of Kate relaxing on holiday were published in a French magazine in September.

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Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Obama warns Syria’s Assad not to use chemical weapons (NBC News) President Barack Obama warned Syrian President Bashar Assad yesterday that the use of chemical weapons by the regime would be “totally unacceptable.”

“The world is watching,” Obama said.

“The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable and if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons there will be consequences and you will be held accountable,” he added.

U.S. officials told NBC News that the Syrian regime had ordered Syria’s military chemical corps to “be prepared.” The officials stressed the directive was not an order to use chemical weapons and did not come from Assad directly, but that order and a considerable increase in activity around Syria’s chemical weapons sites have raised serious concerns.

Syrian state television reported that the Syrian Foreign Ministry denied the

country had any plans to use chemical weapons, no matter the circumstances.

The U.S. officials say the fear is that Syrians are at least preparing to mix the precursor chemicals for sarin nerve gas that could be used in artillery shells – but acknowledged it’s not clear that process has begun.

Once the precursors are mixed, the sarin produced has a relatively short shelf life. In artillery shells, the precursors are packed separately inside the shells and “mixed” immediately before or shortly after the shells are fired.

Despite O b a m a ’s warning that if Syria uses chemical weapons, “there will be consequences,” U.S. military forces have not been put on alert or given warning orders to prepare for any possible military action against Syria. According to a senior U.S. official, there are “plenty of assets in the region which could respond quickly.”

Earlier, the State

Department said the “use or proliferation of chemical weapons” in Syria is a red line for the United States and would result in the administration’s taking “necessary steps or actions.”

“We are concerned about any move that might signal that they are somehow ready to use those chemical weapons on their own people,” spokesman Mark Toner said yesterday, adding that the U.S. is concerned that Assad’s increasingly beleaguered regime might seek to up the ante in the 20month-old uprising.

When asked if the chemical weapon stockpiles are secure, To n e r s a i d t h e U . S . i s monitoring them, but “it is hard to say, in Syria today, that any stockpile of weapons is secure.”

The U.S. is talking to the rebels fighting against the Assad regime about how they should secure chemical weapons that may come into their possession, a senior State Department official said.

U.S. President Barack Obama A senior U.S. defense official said yesterday that U.S. and allied intelligence have detected Syrian movement of chemical weapons components in recent days.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said “the world is watching” Assad and said he’ll be held accountable for his actions.

Carney declined to say what U.S. contingency plans involved.

Chavez will travel to Brazil for summit - ambassador (Reuters) - Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez will travel to Brazil for a regional summit at the end of this week despite cancer-related medical treatment in Cuba, Brazil’s ambassador said yesterday.

If confirmed, the 58-yearold Chavez’s presence at the Mercosur trade bloc meeting would indicate his latest health scare is not as bad as some are speculating.

Venezuelan officials would not immediately confirm the ambassador ’s statement.

Chavez was in Cuba yesterday and it was unknown if he would return home first if he should decide to go on to Brazil.

Having won re-election in October for a new six-year term, Chavez has made scant appearances since then and not been seen in public since November 15. Last week, he left for Cuba, saying in a letter he was to receive “hyperbaric oxygenation” - a treatment used to alleviate bone decay caused by radiation therapy.

The president has undergone three cancer operations in Cuba since mid-2011.

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez So while officials are playing his latest treatment down as a secondary followup to successful removal of two cancerous tumours he has had in the pelvic area, media is awash with rumours that his condition could be much graver.“His presence is confirmed, that’s what I understand,” Brazil’s ambassador in Venezuela, Jose Antonio Marcondes de Carvalho, told Reuters when asked if Chavez would be at the Mercosur meeting.

Chavez’s unusual silence and invisibility has extended to his normally E posted no new messages since November 1.

Tuesday December 04, 2012

MTV CHANNEL 14/ CABLE 65 Sign on 06:00 hrs - Islamic Perspective 06:30 hrs - News Update 07:00 hrs - DAYBREAK 08:00 hrs - Dabi’s musical 08:30 hrs - Avon Video & DVD: Avatar 09:00 hrs - BBC World News 09:15 hrs - Top Notch Music Break 09:30 hrs - Caribbean

Kaieteur News

Temptation Music Mix 10:00 hrs - Amanda’s music break 10:30 hrs - Village Talk 11:00 hrs - National Geographic 12:00 hrs - The View 13:00 hrs - Weekly Digest 13:30 hrs - The Young and The Restless 14:30 hrs - Days of Our Lives 15:00 hrs - General Hospital 16:00 hrs - The Bold and The Beautiful

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Tuesday December 4, 2012 ARIES (Mar. 21–Apr. 19) You are excited today as the storm clouds continue to clear, encouraging you to feel as if you can see forever. Although this is a great day to set longterm goals, the lively Leo Moon adds an element of playfulness to nearly anything you do.

TAURUS (Apr. 20–May 20) You might reveal your innermost feelings today in a rather cavalier manner. Usually, it takes time for you to open up and verbalize your emotions, but self-disclosure seems like the simplest course of action now.

GEMINI (May 21–June 20) You may have so much to do today that you feel tired before you even begin anything. And although it’s difficult to set a pace you can maintain throughout the day, getting started is half the battle now.

CANCER (June 21–July 22) Everything at work seems to be moving along smoothly today now that the extroverted Leo Moon collaborates with the planets in your 6th House of Employment. Nevertheless, your emotions are more complicated than others realize, but you might be afraid to share them now because you don’t want to create any drama.

LEO (July 23–Aug. 22) Today’s outgoing Leo Moon poses an interesting dilemma. You’re more sensitive than usual, but you’re also excited by original ideas and unconventional plans of action.

Your world is humming an unfamiliar tune and you are ready to play along, yet there’s a nagging voice that encourages you to stay within safe boundaries.

VIRGO (Aug. 23–Sept. 22) Newly acquired information must be integrated into your current perspective today, even if you think it will distract you from your real work. You might act impulsively, letting others know how you feel without regard to the consequences.

LIBRA (Sept. 23–Oct. 22) Although today is an action-packed day, it seems as if something is holding you back from doing as much as you wish. It may be that social obligations prevent you from having the fun that you wanted.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23–Nov. 21) Although several planets moving through Water signs heighten your emotional sensitivity now, a Grand Fire Trine empowers you to swing into action and overcome any self-doubt. There’s still more work to do resolving issues regarding your own self-worth, but at least you can sense hope is on the horizon.

SAGIT (Nov. 22–Dec. 21) Your energy is building to a crescendo today, yet you must be careful not to over-commit so you don’t waste the current opportunities in front of you.

It’s tempting to blindly trust your confidence now, but it’s healthier to support your optimistic outlook with analytical skills and a concrete plan.

CAPRI (Dec. 22–Jan. 19) You can feel a shift into a new perspective, but you might still resist change. For this reason, the next few days may feel a bit strained as current circumstances require you to let go of the past.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20–Feb. 18) Social activities bring a lot of joy this time of year, but unfortunately, there is also a high price to pay. If you overextend your commitments now, you might find yourself too tired to do what really must be done.

PISCES (Feb. 19–Mar. 20) It might feel as if you’re running around in circles today, as you think and rethink the same ideas. Your current mental loops may border on obsession, but they can also indicate that some information about a project at work is still missing.

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the Season 23:00 hrs - News Update 23:00 hrs - English Movie: A song for the Season continues Sign Off

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Guides are subjected to change without notice

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Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 04, 2012

Family has crucial role in child development - Min. Webster In recognition of the fact that human resources are the most valuable assets to a nation, social services provided to them are of utmost importance.

This was stated yesterday

by Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Ms Jennifer Webster, when she addressed a gathering at the Cara Lodge, Quamina Street, Georgetown, to mark the re-launch of the Family Commission.

The Commission, chaired

by Reverend Kwame Gilbert, has been mandated to address issues pertaining to the family and more particularly issues focused on promoting good family life inclusive of parenting, leadership and

social interaction in the home.

The work of the Commission, according to the Minister, will include but not be limited to issues related to gender-based violence as it will also cater to the protection of children, women and other social issues that have a direct daily impact upon the lives of members of the society.

“The work of this Commission is therefore fundamental to working to further improve social and moral fabric of our society,” Minister Webster noted.

She vocalised her expectation that the work of the Commission will reach throughout the length and

breadth of Guyana.

She spoke of the need for the far-reaching support in light of the fact that there are many single parent families headed primarily by women. “As we all know the family is the nucleus of any society and it is therefore important for us to recognise the importance of the role of this Commission.

“In our homes the supportive role of the family cannot be overemphasised...The home is the first and most formative frame of reference on which a child models his or her life.”

Minister Webster said that it is imperative that values and virtues are instilled in the lives of children since it is of

paramount importance that they are given equal opportunities and treatment.

“If we perpetuate the prejudice for example that girls should stay indoors whilst boys are allowed to play outside we will therefore be enforcing the unnatural separations we see in the world where women are disproportionally saddled with household duties.

“If our girls are the first choice in forced absence from schooling we will continue with the cycle of economic inequities for women and its attendant to lack of independencies and autonomy,” assured the Minister.

Turning her attention to the fathers in the audience yesterday Minister Webster

Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Ms Jennifer Webster

highlighted the fact that they are often the first man with whom a child interacts, a relation which could forever shape that child’s expectation of how he or she should be treated.

She sought to implore fathers as well as mothers to be cognizant of their roles even as she urged that they facilitate the discovery of their children’s true potentials.

“We need to recognise the importance of teaching our children values of life so that in years to come they would grow up to become upstanding citizens in our country who would be committed and dedicated to working for a better Guyana,” said the Minister.

It is also important, she added, that parents teach their children to respect their elders, to be responsible and respectful to everyone who they come into contact with be it in the home, at school, in the workplace in social settings, communities and the society at large.

“I wish to also emphasise that in our schools we need our girls and boys to be present and

to perform to their full potential...We must dedicate our efforts to change some of the inappropriate attitudes and behavioural patterns which exist within our society.”

According to Minister Webster, it is not only imperative to encourage children to adopt positive attitudes, but it is crucial to urge them to inculcate mannerisms that could lend to them becoming respectful and decent adults in the future.

Of equal importance is the need to examine the socialisation process as all parents have an obligation to be positive role models to their children, said the Minister. She said, too, that the education system has a role to play by reinforcing these messages through the medium of health and family life education in the schools’ curriculum.

“Whether you are a parent or grandparent, a relative, a friend, an elder or a preacher or teacher, spending a few extra moments mentoring a child can have an incomparable and indelible impact upon the shape of that child’s life and the future.”

Situation worsens at New Amsterdam Hospital After three days, the situation that exists at the New Amsterdam hospital is reportedly getting worse even as efforts of a cover up are being attempted by the hospital’s administration.

Wards in the hospital have been flooded since Saturday after the sewage system malfunctioned and caused the fear of an epidemic.

Mainly affected are the Maternal Wards and the Male Medical Ward.

According to sources the hospital administration and the Regional Health Authority seem to have no remedy in sight. This situation has forced patients to abandon the wards and the hospital. The water has risen as much as 12 inches.

The patients had to be evacuated and were forced into other wards while some

were removed by relatives.

Some were sent home by the doctors and some taken to private hospitals.

The new born babies and their mothers are sharing the wards with the pediatric and burn patients. That ward usually housed 14 patients, but at present has about 40 beds. The situation was so desperate that two and three patients were sharing one bed.

Kaieteur News was reliably informed that after three days not much was done to alleviate the situation.

Last evening as staff were forced to work through the night in the unhealthy conditions to clean up the wards, replace the beds and return the patients to the respective wards, word got round that officials from the Ministry of Health would be visiting today to assess the situation.

Tuesday December 4, 2012

Kaieteur News

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Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 4, 2012

Police to engage business community on movement of containers The Police Traffic Department will soon be engaging the business community to work out an arrangement for the movement of container trucks and other heavy duty vehicles through the city during the hectic festive season.

Traffic Chief, Brian Joseph, told Kaieteur News yesterday that his department has been paying keen attention to the movement of these vehicles and the effect they have been having on the free flow of traffic in downtown Georgetown.

The movement of containers during this time of year has always created a headache for motorists and traffic management as businesses hurry to stock their shelves with imported items for the much anticipated Christmas shopping frenzy.

And with the significant increase in the number of vehicles on the roads, there is no wonder that the presence of the heavily laden container trucks, especially during peak hours of traffic, has caused several build-ups with long lines of frustrated

motorists.

“We have been telling the ranks that whenever these trucks are coming through, especially in the busy part of the morning, wait until the traffic eases down. They have been creating the congestion, especially along the East Bank Demerara. That is one of the things that we were discussing this morning,” the traffic chief explained.

“During this week…we will talk to the businessmen and address the problem,” he added.

Apart from the container trucks, parking in the city is also a major worry, with the Traffic Chief acknowledging the limitations of designated areas.

He disclosed that an approach was made to the Ministry of Public Works with a view to identifying some areas for the purpose.

“The Minister was really receptive to us…he told us that they are looking at it but at this juncture, they really cannot address it.”

Meanwhile, the customary increase in street vending, especially along Regent Street, will also be engaging the attention of the Police

Traffic Department.

The Traffic Chief said that his department will be seeking the assistance of the City Constabulary with a view to dealing with the matter in order to facilitate the smooth flow of traffic along the major shopping thoroughfare, especially during the hectic Christmas period.

“What we find is that some of these people are selling on the pave and those same people own vehicles and they are parking them on the road and they are narrowing Regent Street,” the Traffic Chief said.

Two weeks ago, the police launched its Christmas Policing Plan, which encompassed both crime and traffic measures.

The Traffic Chief said that while he is not totally satisfied that all is well, his department is still assessing some of the systems that were put in place to facilitate easy commuting in the city.

New traffic arrangements in certain sections of the city came into effect from December 1.

Under the temporary arrangement, there will be a one-way flow of traffic going

north along Hinck Street, between Regent and Robb Streets, while traffic moving west along South Street between Hinck and Water Streets will head north into Water Street.

Two-way traffic will resume on Smyth Street between Hadfield Street and Brickdam.

Additionally, there will be two-way traffic at Albert Street between North Road and Regent Street.

“We are looking at it (new arrangements) because only

: Pedestrians, shoppers, vendors and vehicles jostle for space on one of the most congested city streets.

two days ago the markings were placed on the roads…we have to observe it this week and see how it will work,” Assistant Commissioner Joseph told Kaieteur News.

And the Police ‘A’ Division will also have to review its crime fighting posture for the Christmas season in light of a spate of brazen daylight robberies in the city. Over the last weekend, at least two such robberies occurred with one resulting in the shooting of a Brazilian businesswoman.

In their effort to keep a lid on criminal activity during this period, the Force has deployed scores of additional ranks on the streets of the city. However, their presence has done little to deter the criminally minded, since most of them are unarmed.

This approach by the police is attributed to the several recent breaches of standard operating procedures by some of its armed ranks.

“We are trying to reduce (Continued on page 29)

Tuesday December 4, 2012

Kaieteur News

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Parliament grills PS over $10M taxi bill Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Tourism, Willet Hamilton, was grilled about why the Ministry spent $13M in 2009 and $10M in 2010 over the use of taxi services for staffers.

Hamilton was called to the Public Accounts Committee to answer a series of questions relating to irregularities that were highlighted in the Auditor General’s 2011 report.

The Auditor General’s report stated that the Ministry spent a whopping $11.1 million on transporting activities. In 2009, R and T Taxi Service, received $7,471,000; Green Ice received $752,000 and Courtesy Transport received $5,538,000; a total of $13,761,000 to transport Ministry staffers for supposed work related purposes.

In 2010, Indian Chief Taxi Service received $144,000, R and T Taxi Service received $7,153,000 and Green Ice was paid $2,750,000; a total of $10,047,000 to again transport Ministry staff for work related matters.

Last year, for transporting purposes, Indian Chief received $5,089,000 from the Tourism Ministry. R and T

Taxi Service received $3,046,000 and Green Ice received $2,979,000.

It was explained yesterday through the Permanent Secretary, that the Ministry staffers would have used taxis since vehicles are limited. According to Hamilton, the Ministry currently has three vehicles.

According to Hamilton he has made the request to have more vehicles be afforded to the Ministry, but has not received any.

Government’s Chief Whip Gail Teixeira, asked Hamilton if there was a monitoring body at the Ministry to make sure that the service is not misused and what are some of the control mechanism if any, for people who use the taxi service.

Former Social Security Minister Bibi Shadick, asked Hamilton whether the Ministry would advertise for bids. Hamilton, in response, said that the Ministry looks at the taxi services’ quotations, but will consider the issue of advertising bids.

Hamilton sought to explain that during the months of such activities like GuyExpo, the calls for taxi would increase and the service is not misused. According to

Permanent Secretary Willet Hamilton Hamilton all of the increases are related to the intensity of the events, especially the national ones.

APNU’s Jaigobin Sharma, questioned Hamilton about the systems in place for the use of taxi by staff members.

According to Hamilton, staff members from every sector of the Ministry, including the Administrative Department, Small Business, Bureau and Consumer Services all benefit from the taxi service. Hamilton explained that staffers who use the taxi would have gotten a written request which is then signed by the requisite authority.

Central Executive Committee Member Ms Volda

Lawrence, sought to find out first what was the budgetary allocation for the Tourism Ministry with regard for taxi services. Hamilton could not give an answer, but promised to have the information available. Hamilton was then asked if he could explain how the three vehicles which he said the Ministry has are assigned.

Hamilton said that one vehicle was used for the Ministry’s administrative staff; they include people from the accounts and consumer affairs departments. He said that the vehicles are also used to go out of town to gather prices, and this exercise can be an allday affair.

Lawrence then requested Hamilton to tell the committee how did the Ministry arrive at spending all the money, when the line item in the AG report goes lower than the amount. Hamilton said that the Ministry has different line items which are for out of town travel.

“I want to know or I’m not sure if the taxi service was extended to office assistants, doing work such as delivering letters in a car” Teixeira said.

Another question raised by Teixeira was, who was

authorizing the taxi service for staffers who would work at nights?

Teixeira told Hamilton that he was yet to convince her that there is a system of monitoring by the Ministry.

He was also asked by Teixeira whether there is a body that monitors the bills and if there is a query with something, the staffer who used the vehicle would have to repay.

According to Hamilton there was no such system, but noted that the Ministry could try this and also could consider the use of motorcycles for office assistants.

OVERPAYMENT OF EMPLOYEES….

On the issue of overpayment, Hamilton was heavily grilled as to why the Ministry still went ahead and paid employees who had their

services terminated very early in the month. Four employees were overpaid salaries totaling $165,139. Their services were terminated with “immediate effect” while their salaries would have already been processed and their bank accounts credited.

When questioned about this Hamilton said that he did not agree with the wording that the Auditor General used.

He explained that the persons mentioned had “walked off” the job.

PPP’s member Bibi Shadick told Hamilton that according to a letter which was produced by the Tourism Ministry the persons had left the job since earlier in the month, so it baffles the mind as to why the same Ministry would want to pay someone late in the month who didn’t work there.

Police to engage...

From page 30 the level of firepower on the streets in keeping with a more people friendly posture. It seems that the criminals have recognized this and are taking advantage,” a senior police officer explained.

While he admitted that the force may be between a rock and a hard place, an effective method will have to be implemented to stem the instances of armed robberies, while maintaining a less violent police posture.

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Tuesday December 4, 2012

Tuesday December 4, 2012

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Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 4, 2012

Mayor Green 78th birthday football tourney

TEAMS VIE FOR QUARTERFINALS SPOTS TOMORROW AT GFC Football lovers that have witnessed the excitement in the Mayor Hamilton Green 78th birth anniversary interward KO soccer tournament can expect more of the same when several teams square off at the Georgetown Football Club Ground, tomorrow evening.

When the action gets underway at 19:00hrs, Santos will play a Georgetown team in an e x h i b i t i o n e n c o u n t e r.

Pouderoyen will the go h e a d to head with Goed Fortuin followed by a highly anticipated thriller between

Stewartville and Sara Lodge.

Uitvlugt will then tackle Eve Leary shortly before Den Amstel square off with Kuru Kururu.

Tucville and Alberttown will then battle for honours followed by a showdown between West Ruimveldt Estate and Grove. Tiger Bay will next oppose Newtown Kitty in the penultimate match moments before Sophia throws down the gauntlet against Kingstown.

Fans could look forward to several top players showcasing their skills including Dellon Cadogan,

Ernie Smith and Randolph Wagner among others.

Activities continue on Friday December 14 when those winners of the aforementioned matches play against each other in quarterfinal encounters.

Those winners will then move into the semi-final round and consequently the best two teams will battle for the championship trophy and the $200,000 prize. The runnersup receive half that amount.

Further, members of the winning team will receive hampers donated by Ricks and Sari.

Dellon Cadogan

Ernie Smith

Randolph Wagner

PERTH (Reuters) - South Africa captain Graeme Smith thinks home advantage will give England the edge in the first of two Ashes series against Australia next year.

Uniquely qualified to comment having just led his team to a series win in England followed by yesterday’s triumph in Australia, Smith said he was choosing his words carefully given his location.

“I think the challenge for

Australia is going to be winning in England,” he told reporters after South Africa’s 309-run win over Australia in Perth secured them the threematch series 1-0.

“I think (England) do play well in their own conditions.

They know how to win there and to be able to adapt and play well there is going to be the challenge for Australia.

“They certainly have the players but from a mindset point of view, I think being a

home series for England, I guess they’d have to be favourites.”

England, who have won the last two Ashes series, will host Australia in the northern hemisphere summer before immediately heading down under for the return series beginning at the end of year.

The change in scheduling is to prevent the Ashes from immediately preceding the 50 overs World Cup every four years.

Underdog are Dinban Memorial Dominoes Champs Asif Ahmad scored a Maximum 18 games to lead Underdog to victory in the final of the Anand Dinban Memorial Dominoes competition which was contested on Sunday last at Amit Ramnarine Restaurant in Good Success, Wakenaam.

Abdool Haleem also chalked 17 games for the winners. Cutters placed third with 79 followed by Club Monaco on 57. Anand Dhannyshore scored a maximum 18 and Mohamed Zafrull made 15 for the runner up team. Fidel Birbal and Amit Ramnarine were Club Monaco’s leading players

with 12 and 11 games respectively.

Meanwhile, Underdog marked 80 games to win round one, while Sea Wall Boys came second with 71 and All Star third with 69.

Abdool Haleem was Underdog’s leading player with 16, while Andrew Osborne and Julian Ramoutar marked 15 apiece for Sea Wall Boys. Mohamed Kalam and Khemraj Surujpaul scored 15 and 14 respectively for All Star.

The second round was won by Cutters with 87 games of which Kalid Zaman led with 18, supported by

Orphans to benefit...

(From page 33) of a similar nature in the future. A release from GASP states that. “The newly appointed executive views this as a significant undertaking where we can together enjoy the joys of giving and at the same time

bring a smile on the faces of those unfortunate and homeless children.”

Meanwhile, activities get underway with the registration starting at 09:30hrs while the first tile will be moved at 10:00hrs sharp.

Dhanyshore and Pooran (only name) with 17 each.

Club Monaco placed second with 77 ahead of Sea Wall Boys 65. Birbal made 16 games and Ramnarine 15 for Club Monaco, while Anil Ramrattan and Osborne scored 14 and 12 respectively for Sea Wall Boys. Ramoutar was the lone love bird.

Underdog received the winning trophy, while Ahmad was given the award for being the most outstanding player in the final. Cutters collected the runner up prize.

The competition was sponsored by All Star Dominoes team and was played in memory of the late Anand Dinban who was a member of the said team. He died under tragic circumstances in December 2011.

Speaking at the presentation ceremony, captain of the All Star team, Khemraj Surujpaul, thanked the participating teams, stating that Dinban was one of their leading players.

Tuesday December 4, 2012

Kaieteur News

Page 33

Orphans to benefit as Scrabble Pat Greenidge named Windies Association stages benefit tournament Women Team Manager ST. JOHN’S, Antigua – The West Indies Cricket Board today announced that former Barbadian national player, Pat Greenidge has been named West Indies Women’s Team Manager.

Greenidge who is currently a senior manager at Sagicor Life Inc., holds an MBA from the Edinburgh Business School and is a qualified Company Secretary.

Greenidge previously served as Team Manager to the Windies Women until 2010. Greenidge is a Board Member of the Barbados Cricket Association and the Chairperson of the BCA

Pat Greenidge Women’s Committee and Women Selection Panel.

Greenidge’s first assignment will be in the West Indies Women’s High

Performance Camp at the Sagicor HPC in Barbados which lasts until December 15th. She will then perform duties on tour for the West Indies Women’s World Cup campaign in February in India.

WICB Cricket Operations Manager Roland Holder thanked former Team Manager Marjorie Thomas for her service to West Indies Cricket. “Marjorie has made a valuable contribution during her tenure and the WICB thanks her for her time and energies and wishes her the very best in her future endeavours,” said Holder.

Flex Night International

Mukesh Kanhai vows “Suriname is coming to Guyana to win”

Mike Tyson once said that in the ring he threw punches “with bad intentions.”

President of the Suriname Bodybuilding and Weightlifting Federation, Mukesh Kanhai, was in similar combative mood about the mission of the Suriname bodybuilding team coming to Guyana for the Flex Night International event on Saturday night.

Flex Night Incorporated, the organizing committee led

by Manager Donald Sinclair and a team were in the neighbouring country for that nation’s premier show over the weekend. “Donald, we are coming to Guyana to win, the Best Country Trophy will be ours,” In a light-hearted exchange in Paramaribo with Donald Sinclair.

Kanhai explained that Suriname has chosen the best of the best at the Mr. Suriname bodybuilding event, and that second place trophies are not part of their business.

Judging from the 4-man team that Suriname has selected to compete in Guyana, Kanhai has reason to feel confident. The Suriname bodybuilding team comprises the following: Mr. Suriname 2012, Koese Soepe (Under 154 pound class); Jurgen Tjoekoemba (155-165 pounds class); Melvin Tolud (166-176

Mr. Suriname 2012 Koese Soepe pounds class) and Wendel Selmo Pawiro (over 176 pounds class). The current Mr. Suriname, Koese Soepe, came 7th in Madrid in the 2012 Arnold Classic out of a field of over 150 international bodybuilders.

The President confirmed that Suriname is also travelling with a large contingent of both officials and supporters to attend the Fitness Expo and Flex Night bodybuilding events. Three in the group are from Holland, Gisa ter Haar, the guest artiste, Andrew Houtveen, her husband and Coach, and Rinus van der Zeijden, International Fitness and Bodybuilding Coach. Brazil is the other county that will be sending a team to compete at this Saturday’s event which is set for the National Cultural Centre; tickets are already on sale at the venue with Auditorium Front costing $1,500, Auditorium Rear $1,000 and Balcony $800.

Guyana’s challenge for glory will be led by reigning Mr. Guyana Devon Davis; former multiple CAC gold medalist and Mr. Guyana Sylvan Gardner who is returning to the competitive

stage as will be USA based and former Guyana sprint star Rawle Green; Reigning Mr. HRC Kerwin Clarke and former Mr. HRC Royston Booker among others.

While all the attention will be on stage when the flexing of muscles begins on Saturday evening, a number of fans will be afforded the opportunity to win attractive door prizes that have been made possible through the kind partnerships of some of the many sponsors of the event.

Among the prizes to be won are a Day Trip to Arrow Point Resort compliments of Roraima Airways; One fitness hamper sponsored by The Gift Center; Swedish full body relaxation massage from B’s Beauty Circle & Naturopathic Center; One month’s membership at Fusion Fitness (19 Water Street); Supplement pack from Fitness Express (Sheriff Street); Cash voucher redeemable from any booth at the Fitness Expo or at D&J Shipping compliments of D&J Shipping; Supplement pack and Asics footwear sponsored by Giftland OfficeMax and Three (3) nights & breakfast at the Eco Resort in Suriname.

Leon Belony The Christmas season is upon us and the newly elected officers of the Guyana Association of Scrabble Players (GASP), under the Presidency of Leon Belony, will join in the spirit of giving when they stage a charity competition this Sunday December 9 at the Malteenoes Sports Club, Thomas Lands.

“It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; the common right of humanity,” a release quoting the words of Seneca the Elder, proclaimed.

Abigail McDonald Whatever cash is accrued after the entrance fee of $1000 per player is collected, will be matched by the GASP, supported by personal donations from the membership, and given to at least two identified orphanages.

That apart, members of GASP will also donate items like toiletries, exercise books, pens and pencils among others for the orphan’s use.

Donating members are asked to take items to the venue of the tournament on

competition day or give them to any of the executive members prior to the event.

This also includes additional monetary donations.

Consequently, representatives of the identified charities will arrive at the venue at the completion of the tournament, at around 17:30hrs, to collect the donated items. This is a pilot project of the newly elected officials and the executive members have indicated that there will be many more (Continued on page 32)

Page 34

Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 4, 2012

Proteas ruin Ponting farewell with emphatic win PERTH, Dec 3 (Reuters) South Africa asserted their position as the best team in the world with an emphatic 309-run victory over Australia in the third test to clinch the hard-fought series 1-0 and ruin Ricky Ponting’s farewell on Monday.

Ponting had been hoping to sign off in his 168th test with a victory that would have allowed Australia to leapfrog the Proteas and return to the summit of the game they dominated for so much of his career. They never looked getting anywhere near the winning target of 632 they had been set, however, and were bowled out for 322 in their second innings shortly before the scheduled close of play.

Appropriately, it was the South African bowling unit which sealed the victory after finally firing in Perth to turn the series around with a devastating spell on the morning of day two at the WACA. The South Africans got the best possible start to the day on Monday with two early wickets which brought

37-year-old Ponting to the crease for his 287th and final test innings 45 minutes before lunch. Welcomed onto the field by a guard of honour of applauding South Africans, he lasted just 40 minutes and 23 balls before the same players were shaking his hand as he headed back to the pavilion with eight runs to his name. Two fours, the first a vintage pull, closed his test tally at 13,378 runs for an average of 51.85 from 168 matches - the second highest run count in the long history of the game.

STUMPED Spinner Robin Peterson (3-127) will go down in the record books as the last bowler to dismiss the Tasmanian, tempting Ponting into an attempted cut which ended up as an edge into the hands of Jacques Kallis in the slips.

The former Australian captain took off his helmet and raised his arms to accept the applause of the crowd before taking his leave from the field where he made his test debut 17 years ago.

“I probably had in mind a

bit more of a fairytale ending than I’ve had here,” he said in an emotional news conference. “Graeme’s gesture, that sort of thing will live with me forever.”

Opener Warner (29) had lasted just two deliveries in the bright morning sunshine before edging the ball to Smith in the slips off the bowling of Vernon Philander.

Watson (25) was the next to depart with Smith again taking the catch after Morne Morkel had softened the allrounder up with some short bowling. Ed Cowan outlasted Ponting and had just reached his half century when he fell for 53, leaving Michael Clarke and Mike Hussey to try and build the sort of partnership they enjoyed when Australia were in the ascendancy in the first two tests.

It was not to be, though, as Clarke (44) was stumped charging down the wicket to Peterson with Hussey (26) and Matthew Wade (10) soon following him back to the dressing room. The tea break only delayed the departure of Mitchell Johnson (three) and John Hastings (20) but

Mitchell Starc (68 not out) and Nathan Lyon wagged the tail with some vigour in a 10th wicket partnership of 87. Starc showed his top order how they should have been done and claimed his maiden half

century in 32 balls, scoring nine fours and two sixes in a fluent innings before Lyon was caught by Smith off the bowling of Dale Steyn (3-72).

Scores: South Africa 225

(du Plessis 78*) and 569 (Amla 196, de Villiers 169, Smith 84, Starc 6-154) beat Australia 163 (Wade 68, Steyn 4-40) and 322 (Starc 68*, Cowan 53, Steyn 3-72, Peterson 3-127) by 309 runs.

Australia’s Ponting a ‘true legend’, says ICC

Australia’s Ricky Ponting (2nd L) poses with his wife Rianna and daughters Emmy (centre R) and Matisse (L) at the WACA in Perth after the third test cricket match December 3, 2012. REUTERS/Stringe (Reuters) - Ricky Ponting is “one of the true legends of the sport” the International Cricket Council (ICC) said of the former Australia captain who ended his test career on Monday.

Ponting, 37, was the most successful test captain in the history of the sport. He played in 168 tests and 375 one-day internationals for Australia and won the ICC World Cup three times, twice as skipper.

“His contribution to the international game has been

immense and quite rightly he will be remembered as one of the true legends of the sport,” ICC Chief Executive David Richardson said in a statement.

“Ricky was a team man but along the way collected many personal accolades and is the only player to have won the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for Cricketer of the Year at the LG ICC Awards for two years in succession (2006 and 2007).

“We wish him well in the next stage of his career and

look forward to his ongoing involvement in the game beyond the boundary,” Richardson said.

Ponting was out for eight against South Africa in his final test innings as Australia suffered a 309-run defeat in Perth.

However, he finished his 17-year career as the second highest test run scorer behind India’s Sachin Tendulkar with 13,378 runs at an average of 51.85.

West Indies left arm spinner Veerasammy Permaul has been chosen to lead Guyana in the Regional Twenty\20 tournament which begins on January 6th 2013.

Demerara all-rounder Christopher Barnwell will serve as his deputy.

The squad also includes dependable middle order batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul who is expected to open the batting along with Trevon Griffith, the lone specialist opener in the fourteen man team.

Ramnaresh Sarwan, Narsingh Deonarine, Rajiv Ivan, Jonathan Foo and Leon

Johnson will bolster the middle order, while Stephen Jacobs, Royston Crandon are also capable all rounders.

Permaul and his Albion team mate, leg spinner Devendra Bishoo spearhead the spin bowling department, while Essequibian Ronsford Beaton is the only genuine fast bowler selected. The team will be coached by Esan Crandon and managed by Alvin Johnson. The players along with the seven stand bys are asked to report at the Chetram Singh Center of Excellence at 16:00 hours tomorrow (Wednesday 5th of December).

The full squad reads: Veerasammy Permaul(Capt.), Trevon Griffith, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Leon Johnson, Narsingh Deonarine, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Christopher Barnwell(vice captain), Royston Crandon, Steven Jacobs, Derwin Christian (WK),Jonathan Foo, Devendra Bishoo, Ronsford Beaton, Rajiv Ivan.

Esan Crandon (coach), Alvin Johnson (manager).

Stand by players: Dillon Heyliger, Assad Fudadin, Paul Wintz, Keon Joseph, Anthony Bramble, Andre Stoll and Shimron Hetymeyer

Permaul to lead Guyana in Regional T\20 tourney

Tuesday December 4, 2012

Kaieteur News

Page 35

Shariff put things in order for Bush Lot United Horserace meet Sunday Horseracing over the years has been dubbed the king of sports and with recent competition from other sports for sponsorship and publicity, those in the horseracing fraternity are giving the assurance that they will stay ahead of the competition. They next horserace meet is just a mere days away. That’s when the Bush Lot United Turf Club stages their mega end of season one day Horserace meet at the club’s track, Sea View Park, Bush Lot West Coast Berbice. Eight races are on the cards and a whopping $7M is up for grabs.

Over the past few days a number of sponsors have rushed forward to solidify their deal with the organisers as preparations round out for what is expected to be a riveting day of racing. On Monday businessman, Mohammed “Nankoo” Shariff, Business Enterprise of No 4 Village West Coast Berbice with businesses in general construction, trucking, transportation, gas station, cattle and rice farming and racing stable, handed over a hefty sponsorship package to the organisers at

their cattle ranch and racing stable at No6 Village, West Coast Berbice.

Doing the honours was trainer Glendon Sooklall who expressed the company’s pleasure in associating with the BLUTC, especially since they are into horseracing. He stated that his boss is always willing to assist education, charity, youth and community activities as long as they are tangible and has good accountability. President of the BLUTC Rooparam Jagit in accepting the cheque on behalf of the club stated that the BLUTC is ever grateful to Mr. Shariff and his staff for their timely contribution and what they have been doing to assist the BLUTC grows over the years. He also thanked Mr Shariff for what they have been doing in the community and wished them well in the future. The BLUTC, which had been dormant for a number of years, has only returned to racing two years now and the club has been growing in leaps and bounds with the entire sward taking on a new look with a number of new facilities in place including grand stand, pavilion, fences, rails, wash

room facilities, paddock, scale room among other additions.

Entries are expected to close on Wednesday December 15 and at the moment there over 70 horses entered for the day’s action.

The full list of events are The Feature B and lower 1500M contest sponsored by Banks DIH Limited for a tantalizing $1M and trophy with a total purse of $2M. The other races are the co-feature D3 and lower 1200M gallop and the Three year old race for Guyana and West Indies bred horses, which have similar winning purses of $450,000 and trophy over 1200M and 1500M respectively.

The Guyana and West Indies Bred two year old event and the G and lower race are 1000M events with winner’s monies set at $350,000 and $300,000 with trophies respectively.

The two years old Guyana bred horses and the ‘I’ and lower animals also contest 1000M races for first prizes of $200,000 and $170,000 and trophies. The J &K and lower 1400M event is for a winner’s take of $150,000 and trophy.

The top individual

Jets, Kings, Raiders each record wins over weekend Amelia’s Ward Jets, Kashif and Shanghai Kings and Retrieve Raiders all won their opening matches as the Linden Amateur Basketball Association’s Malta Supreme Magnificent Seven Christmas Basketball Championship got started over the weekend at the Mackenzie Sports Club Hard Court in Linden.

Playing the first match on Saturday night, the Jets sailed past the Wismar Pistons, who returned to competitive basketball after missing the BOSAI Championship, 52-41, while on Sunday the Kashif and Shanghai Kings first cruised past Block 22 Flames, crushing them by 30 points, 77-47 and the Retrieve Raiders outplayed Victory Valley Royals 56-53.

Saturday’s opening night saw the Jets record their win behind their captain Kevin Joseph’s game high 14 points, with Allister Webster getting 12 and Devon Thompson nine as Rodwell Pellew scored eight for the winners.

The Pistons, who were trailing after the first quarter

9-12, at half time 17-23 and when the third quarter ended 27-38, never seemed to threaten and their captain Mark Louis and Sherwin Sergeant had the top scores for the losers with nine apiece, on a night where only one game was played.

On Sunday night the Kings got their campaign going with a dominant win over the Flames as national skipper Steve Neils (Jr.) had their top score of 18 points, while Orin Rose added 14, Deon Moore 10 and Omally Sampson seven for the winners.

Shawn Cameron and Aubrey Johnson were the top

shoots for the Flames with 14 points each.

In the other game Sunday night, the Raiders shrugged off the challenge of the Royals to win 56-53, as Alexander Rose netted 14 points, Neil Marks 13 and Dauwin Lovell 10. The Royals’ Harold Adams had a game high 23 points in their loss as Marlon Pollydore contributed 10.

The competition continues tomorrow with two more matches at the MSC hard court. In the first at 7:00pm, Amelia’s Ward Jets take on Block 22 Flames and the second at 9:00pm is between Wismar Pistons and Half Mil Bulls.

Bangladesh’s Abul ruled out of remaining Windies matches DHAKA (Reuters) Bangladesh pace bowler Abul Hasan has been ruled out of the remaining three one-day internationals of a five-match series against West Indies due to a side strain, the Bangladesh Cricket Board

(BCB) said yesterday.

Abul sustained the injury during the second match in Khulna when he could bowl just one over before leaving the field. He has been replaced by all-rounder Ziaur Rahman.

Bangladesh lead the series 2-0.

Trainer of the Shariff Racing stable, Glendon Sooklall (2nd right) presents the sponsorship deal to club president Rooparam Jagit. Surveying the scene are club treasurer Lakeram Sukdeo (left) and CEO of the Shariff Business Enterprise, Mohammed “Nankoo” Shariff. performers including top jockey, stable and trainer will be presented with trophies compliments of The Trophy Stall, Bourda Market.

Among some of the horses expected to be on show are the Score is Event, Who so Ever, the Message, Mission King, Do Nut Prince,

Diamond Dazzle and California strike, Marathon Man, War Craft, The Bailiff, Gold Plated, Serenity, Sleep In Town, Settle In Seattle, Windy War, Storm in a tea Cup, Technology and Bridal Stone Corner among others.

Interested persons can make enquiries with

coordinator and Treasurer Lakeram .B. Sukhdeo on Number 232-0558 or 672-0810 or President Rooparam Jagit (tel 232-0231), Dennis De Roop on number 609-9143, Annie on 613-1884 and Compton on 690-0569.

Race time is 12:30 hrs. (Samuel Whyte)

Page 36

Kaieteur News

Tuesday December 4, 2012

Black Bush Polder Secondary wins Inter School Chess championship in Berbice

The Orealla students with their teacher and a parent flanked on the left by Mr. Pearson and on the right by Mr. Raghunandan.

Defending champions Black Bush Secondary School of Mibicuri Black Bush, Corentyne made good use of home advantage as they for the second year running won the Berbice Inter School Chess Championship which is in its third year. Coming in second was Vryman’s Erven

Secondary School with J.C Chandisingh placing third.

Last year, Black Bush Secondary won their first tournament by defeating defending champions Berbice High School which was the host then. The inaugural championship in 2010 which was held at the J.C

The winning school, Black Bush Secondary, receiving their trophy from Ms. Bhajan.

Chandisingh Secondary school, Corentyne was won by the Berbice High School.

In the individual category Hemchan Narain of J.C. Chandisingh Secondary School was adjudged the winner with Darwin London of St. Theresa Primary School surprising his opponents to

place second and Deochan Narain of J.C. Chandisingh Secondary School finishing third.

This year’s competition saw, for the very first time, participation from students of the Amerindian community of Orealla. Five students represented the Orealla area three from the primary and two from the Secondary.

Coordinator of the tournament and committee member of the Guyana Chess Federation, Krishnanand Raghunandan, in his remarks urged the players to continue playing and to acquire the habit of recording their moves

Darwin London of Saint Theresa’s Primary, Second prize winner Individual Category, receiving trophy from Ms. Bhajan. and those of their opponents.

This, he said, would help them to analyse their own strengths and weaknesses in order to improve their skills.

Also speaking was representative of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, Kenneth Pearson who gave the ministry’s blessing to the tournament and urged the students to stay focused in their quest to improve their skills. He gave the Ministry’s commitment and their continued support to the staging of the tournament and the promotion of the game.

Trophies for this year’s tournament were sponsored

by Republic Bank (Guyana) Ltd. Rose Hall Branch; HandIn-Hand Group of Companies; Crown Spot Beverages of Rose Hall Town; Imran & Son & Daughters Rose Hall Town; Magistrate Chandra Sohan and family of Palmyra Village.

The competition was conducted using the Swiss systems and was supervised

by Steve Leung, Wayne De France, Dane Grimmond and Joseph Brijbilas.

Forty-seven students from twelve schools participated in this year’s Championship. (SAMUEL WHYTE)

23rd Kashif and Shanghai Football Tournament...

Beharry to hand over MVP Motor Car today Corporate Guyana is making good of its promise as it relates to the 23rd Kashif and Shanghai Football Tournament, as Edward B. Beharry & Company LTD, is set to hand over a brand new motor car which will be presented to the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Championship.

The presentation will take place at the entity’s Georgetown Office, located at Wellington and Charlotte Street at 11:00 hours.

The brand or model of vehicle has not yet been revealed, even by the sponsors, since according to the Kashif Muhammad, Co-Director of the Kashif and Shanghai Organisation, the “Company wanted to make an impact in a special way, so everything was kept a secret even to us.

They committed to sponsoring a brand new car to the MVP and they are honouring their promise”.

Beharry, manufactures and distributors of the Chico Sweets brand, is also the sole sponsor of the inaugural

Kashif and Shanghai Under13 Inter-School Championship that will be played simultaneously, starting on December 22.

This year’s tournament will officially be on the way on December 16 at the Georgetown Football Club Ground (GFC), with Amelia’s Ward United of Linden squaring against Bartica’s Mill Ballers from 6:30 PM and Bakewell Buxton Stars playing Pele to wrap up the double header.

Four Million Dollars is up for grabs in the win or go home formatted tournament, lucky fan will ride away with brand new motorcycles during the competition.

Action in the 23rd Kashif and Shanghai Tournament will culminate on New Years Day (January 1, 2013) at the Guyana National Stadium with an after football concert featuring Mavado.

Tuesday December 4, 2012

Kaieteur News

Page 37

Guinness ‘Greatest of de Streets’ Futsal Competition...

Massive support anticipated for teams as semi-finals begin tonight Even though most times in sports the best teams make it to the championship round, no one could have predicted that the quarter-finals of the Banks DIH-sponsored Guinness ‘Greatest of de Streets’ Futsal Competition which was played on Sunday evening, at the Banks DIH Car Park would have produced such breathtaking action that unfolded between some of the best exponents of the format.

Before another capacity crowd that saw spectators scrambling for the best vantage points amidst the screams of supporters of the respective teams, the skills and doggedness exhibited the players only served to emphasise why the event which has taken on regional and international appeal have turned into a phenomenal spectacle.

The four exhibition matches also have prize money up for grabs and their exciting displays set the tone for a night of fascinating futsal and fans now eagerly await the semi-finals which kick off this evening, at the National Cultural Centre Tarmac.

In the first semi-final, starting at 21:30 hrs West Front Road impressive winners over Queen Street of Tiger Bay will go up against Leopold Street who survived a penalty shootout against another Tiger Bay-based team Hope Street.

West Front Road will once again be depending on the servives of the Pedro clan, Michael and Hubert along with support from Randolph Wagner to bolster their chances of winning, while Leopold Street has proven to be a stubborn team despite

not having any ‘big’ name player.

They have already demonstrated their mental strength after surviving back to back penalty shootouts and the opposition should be cognisant of this and try to win the game in regulation time.

The other semi-final is between current title holders Back Circle and former champions Broad Street ‘B’ and it is no wonder that this clash happens to be the feature attraction, commencing from 22:15 hrs.

Fans could be assured that this encounter will be an explosive one and predicting a winner is as difficult as getting solutions to the problems that plague local football.

The champs have not looked as clinical as last year, but they are an experienced unit and know how to change gears on the big occasion.

They barely survived an extensive penalty shootout against counterparts East Front Road, prevailing 13-12 with the Organisers having to place the penalty marker at the half way line after the normal spot failed to separate the teams initially.

Andy Duke, Dexter Bentick, Vincent Thomas, Wayne Wilson and Leon Murray will have to be in impeccable form to lead their team to victory because Broad Street ‘B’ has been in sublime form throughout the tournament.

The Gravesande brothers Jimmy and Rocky, Daniel Favourite and Kevin Griffith are all seasoned players with a wealth of experience in this format and they have proven to be a difficult unit to get past so end to end action is

Action in the quarterfinal clash between Broad Street ‘B’ and Sophia ‘B’ on Sunday evening at the Banks DIH Car Park.

expected. Two exbibition matches featuring GT Masters versus Guinness Bar from 20:00 hrs and Clippers Barber Shop vs. Upper Level at 20:45 hrs will also be played.

Meanwhile, in results of quarter-final action, GAME 1 Oasis 2 beat Quick Set Car Wash 2-0 Goal Scorers Oasis Jermaine Tinch 9th &19th min GAME 2 GT Masters edged YMCA 21 Goals Scores GT Masters Mark Anthony 9th min Gordon Henry 14th min YMCA Devon Charles 5th min GAME 3 Upper Level squeezed past Banks DIH Limited 2-1 Goal Scorers Upper Level Barber Shop Anton George 4th min Eric Moses 14th min Banks DIH Limited Mike Layne

GAME 4 Clippers Barber Shop needled Guinness Bar 1-0 Goal Scorer Clippers Barber Shop Timothy Telford 5th t min GAME 5 Leopold Street 0 v/s Hope Street Tiger Bay 0 Leopold Street Won on Penalty 3:1 GAME 6

Broad Street ‘B’ Sophia ‘B’ 2-0 Goal Scorers Broad Street ‘B’ Jimmy Gravesande 9th min Daniel Favorite 13th min GAME 7 Back Circle and East Front Road drew1-1, but the former won on penalty kicks 13-12.

Goal Scores Back Circle Wayne Wilson 11th min

East Front Road Dexter McKenzie 8th min GAME 8 West Front Road cruised past Queen Street Tiger Bay 3-1 Goal Scorers West Front Road Michael Pedro 6th min Hubert Pedro 8th min Randolph Wagner 14th min Queen Street Tiger Bay Leon Fredericks 10th min

t r o Sp

Chess champions Khan, Drayton collect accolades at GCF ceremony Errol Tiwari honoured for sterling contribution to sport

A

f t e r a n especially hectic year where chess players travelled to several rural communities to compete for lucrative accolades, the Guyana Chess Federation (GCF) hosted a reception at the Olympic House, Kingston, where those players that were engaged in the just concluded National Chess Championships, convened at the same venue to receive their prizes, Friday evening last.

Defending three times senior champion, Taffin Khan, and his junior counterpart, Anthony Drayton, led 16 players that were rewarded for outstanding performances.

The Chess Federation also honoured past President, E r r o l Ti w a r i , w h o s e distinguished service to the subject entity has aided in the promotion of the sport.

Shiv Nandalall, who succeeded Mr. Tiwari, who had resigned for health reasons, highlighted the valuable contribution of his predecessor towards the effective resuscitation of the sport. He said that Mr. Tiwari had gone the extra mile, publishing a weekly column that informed the uninitiated of the vagaries of the sport.

“His input was insightful,

Mr. Nandalall (1st left sitting) joins senior champion, Taffin Khan (2nd left standing), Anthony Drayton (4th left standing) and other chess players at the prize giving function.In benjie as 'chess presentation' stimulating and thought provoking and was well received by the reading public,” Mr. Nandalall noted.

The GCF President further said that Mr. Tiwari presided at a time when affiliates were struggling in the revival of the sport.

During the year, the

Ocean Spray Hotel, Stanley Place Kitty, had extended hospitality while making their facilities available free of charge to the Federation for its tournaments.

Consequently, Mr. Nandalall extended gratitude to the management. “Admittedly, we live in a world where

everything carries a price but the management of Ocean Spray Hotel has graciously accommodated us to conduct our tournaments without hindrance and I want to sincerely express my gratitude,” he said. He further said a big 'thank you' to Managing Director Shameer Mohamed and his

staff.

Sponsorship is a very important ingredient to the sustenance of the sport and Secretary of the GCF, Vi s h n u R a m p e r s a u d expressed gratitude to the many corporations and individuals that have contributed in this area.

They include Apex

Insurance Brokers, The Trophy Stall, DDL Topco Juices, Malta Supreme, Caribbean Container Inc, Sasha Cells, The Red Cherry Café, Uniparts Auto Spares, Kei-shar's, Kings Jewelry World, Geddes Grant, Roraima Airways, Lucky Dollar, GT&T and Liat Airlines.

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