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Kaieteur News
Friday October 19, 2012
Cops were killed after robbery attempt on mining camp
Police have confirmed that two of their ranks who were found dead in the mountainous Region Eight location of Kato were murdered. The bodies of Constables Marlon Letlow and Leadon Aaron, which were flown to the city yesterday, bore gunshot wounds. Aaron’s body was burnt almost beyond recognition. This publication was told that the two policemen were victims of retaliation from miners whose camp they had attempted to rob on Sunday. Sources say that from all indications the men were
fleeing from their attackers. Both of them appeared to have been shot in the back. Reports are that the men went out on a routine patrol since Sunday and were returning to the Police Station when they were attacked. Aaron’s remains were found at around 16:00 hours on Wednesday at Paramakatoi, North Pakaraimas, a short distance from the crashed All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) that they had left the police station with. His .38 service revolver has not been recovered. Letlow’s remains were
found in a clump of bushes several hours later with his weapon, and a magazine with eight live rounds, close by. His body bore at least two gunshot wounds and other vicious marks of violence. Eight spent shells and one spent 12 gauge shotgun cartridge were reportedly found at the scene. According to reports, Aaron was riding the ATV when the incident occurred. Reports are that the two cops were confronted by their intended victims who sought to defend themselves. A reliable source has informed this newspaper that from all indications, Aaron received the first gunshot and lost control of the ATV, hurling Letlow, who was also mortally wounded, into a nearby clump of bushes where he was eventually left to die. The badly injured Aaron was subsequently tied to a tree and set alight. The attackers apparently did not know that the two men were policemen, since they were both wearing civilian clothes at the time.
Police in a press release stated that Constable Marlon Letlow was recently reinstated into the Police Force, on August 06, 2012. He had been interdicted from duty after being charged criminally following investigations into the robbery and murder of two gold miners at Bartica on September 05, 2010. Constable Letlow was initially charged with “accessory after the fact” which was subsequently withdrawn and a charge of “receiving stolen property” instituted. This matter was dismissed by the court on May 15, 2012. A senior police officer has expressed shock that he was sent to a remote location with little or no supervision. According to the officer, in a case like Letlow’s, the best practice is that the rank be placed under strict supervision to monitor his actions. This newspaper was reliably informed that the current subordinate officer at the Kato Police Outpost, under whom Letlow and
Leadon Aaron
Marlon Letlow
Aaron worked, was previously a Sergeant who was busted all the way down to Constable for disciplinary matters. It was only after a number of years that he was promoted to Lance Corporal. “The situation in my opinion is clearly an expression of weak leadership at the senior level, exacerbated by poor supervision at the junior level,” the officer said. Another officer recalled that the late Police
Commissioner Henry Greene was very careful when sending reinstated ranks with a particular track record into the E&F Division. According to the officer, the late commissioner usually ensured that should a rank with questionable character be sent into the interior, there was proper supervision at the location, and that the opportunity for ranks to leave that location to venture “on their own” into mining communities, was limited.
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
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New GPC Anti-malaria drugs tender…
$228M bid variance a “public scandal” As questions continue to pour in over government’s insistence to purchase drugs using highly controversial methods, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) has expressed alarm at this and believes that it is time for a full investigation. APNU Parliamentarian Joseph Harmon also slammed the behaviour of the New Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation (New GPC), the company that is at the centre of the controversial drug purchases. Literally billions of dollars have been paid over to New GPC over the past decade for the supply of drugs and other medical supplies. The annual Auditor General’s reports in recent years have criticized the purchases which it said was not done in a transparent manner. But government had come out in defence of its method of using prequalification as the system for procurement. On Tuesday, bids were opened for the supply of antimalaria drugs and two tenders came in. I n t e r n a t i o n a l Pharmaceutical Agency (IPA) submitted a proposal for $32,730,400 while New GPC’s bid was for $261,568,442. It meant that New GPC’s price was $228,838,042 more than IPA’s. New GPC’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ Ramroop, had slammed the privately-owned Stabroek News for the report, claiming his company was deliberately under attack. However, Harmon yesterday said that the $228M difference in the bid prices between the two companies is a “public scandal” that should spur government into immediate action. PATTERN OF BEHAVIOUR “For Mr. Ramroop to insinuate that it is no one’s business to ask questions when it is the people’s money
- demands full investigation - APNU
New GPC CEO, Dr. Ranjisinghi Bobby Ramroop we are talking about, is slap in the face of Guyanese…it is part of the overall pattern of behaviour of this company which appears to have a suspiciously close arrangement with government.” According to Harmon, the disparity in the bid prices certainly deserves answers. “What I rather suspect is that the newspapers…Kaieteur News and Stabroek News…were just trying to determine whether the bidding price was correct. I have not seen Mr. Ramroop address the issue of the price, which is the whole point. That is shocking.” According to Harmon, an attorney-at-law, there is also a widespread belief that contractors have insiders’ knowledge, as it is evident that the prices submitted on tenders are very close to the budget of the various government agencies. “These are serious issues involving the people’s monies. All the more reasons for a Procurement Commission to be established as soon as possible. It seems as if there
are a few chosen ones who are bent on enriching themselves at the expense of Guyana.” Harmon called on President Donald Ramotar to immediately consider an independent review of drugs purchases. On Wednesday, Ramroop, a close friend of former President Bharrat Jagdeo, blasted a Stabroek News reporter for calling him after 18:00hrs on Tuesday. “The reporter, incredibly, demanded information on why the company’s bid was so much higher than IPA’s,” Ramroop said in a statement Wednesday. Ramroop accused Stabroek News of “seeking to malign his company. He described the article that reported on the high bid as a “malicious” one. Mr. Ramroop is also the head of Guyana Times, a newspaper he manages and TVG Channel 28, a television station he acquired from Anthony Vieira. The New GPC, through its parent company, Queens Atlantic Investments Inc (QAII), in responding Wednesday to the report in
the Stabroek News, also said that the contact by the reporter was unusual. Stabroek News, in its report of the bids’ opening, said that it contacted Ramroop, for an explanation about the difference in the New GPC’s bid price. According to the newspaper, Ramroop first said that the “person responsible for preparation of tender doc-uments was not available and that Stabroek News should call today during working hours. A few minutes later, Ramroop called the newspaper and declined to respond to the question and instead levelled accusations against the reporter in a hostile manner.” Ramroop, Stabroek News said, accused the reporter and by extension the newspaper of “teaming up” against him, and of working for IPA and “looking for a scan-dal story.” EVADE Stabroek News’ Editor-in-
Chief, Anand Persaud, responding to Ramroop, is quoted as saying that Dr. Ramroop’s allegations were outrageous and a clear attempt to evade answering important questions about procurement. The New GPC, in the statement, claimed that the tender was advertised for 10 anti-malarial products and that the New GPC submitted its bid within the designated time frame. “The tender was specific, requesting a specific type and quantity of items. The company was guided by the specificity of products requested and outlined in the bid document.” Ramroop claimed that Stabroek News is on a “mission to destabilize his company” as it is not the first time such issues have surfaced. He refused to admit that his bid had an unusually large variance against the other bid. In recent years, the procurement of drugs by
APNU Parliamentarian Joseph Harmon government has come under intense scrutiny with the New GPC at the center of criticism. There have been questions about the costs of the drugs and whether Guyana was getting value for its dollars.
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Kaieteur News
Friday October 19, 2012
Letters... Where your views make the 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
Agricultural Cooperatives Last Tuesday, the Ministry of Agriculture observed World Food Day. One of the most revealing aspects of the commemoration was that the Ministry did not use the official theme of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO): “ Agricultural cooperatives – key to feeding the world”, but instead came up with one of its own: “Better Technology, Better Farming, Ensuring Food Security”. It should be noted that interest in cooperatives was also reflected in the UN General Assembly’s designation of 2012 as “International Year of Cooperatives.” Our government has evidently decided to downplay the role of co-operatives towards increasing our agricultural output. All Guyanese are probably aware of our disastrous foray into the world of ‘co-operatives’ in 1970 when our country was designated, “The Co-operative Republic of Guyana”. But it is our considered view that the enthusiasm of the rest of the world for ‘co-ops’ in agriculture suggests that we might be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Part of the problem might be that there is some confusion about what exactly ‘co-ops’ mean for us in Guyana as opposed to other countries. For Guyana, “co-operativism” was not just a way to organise agricultural production but an ideology adapted from a Tanzanian model of socialism – Ujaama Socialism. Burnham and the PNC that brought it to Guyana proposed it as an alternative to the Marxist Socialism proposed by the PPP. As with all ideologies, it was supposed to provide an all-encompassing world view that guided all facets of life. This is the model of ‘co-operatives” that failed and gave the term a bad name in Guyana. Agricultural co-operatives are basically of two types agricultural service cooperatives, which provide various services to their individually farming members, and agricultural production cooperatives, where production resources (land, machinery) are pooled and members farm jointly. The latter type would be closest to the ones proposed in the 1970s for Guyana – and were common in many socialist countries, but with the Marxist orientation towards egalitarianism and equality in distribution. But it is the first type of agricultural co-operatives – the ones that focus on providing services – which the UN and FAO had in mind when they formulated their themes. These are numerically the most dominant form in the world. “There are two primary types of agricultural service cooperatives, supply cooperatives and marketing cooperatives. Supply cooperatives supply their members with inputs for agricultural production, including seeds, fertilizers, fuel, and machinery services. Marketing cooperatives are established by farmers to undertake transformation, packaging, distribution, and marketing of farm products (both crop and livestock). Farmers also widely rely on credit cooperatives as a source of financing for both working capital and investments.” We believe that we will significantly diversify and increase our agricultural production – including value-added production, only when we introduce corporate investor-owned mega farms and processing facilities and/or agricultural service cooperatives into our production matrix. Unlike the PNC/socialist-style cooperatives, the latter’s only difference from the corporate farms is that they are owned by the farmers that receive the service and, therefore, the rates they charge for their service provided are intended to maximise the profits of the latter. They must operate on strictly business principles however – no altruism inferred. Three types of services are generally provided: a machinery pool: for small farms that cannot afford expensive and irregularly used farm machinery; manufacturing/marketing services to provide transportation, consolidation of produce to demand higher prices or delivery to factories or marketing channels and finally to provide loans through a credit union. In some instances, manufacturing/ marketing cooperatives may have credit unions as part of their broader business.Agricultural supply cooperatives aggregate purchases, storage, and distribution of farm inputs for their members. By taking advantage of volume discounts and utilizing other economies of scale, supply cooperatives bring down the cost of the inputs that the members purchase from the cooperative, compared with direct purchases from commercial suppliers. We believe that the Ministry of Agriculture should take another look at co-operatives, even as it is entering mega-farm arrangements with T&T.
The Commission of Inquiry will not provide justice DEAR EDITOR, As I watched unprepared witnesses and evidence of poorly recorded witness statements, along with questions that needed to be asked but were never asked, I realized that it was hardly likely that the Linden Commission of Inquiry would bring justice to the people of Linden. I started out as a supporter of this Commission and took my seat daily in the hearing room, for as someone with roots n Linden I wanted to be a witness to the search for the truth. However what I witnessed was not a fact finding exercise but a gaggle of lawyers all fighting aggressively to protect their clients and witnesses who were grilled not so much to find the truth about what happened that day, but to establish grounds for unreliability and lack of credibility. Add to that, the Chairman of the commission allowing Attorneys to question witnesses outside of their
brief. I had enough when the ornery Chairman of the proceedings, Jamaican Justice Lensley Wolfe prematurely declared that there was no evidence to implicate Minister Clement Rohee. At that point this Commission like most things in Guyana in my opinion became a farce. Earlier Commissioner K. D. Knight, a man who knows a thing or two about struggle and dissent grilled Member of Parliament Vanessa Kissoon and Regional Chairman Sharma Solomon about why they did not tell the people to leave the Mackenzie –Wismar bridge. I am sure that these Commissioners are students of history and can appreciate and understand the role of civil disobedience in the struggle for human rights. I was disappointed that neither Sharma Solomon nor Vanessa Kissoon had the wherewithal to say to the commission that what they were participating in was no ordinary stroll but a struggle
by the people of Linden for human rights and justice; that sitting on the bridge was an act of civil disobedience by a people who had been marganalised and neglected by a central government that frequently punished constituencies that did not support them at the polls. I would have expected to hear at least one of the leaders remind the commission that dissent is highest form of patriotism, especially against an unjust and wicked regime. As it stands, judging from the tone and posture of many of the commissioners and the seemingly uninterested attitude and pronouncement from the Commission Chairman, I would advise the people of Linden to start looking elsewhere for solutions and justice. For if this Commission continues down the path on which it is headed and some of the more aggressive Government attorneys are not reined in by the Chairman then we will never find the truth. Imagine the Guyana
Police Force posits that after 2005, 00 shotgun cartridges were removed from the force’s inventory; this statement was taken at face value by the attorneys and no on probed the veracity of this statement; no one asked how the ammunition was disposed of, or whether or not it was disposed of. Further were 00 shotgun cartridges removed from all of the Divisional armouries? How are shotgun cartridges stored? Who have access to the armoury? Is it a practice for senior ranks to have personal ammunition? Who were the Special Branch ranks and what type of weapons did they have? Were there any other special or covert units that were deployed to Linden on or around the 18th July 2012? These are just a few of the questions that are begging to be asked. Also, the police said that Assistant Superintendent Todd and his unit were sent to Linden to engage in crowd control. Yet on close examination of the unit’s dress and equipment they were clearly not equipped for such a task. Where were their shields? Where were the gas mask and why was the Water Cannon not part of the deployment? Why did Todd assume the role of Rambo, rendering his unit leaderless? I saw Attorneys and Commissioners grilling Vanessa Kissoon for failing to mention a police officer’s name on a statement. The Guyanese performers were surely playing to an audience, and dismissing recent history. For my Jamaican and Trinidadian friends, it is not the norm for Guyanese people to finger police officers without first being given adequate protection, and even then, they can turn up dead like the Bacchus brothers. I will not waste my time following this Commission of Inquiry any longer, but despite all I have said I do wish that the people of Linden can get justice. History will one day absolve all those who struggled and lost their lives on that day, and justice will be served. For how can you justify the use of lethal force when no life or property was threatened? How do you open fire on unarmed women and children engaged in a human rights struggle? Whatever happens, July 18 will forever live as a day of infamy in the annals of the Guyana Police Force. Mark Archer
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
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Letters... Where your views make the news Letters... Where your views make the news
Recognising the mothers extraordinaire among us DEAR EDITOR, I write in response to the Stabroek News editorial of Thursday, October 18, last, entitled “Poverty” , which salutes two mothers, both of whom had been subjects of earlier articles in Stabroek News – Ms Vanessa Simon on September 30 and Ms Dorothy Blackman on October 14. Ms Simon, whom the editorial calls “mother extraordinaire” is described as a “39-year-old single parent with five sons (who) holds down three menial jobs” and Ms Blackman as “also a mother of five, (who) is a newspaper vendor, who scrimped, scraped and saved to send her third child to university and law school”. Both women deserve all the praise we can heap on them. That is not in question. But I want to challenge two aspects of the editorial. The first is an old story: whether we end poverty by collective organizing against exploitation or by individual hard work within the exploitative situation, whether what we need is poor people in their numbers rising up against “the privileged few who most often have treated them unjustly” or individual sacrifice which – according to the editorial - can start “a revolution against poverty”.
(I find the timing of the editorial significant, but let that pass for now). Which brings me to my second point. The editorial not only acknowledges the two mothers as extraordinary; it carries an underlying assumption that they are rare in the sense that poor mothers who work themselves to the bone (and sometimes into the hospital, the mental asylum or the grave) are hard to find. That is simply not true, and the stories of other women’s lives often show that the revolution against poverty cannot and will not be made only by individual hard work. Many, many poor mothers work hard. A month or so ago, one of Red Thread’s founding members, Cora Belle, died suddenly at the age of 62 after a lifetime of hard work. Nicola Marcus, her daughter, who is also a founding member of Red Thread, after attending the funeral of the mother of the pastor who had so recently officiated at the funeral of her own mother, said that listening to the tributes “it was like looking into a mirror”. What she meant was that the pastor’s mother was a mirror image of her own mother, who had often worked three jobs to ensure that her nine children and
DEAR EDITOR, For too long Pandit Reepu Daman Persaud has been able to use the Office of the President of Guyana to foster the Dharmic Sabha. As a Presidential Advisor who needs assistance to climb the steps and a jacket for the air conditioned rooms, he has been able to manipulate OP for many, many years. Members and Pandits of the Dharmic Sabha of which Reepu is the President are appointed Marriage Officers, Justices of the Peace and commissioners of Oaths to Affidavits without even making applications or if they make applications, such applications are processed expressly. Many Pandits who are not members of the Dharmic Sabha have a hard time being appointees a Marriage Officer or Justice of the Peace. Here I am also including the persons from other religious backgrounds. There are thousands of applications from persons all over Guyana to be appointed Justices of the Peace / Commissioner of Oath to Affidavits. On the other hand Members of the Dharmic Sabha are appointed with
ease. In fact the Pandits are given a promise that if they stick with the Dharmic Sabha they will be appointed Justice of the Peace and Commissioner of Oath to Affidavits. Just because he happens to be a senior member of the PPP does not allow him to use the Office of the President to further the aims and association of the Dharmic Sabha. Many Pandits who became Pandits under the Dharmic Sabha cannot perform a legal marriage. Some of these chaps cannot even read. Yet Pandit Reepu Daman Persaud used his connections to get them appointed Marriage Officers and Justices of the Peace. I call on the Office of the President of Guyana to put a stop to this abuse and favouritism. I do believe that the President of Guyana should appoint citizens as Justice of the Peace and Commissioner of Oath to Affidavits on recommendations, but such recommendations should be from within the NDC in which the Appointee reside also and not solely on the recommendation of and single religious organisation. Eshwari Shakti Persaud
An abuse of the Office of the President
many other foster children survived and grew, as they all did. Vanessa Simon herself was quoted in the Sunday Stabroek article of September 30 as saying that “she does nothing differently from the many women around her, who work hard to help maintain their families”. The problem is that many mothers do all that work without achieving what Stabroek News thinks is “a revolution against poverty”. For today, I want to offer just one uncontentious example of why – one that Red Thread
has written about before, very often: the fact that the economic model we are working with is fuelling unprecedented migrations. For us in Guyana, what this means is that a mother working under conditions of unbelievable exploitation as a security guard, a domestic worker, a shop assistant, or a cook, cleaner or waitress in a cook shop, often has no one at home, not even an older child, to care for the other children. The other relatives, who would once have taken up the
slack, including sometimes the other parent, are either somewhere else in the country or out of the country trying to earn money. Worse, we have families without a single resident parent or guardian. We have mothers who are “catching dey hand” in one part of the country or another country altogether while their children catch their tail living on their own or moving from house to house, because both immediate families and extended families have scattered. Only a fool would say
there are no bad mothers among us; clearly there are. But there are far more who are “mothers extraordinaire”. Some succeed in raising their children on the “straight and narrow” and deserve honour. But when we ignore or demonise the others who also deserve our respect even though their hard work does not lift their families out of poverty, then the mothers themselves, their children, and the whole society – all of us pay. Andaiye Red Thread
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Kaieteur News
Friday October 19, 2012
Letters... Where your views make the news Letters... Where your views make the news
Deny jobs to the people of Linden
DEAR EDITOR, The Guyana Water Inc (GWI) on Saturday, October 13 signed a contract for in excess of $1.7 billion with Universal Earth Movers Incorporated for the construction of two water treatment plants, booster station and storage facilities in Linden. On September 15, GWI awarded two contracts valued at $475 million to S. Jagmohan Hardware Supplies and Construction Services. None of the two contractors are residents of Linden and as we have seen happen in the past workers for these jobs are sourced outside of the community, even though the region has the most skilled artisans and a high unemployment pool. When the regional workers are hired they are usually given the low level jobs even though they are the ones that ensure the success of the project and do the job for their supervisors who are often at sea. This is not development because you cannot build infrastructures in the region
and give the jobs to externals who will take the money out of the region then expect the community to pay for these services when the majority do not have a stable income, or cannot find work. While the region welcomes development projects the people must be in a position to pay for and maintain them and this can only be done when they are employed. The Economic Committee that was agreed upon on the August 21 Agreement between the Central Government and the Region Ten Administration is yet to start functioning because inherent in it is the effort to right the wrongs. The region is highly suspicious of the reason the government is holding up this committee and GWI recent awards are proving our suspicions. The PPP does not want Lindeners and the people of Region Ten to be economically self-sufficient. It wants a situation where it thinks it can have us on our knees where we have to grovel for work to take care of our families. The Regional Chairman,
Mr. Sharma Solomon, on signing the agreement said, “We will trust this regime to implement the Agreement because the people will see to it. The people of Linden/ Region Ten will hold this regime, the national leaders and National Assembly accountable for its delivery. We will hold civic society accountable for ensuring that government and the opposition deliver on their commitment and responsibility. The power rests with the people and will be applied until equal rights and justice are restored for every Lindener, every citizen in Region 10. The Region remains mobilised.” When the Chairman uttered these statements they were with the full support and weight of the people in Region 10. Those who asked that we come off the streets so they can get about their business should take note that while we may not be visibly on the streets we have not removed and remain mobilised. Leslie Gonsalves. Trades unionist and Region Ten councillor.
Basil Williams is deaf to the national cry for justice
DEAR EDITOR, PNCR/APNU Member of Parliament, Basil Williams, seems oblivious to the reverberating sounds coming from the voices of the Guyanese populace. More than the cry for justice, there is a loud whisper that Mr Williams seems to miss; the call for results-based performance within the almost sleeping camp of his party. That Basil Williams was called to task to explain why he was absent throughout the period of the ‘Linden Struggle’ was indicative of the awareness of those who are the direct constituents of APNU. While the people are largely left to confront the hegemonic rule of the PPP/C in heightened forms of resistance, the lukewarm response of their political representatives will no longer be tolerated. Members of the Commission of Inquiry visited Linden on October 3, 2012. Mr Williams was there, in my opinion, in the capacity of a guide. The media was out in full force. The people were vocal and the police seemed subdued.
We left the Wismar/ Mackenzie Bridge and headed to One Mile, Wismar. A crowd gathered and got the ear of the commissioners. A victim who had sustained a gunshot wound to the face during the ‘Struggle’ was there also. It was at that point that Mr Williams got rejected by the people of Linden. I ventilated the questions and concerns of the angry crowd by asking Mr Williams why he never came to Linden while the protest was ongoing. Seemingly embarrassed, Basil Williams response came in the form of a threat. There were witnesses there who heard what he said to me. Mark Benschop heard him and asked why he was using threatening language. Basil Williams subsequently penned a letter to Stabroek News under the caption ‘It was not the people of Linden’, where he stated, in response to Stabroek News October 3, article headlined, ‘ Lindeners demand justice as shooting commission visits’, that the article was erroneous because it was Mark Benschop and myself and not the people of Linden, who were
attempting to attack the solid record of representation of the people of Linden by his party’s leaders. It is this display of blatant arrogance by a senior APNU leader that qualifies the notion that perhaps APNU is more concerned with image building than solid representation and proven leadership on behalf the downtrodden who are now fighting an almost lone battle. Had it not been for the sterling efforts of human rights lawyer and AFC executive Nigel Hughes, the poor and struggling Guyanese would be receiving a bullet every time they speak out or protest. That is my view. On the 28th of September 2012, I joined a group of about 30 protesters, mostly women, outside Bosai’s main gates at Linden. We were protesting the mere presence of Prime Minister Sam Hinds in the town of Linden. Prime Minister Hinds was there to commission dust collectors. APNU Vanessa Kissoon was standing next to me, as what appeared to be an official vehicle approached to exit the main gates. As the vehicle slowly drove past the protesters, I recognised Basil Williams in very dark glasses, looking straight ahead. For some reason he always reminds me, whenever I see him, of an ’80s Pop Star.’ I shouted to him three times to to exit the vehicle and speak to the protesters. He exited the vehicle reluctantly. Perhaps, if he had me as a sidekick the performance of his party would have been tremendously enhanced. Norman Browne London
Friday October 19, 2012
NOC Commission of Inquiry…
Probe stalled as Chairman resigns The individual spearheading the investigations into the escape of inmates and other related occurrences at the New Opportunity Corps (NOC) about two months ago, has resigned. During an interview with this publication, Minister of Culture Youth and Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony, said that Mr. Prem Persaud was “caught up between being the Chairman of both the Commission of Inquiry and the Public Utilities Commission”. He explained that the commissioners of the inquiry are being given a strict timeline to work with, and that it coincided with an important PUC conference that Mr. Persaud had to prepare for. “It was understandable that he had to divert his energy elsewhere,” the Minister explained. Ever since the former Judge’s resignation two weeks ago, work by the commission has been stalled, and the Ministry is in the process of identifying a new chairman. Persaud resigned just as the commission was preparing to visit and conduct interviews with staffers and inmates of the NOC at Onderneeming on the Essequibo Coast. The Commission of Inquiry was set up to investigate the circumstances surrounding the violent rampage that a number of youngsters whose ages range from 14 to 16 went on to escape from the Juvenile detention facility. Reports are that the teenagers stormed through several communities while being armed with cutlasses and other weapons. During this period, a female dormitory and a workshop within the compound were set alight. Minister Anthony told Kaieteur News yesterday that 16-17 young ladies who were housed in the dorm had to be relocated. As far as the workshop is concerned, Anthony said that it had caused a constraint on training programmes. However, the Ministry, about a year ago, implemented the (Continued on page 11)
Kaieteur News
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Ramsammy lacks moral authority to speak on corruption - Moses Nagamootoo By Abena Rockcliffe The Alliance For Change (AFC) yesterday denounced the government’s attempt to clear allegations of corruption through its series of debates aired by the National Communications Network (NCN). The party’s Vice Chairman, Moses Nagamootoo, expressed that Minister of Agr i c u l t u r e , Leslie Ramsammy, who appeared on the recently aired debate, lacks the moral authority to speak on corruption. “Until Ramsammy can adequately explain to this nation how his signature appeared on a letter authorising the importation of spy equipment he ought not to be speaking on corruption. Ramsammy lacks the moral authority to speak on corruption.” The government aired its most recent “debate” on Wednesday last, but with the non- appearance of any member of the opposition, it was turned into a discussion. The two government representatives were the aforementioned Ramsammy and Member of Parliament Manzoor Nadir. Nagamootoo, responding to an article published in the
Guyana Chronicle yesterday, said that Nadir who is undecided of which party he is really representing and Ramsammy, who was a member of the United Republic Party and made his entry by criticizing the PPP “standing side by side like Suru and Duru” cannot intimidate members of the AFC. “It’s a shame,” he said, “Members of the party (PPP) should demand that their legitimate leaders represent them and not two phonies.” Nagamootoo noted that the AFC views the Chronicle article on AFC’s a bsence from the NCN “debate” as “utterly ridiculous and foolish.” “The AFC has shown it is not afraid to debate the PPP/ C and the Government even when they outnumber the AFC, as was clearly the case at the last series. The AFC participated at all seven debates in the series and successfully withstood the torrent of chest-beating and downpour of loud noise from the government, the PPP/C and sometimes, the technical experts.” Nagamootoo pointed out that, weeks after the debate, the government is still to address many of the points
AFC Vice Chairman Moses Nagamootoo
Dr. Leslie Ramsammy
and pertinent queries made by the AFC, including from Nigel Hughes; “where can he get an acre of ocean-front real estate for $5 million?” The Vice-Chairman said that while the AFC is prepared to debate the Government or the PPP/C political party, it wants to see more being done on corruption. “For example, the situation at NCN has moved beyond an allegation of corruption to evidence of fraud. The government now must act on that and bring charges against the corrupt NCN officials. Why is the government failing to act? Who is it protecting?”
Nagamootoo further noted that his party has not refused to de b a t e government “but after the debacle that was touted as a debate, the AFC has called for some standard debating format to be put in place; these include some taken from the Nova Scotia Debating Society. The party’s calls included a request being made for both the AFC and APNU to be allowed to propose at least one topic each, for the debate and for the moderator to be rotated, with each party being allowed t o f i e l d a moderator.
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Kaieteur News
Friday October 19, 2012
Govt. deliberately stalling implementation of …so that they can Procurement Commission continue to steal - AFC By Abena Rockcliffe The Alliance For Change (AFC) yesterday reiterated its continued call for the implementation of a Public Procurement Commission (PPC) and said that the government has deliberately stalled that body’s realization so that it can continue to steal. The party’s leader, Khemraj Ramjattan, said that the installation of such a commission, which is crucial to preventing corruption, is way overdue. Ramjattan opined that the government is delaying the installation so that it can prolong “lawlessness” thus securing the opportunity to misappropriate. He said that the law to facilitate the implementation of the commission has been passed since 2003 and the position of the AFC has always been for this to be done. Ramjattan said that his party is demanding that the government name its people
to be appointed members of the commission. “We have already named our two: Christopher Ram and Anand Goolsarran.” He noted that the administration is still to name its representatives. According to Ramjattan, the object of the exercise at Public Accounts Committee (PAC)’s meeting is for the those persons who are qualified to sit on the Commission in accordance with the constitutional prescription as it relates to qualification, to be named. He stated that Christopher Ram and Anand Goolsarran are perfect candidates to represent the AFC. Ramjattan said that from his understanding, A Partnership For National Unity (APNU) has already sent in a few names. “It is left up to the PPP (People’s Progressive Party) to send in its names,” Ramjattan said. The Attorney-at-Law further mentioned that at the tripartite talks earlier this year, President Donald Ramotar
had “made a promise” that he was going to have a procurement commission implemented by June of this year. “We believe, quite honestly, that they want to steal as much as they can before the Procurement Commission is installed, and that is why we are going to have a Ramroop, on a antimalaria bid, bidding $200M more than the next bid… that is what they (government) are doing, giving their favourites… their families and friends are getting the contracts and you don’t have a procurement commission that could go and scrutinize those contracts.” Ramjattan also pointed to the recent exposure of fraudulent practices at National Drainage and Irrigation (NDIA) by a field audit officer, and described it as “another example of plain corruption”. He also criticized Minister of Agriculture Leslie Ramsammy’s defence of the individuals highlighted in the
report, adding that the two accused should be sent home to facilitate an investigation as the “…whole thing looks very criminal.” Ramjattan said that the case resembles that involving National Communications Network (NCN) and suggested that the PPP is focusing on and highlighting cases like the one involving Agricola to divert citizens from what’s really important “all of these cases of corruption”. General Secretary of the AFC, David Patterson, said that the government isn’t too enthused about implementing the commission because it will minimize its power to “give the contracts to their friends”. With the Commission implemented, “the highlight of Luncheon’s weekly press conference will be omitted as the cabinet will no longer be the body to allocate contracts, that authority would then go to the commission… the power to grant contract to their friends,
family and neighbours would be taken away,” Patterson stated. The party executive cited a section in the Procurement Act that stated “Cabinet’s involvement under this section shall cease upon the constitution of the Public Procurement Commission…” But, Patterson noted, “It will take another election for that to happen.” NDIA has deemed the report which recommended the dismissal of the Chief Executive Officer Lionel Wordsworth and Senior Engineer, Aneel Chowbay, as “mischievous, misleading and aimed at damaging the image of the Authority for personal gains and aspirations”. The audit of the NDIA’s fuel consumption and equipment operations and maintenance, was conducted between May and September. It was completed and submitted to the Chairman of the NDIA Board of Directors on September 26, and carboncopied to President Donald Ramotar.
AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan The report concluded that fraudulent acts were committed by Chief Executive Lionel Wordsworth and Senior Section Engineer (SSE) Mr. Aneel Chowbay, in breach of the Procurement Act 2003. It speaks of conflict of interest and sole sourcing of services such as the supply of fuel and the awarding of contracts to relations of senior NDIA operatives, in breach of national procurement procedures.
Agricola unrest...
Cabinet rejects opposition’s explanation - Dr Luncheon Insisting that he was not to be blamed for last week Thursday’s civil unrest at Agricola, which left several commuters along the East Bank public road stranded, Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon yesterday pointed accusing fingers to the parliamentary opposition parties. According to Dr. Luncheon not only are A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change (AFC) responsible for the action, but they are in fact guilty of hurling threats of consequences if President of the Administration, Donald Ramotar, did not adhere to their issued ultimatum. The Cabinet Secretary alluded to an ultimatum whereby the opposition parties had together called for the President to examine ministerial appointments. The political opposition had days earlier warned Government of an organised protest “if within the next 48 hours Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee, is not removed from office.” Members of the political parties, during protest action outside Rohee’s office, echoed the view that the
- insists APNU, AFC to be blamed Home Affairs Minister was unfit for the portfolio even as they made reference to the escalation of killings by police ranks and unsolved crimes. During protest action the party supporters disclosed that calls were also made for mass demonstrations for what is being deemed as a national crisis in the wake of recent killings. It was in fact such promised plans that Dr. Luncheon alluded to yesterday as he related that “it was my performance here that was being proposed as the occasion for this activity (October 11 civil unrest) and we are contending that it is the ultimatum and the threat of consequences if the President rejected the ultimatum...” A c c o r d i n g t o D r. Luncheon, both Cabinet and Cabinet Secretary have rejected the subsequent explanations by the opposition “for their orchestration of the Thursday October 11 civil unrest. The administration has properly pointed to the Nigel Hughes and Moses
Nagamootoo ultimatum to President Ramotar about m i n i s t e r i a l appointments....the unrest was promised in the face of the expected rejection/ dismissal of the ultimatum given to the President,” he added. Dr. Luncheon noted, too, that efforts by the opposition parties to vocalise explanations that the civil unrest erupted spontaneously in response to, and after, his remarks at his previous press briefing are not only “outrageous and insulting to those affected but to Guyanese in general. “It is totally inconsistent with developments that took place subsequently to the submission...of the ultimatum.” The Cabinet Secretary added that Government is not alone in rejecting the explanations and excuses of the parliamentary opposition but Guyanese, who were affected, have joined the administration to issue similar rejections.
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
A brilliant man has died
Vic Puran was not just brilliant; he was a legal genius. He was not just a bright person; he was amongst the best legal brains that this country has ever produced. He may not have featured in too many landmark civil cases, but his arguments both in and out of chambers, but especially out of chambers, were reflective of a brilliant mind. Vic was a profound thinker. More importantly he was clear-thinking. He was of unmatched cogency. The clarity and lucidity of his mind was not the product of deep philosophical insights. They were instead attributable to his method of reasoning. Vic was methodical in his arguments. When he was making a point, he made his arguments, step by step, employing simple process of logic. This was his strength and was one of the reasons why despite him wearing a political cap, he could get along well with almost everyone. Many years ago, he had hosted a television call-in programme. These programmes are usually characterized by callers taking rigid positions. If someone did not agree with the moderator’s position, it could lead to strong abuse and arguments.
But that hardly happened on Vic Puran’s programme. He respected those who expressed their opinions, and through his logical arguments, was able to allow them to come to their own conclusions about the frailties of their arguments. And he did this without criticism. He simply reasoned with them. He was self-assured and confident about his own ability to take on any argument. But he was always respectful. This was why he was so popular. His popularity had to do with the respect that he showed others and had he entered competitive politics, he would have done well. The reason why he never entered an election even though he had strong political views and was not afraid to let them be known was because he held a view that some may have felt unorthodox. He did not believe that the divisions in our society were insurmountable. The unorthodoxy of his views was that he was convinced by his own mental reasoning that once a viable alternative existed to both the PPP and the PNC, the people of Guyana would bring about change. For years he had hoped
Dem boys seh...
Dr. Ramroop can run but he can’t hide Dr. Bobby Ramroop can run all he want but he can’t hide. Dr. Bobby Ramroop, and not a cow doctor,—a medical doctor— got to be stupid. A reporter just ask he how come he bid suh high fuh couple malaria drugs and he get vex and start buse. Like people can’t ask he nutten. He just like Bharrat Jagdeo. When reporters use to ask he a question at a press conference if de question was bout something he do he use to get vex. Dr. Ramroop and he is best of friends and dem got de same attitude. Dem boys seh that de doctor had to learn from Jagdeo. This man got to be de richest doctor. He own a newspaper, a TV station wha’ he get from Vieira, he get a radio licence (dem boys seh from Jagdeo), he own New GPC and de old Sanata Complex wha got a ton of companies inside. And that is only some wha’ dem boys want talk about now. He got plenty more. Most times he use to be de only supplier fuh de Ministry of Health. This was from since Jagdeo was Finance Minister. Up to now he alone does get some contract. Nuff time people never know bout dem contract. Imagine de price wha’ Guyana was paying fuh de drugs, because all this use to happen in de daak. This time in de daylight, dem boys see one man bid $32 Million and he bid $261 million fuh de same products. That is $228 million more than wha de other man bid. When de Big market paper phone he fuh ask he fuh an explanation he get vex and buse down. He claim how de Big Market paper and de Waterfalls paper always attacking he and he company. He also tell de reporter that he can’t give fact because de place daak and he is a man bin love to do things in de daak. He never address de issue although he put out a statement on de matter. Dem boys plan fuh ask he agaaain how come he charge so much and he can get vex agaaain. Talk half and prepare fuh smell dem cold hyan bars in Uncle Sam.
to be the catalyst for such change. But unlike many politicians he was realistic and understood that the stage had not yet been reached for this sort of popular unity. But to his dying day he never lost hope that once a party emerges that has a real chance of defeating both the PNC and the PPP, the Guyanese people would support that party and bring about change. Of course, politics was not what he was better known for. He was a member of the legal profession and at great personal sacrifices had educated himself and emerged as one of the best legal brains that this country has ever produced. That he is not recognized for his legal brilliance is a shame. He was cut down
when still very much in his prime and had fate not robbed us of him, he would have made a greater impact in the legal profession. Much of the tributes that have been paid to Vic Puran have mentioned his record as a criminal lawyer. He was the consummate cross-examiner. He systematically broke the best of witnesses down, and when he summed up his case it was simply brilliant. There was one local case that he lost recently in the Magistrates’ Courts but if he had lived, he would have had that decision overturned in higher courts since his loss was based on a legal point that he disagreed with but which he respected. Vic was also an excellent civil lawyer. He tore to shreds the extradition laws of
Guyana. He found gaping loopholes in the extradition laws of Guyana, which as we know, had received input from foreign experts. Vic was concerned about these laws. He was concerned that they were porous and would not stand up to challenges. Yet very few of those in authority were willing to listen to him, assuming that he was more interested in his clients’ interests than in ensuring an unchallengeable law. He was also never bothered by those who criticized why he defended certain persons. He knew that what was being defended was not a crime or a criminal, but the very foundation of justice: that every accused should have the right to lead a defence. This principle is
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blind. It sees not the person that is committing the offence or that person’s race or ethnicity. The foundations of the legal system are based on the acceptance that no matter how despised, bad, cruel or obscene someone is, that person is entitled to raise a defence to the charges which he or she is facing. Vic understood that it is duty of the criminal l a w y e r t o defend that principle by ensuring that even the vilest amongst us have a right to lead a defence. He did so with class and brilliance. Rest in Peace, Vic Puran!
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Kaieteur News
Friday October 19, 2012
THE FREDDIE KISSOON COLUMN
Things are brown, but Brown is coming To this day, no one outside of the current Minister of Finance and the then President, Bharrat Jagdeo, knows how much money the government spent on hosting Carifesta and building the National Stadium. In relation to Carifesta, we know that the Theatre Guild is still owed $1.4 million by the Carifesta Secretariat for loan of the building. This was reported by a Theatre Guild executive, Malcolm De Freitas, in an interview with
the Stabroek News It is truly amazing that Dr. Paloma Mohamed of UG, who is another executive of the Theatre Guild, can go public with her wish to have UG bring back its former Chancellor, Dr. Compton Bourne (the worst UG Chancellor in the institution’s history) but is silent on this outstanding $1.4 M. It is amazing, too, that our eminent citizen, Ian Mc Donald (who has since migrated to Canada), another person closely connected to the
Theatre Guild, can write a column on poverty in the US but chose not to highlight this wrong done to the Theatre Guild (someone asked me at the People’s Parliament why don’t I ask Mc Donald why he didn’t mention poverty in his own country; plan to do that). We also don’t know how much money the Government pours into the annual Hits and Jam festivities. Last year, Hits and Jams brought down, international star, Ne-Yo and the organization refused to disclose how much he was paid. My argument in a column then was that Hits and Jams cannot make a profit yet find money to pay those classes of international performers they bring down in an economy like Guyana’s. The Government acknowledged that it gave Hits and Jams money but would not disclose the figures. The 2012 budget debate is gone and we still don’t know what kind of funds Hits and Jams got last year. Obviously it is not a separate line-item in the budget of the Ministry of Culture and Sport. If it was,
then it would have been picked up by opposition MPs. Now, Hits and Jams is bringing another superstar, Chris Brown. This is unbelievable financial vulgarity. There is no way Hits and Jams can hold a concert in Guyana, even with the National Stadium filled to capacity (even if tickets go at $10,000 which wouldn’t and cannot be), pay for overheads, make a profit and pay Chris Brown. The financial vulgarity comes in because the State subsidizes the payment of these stars. It is simple Maths you can do on a calculator. Paying international stars to perform is a highly expensive venture for one reason – there is a standard amount that live performances bring in. In a one-hour gig (the show may go for two hours but the main attraction does not perform for more than an hour), a superstar singer like Ne-Yo or Chris Brown anywhere in the world would pull in more than a million dollars for that night. If they come to a place like Guyana and sing for half an hour, they
will not accept anything less than US$300,000 (G$60M) and this sum excludes expenditure on transport from the US and hotel accommodation and other related expenses Jagdeo had absolutely no hang-up in spending enormous sums on Hits and Jams’ yearly escapades while refusing to pay the Theatre Guild. Ramotar is continuing this bacchanal. The very government that tells the population that it cannot afford to furnish schools with original texts could pump millions of dollars into extravagant concerts. The fascinating question I have is how the Jagdeo regime hid that expenditure from the eyes of the IMF. I don’t think under the arrangement the Guyana Government has with the IMF, State funds could go into subsidizing concerts the type that Hits and Jams hosts. I may be wrong, but I think so. Also, how was the money hidden in the Culture Ministry’s budget? One must remember that this very Ministry acknowledged last year that it provided some funds to
Frederick Kissoon Hits and Jams. These are the abnormalities and depravities that the opposition parties must show the rural folks when the PPP leaders go to the countryside and serenade their supporters with tall tales of developmental accomplishments. Any decent human would recoil at these immoralities. One of the most sickening aspects of the PPP Government’s nonperformance over the years it has been in power is the shocking absence of washroom facilities in public schools throughout the square miles of this country? A UG lecturer told me the situation is appalling at Queen’s College. The toilets at Pradoville 2 are ultramodern, even the ones in the change rooms of the swimming pools.
Friday October 19, 2012
With support from the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO), the Ministry of Health has been furnished with additional expertise in the area of Primary Health Care and international leadership in health. The boost to the public health sector was made possible through e-learning courses – Renewal of Primary Health Care and Leaders in International Health – that were channelled through the Virtual Campus for Public Health Online Courses. A simple ceremony was held at the PAHO/WHO Brickdam, Georgetown office on Wednesday, where the participants were presented with their certificates. The event saw the attendance of Minister of Health, Dr Bheri Ramsaran, who revealed that the move comes as part of the continuation of the learning process and by extension represents the continuation of the development of the human resource base of the public health sector. According to the Minister, such programmes are an indication that the Ministry, with the assistance of organisations like PAHO/ WHO, is passionate about the continual development of a well qualified cadre of health professionals. “It is important to widen their (health professional) horizons, and at the same time, use their access to training as one of the reward systems. So people who do
Kaieteur News
well must be allowed to move on and develop in the system that the Ministry of Health has to provide leverage for these resources...This is going to become current; it is going to become an everyday experience where we continue to train and upgrade our professionals...” the Minister said. He revealed that several of the participants were given significant time-off, in some cases 50 per cent off from regular duties, to allow them to focus on their courses. “It was a joint effort; PAHO did the funding but it was nothing short of a joint effort,” the Minister asserted. Alluding to the importance of the primary health care course, PAHO’s Health Systems and Services Advisor, Dr. Javier Uribe, underscored that the best countries of the world seek to use primary health care. Primary health care, he emphasised, is very critical for effective health systems and services, a notion that was fully supported by PAHO/WHO Country Representative, Dr. Beverley Barnett. According to her, “primary health care is much more than a few nurses giving vaccination and this course proves that...because it encompasses not only the basic health services, but the basic health services provided with equity, care for issues like gender, human rights and with a framework of a referral system that works very well”. She pointed out that while the primary health care service caters to
Sitting and standing at extreme left are Drs Beverley Barnett and Javier Uribe respectively, while at extreme right stands Dr. Bheri Ramsaran. Together they flank seven of the participants who recently completed e-learning courses. prevention and treatment, there are going to be patients who will need more complex forms of care. It is for this reason, she added, that the whole primary health care system is not just as a health centre or hospital but rather it is the whole referral system. “We need to get the patients referred where necessary and we need to get them back to their community settings after they’ve accessed more complex areas of care,” said Dr. Barnett as she expressed appreciation for the now qualified experts
Probe stalled as Chairman... (From page 7) courses which are being offered by the Kuru Kururu Training Centre, at the NOC. This, he indicated, has been going well, and has seen 19 persons graduating with diplomas. Minister Anthony also pointed out that some international organizations have promised assistance in rebuilding the workshop and dorms. Even UNICEF, the Minister said, has promised to replace some of the material lost in the fires. Subsequent to the rampage some of the inmates, after being confronted, claimed that they were being abused by staffers, and that they had reached a breaking point. A senior Ministry official had however stated that none of the juveniles made any such allegations to the team which visited the centre prior to the escape. It was as a result of these controversial statements, that a Commission of Inquiry was ordered. The Board of
Inquiry currently includes Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, Alfred King; Senior Superintendent and Divisional Commander of ‘D’ Division, Christopher Griffith; Senior Probation Officer of Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, Trenetta Scott and Mr. Maydha Persaud, a retired headmaster and member of the Teaching Service Commission. Just about two months ago, 48 of the inmates appeared in court. Eight were charged with arson, while 40
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were arraigned for escaping from a training school. Twelve of the inmates are female, while thirty-six are male. Thirteen of the juveniles pleaded guilty to escaping from the NOC, while the remaining 35 entered not guilty pleas. Sixteen of the inmates were remanded to the juvenile facility in Georgetown, while the other 32 were returned to the NOC. Minister Anthony yesterday reiterated that should any staffer be found guilty of abusing the children, they will be dealt with accordingly.
through the virtual mode. A total of seven individuals successfully completed the Primary Health Care programme – Dr. Rosalinda HernandezMunoz, Dr. Narine Singh, Mr.
Owen John, Ms. Tabitha Mallampati, Ms. Melissa Ramdeen, Ms. Sohodra Rampersaud and Ms. Lois Stephanas. They were all urged by Dr. Uribe to see the completion of the programme
as a stepping stone to pursuing the Leaders in International Health programme which was successfully completed by Dr. Emanuel Cummings and Dr. Vishwa Mahadeo.
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Kaieteur News
Friday October 19, 2012
Govt. to render Opposition Relatives of Antiguan plane crash victim still to receive body one-seat majority useless - airline grounded
- Cabinet Secretary The laws of Guyana are so designed to ensure that the President of the Republic is entitled to assent to legislation before they can become law. This state of affairs was amplified yesterday by Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon, as he sought to indicate that the parliamentary opposition’s one-seat could verily be of no effect when parliamentary sessions resume on Monday. Speaking at his weekly press briefing, yesterday, Dr. Luncheon expressed his expectation that the occasion would present an opportunity for the prevailing opposition rhetoric to be constructively addressed, even as he noted that the current situation is filled with increasing uncertainty. The situation is further compounded, according to Dr. Luncheon, since Speaker of the House, Raphael Trotman, continues to ignore sound advice from experienced current and former parliamentarians, and recognised authoritative sources. The Cabinet Secretary stated, too, that items on the Order Paper slated for the resumption of parliament attest to the Speaker’s indulgence of the opposition and his accommodation with the opposition strategies. He disclosed that the Speaker was, and is aware of Government’s position on two motions by the opposition. The motions are the President’s Pension, and the Financial Management and Accountability Act Amendment Bills. The Clerk of the National
Assembly Bill is another that the government has rejected, Dr. Luncheon added. This view was communicated to the Speaker. “The administration has signalled its objection to these Bills and the adherence or really the lack of an adherence thereof to parliamentary norms and procedures remains an area of great controversy,” Dr. Luncheon noted. According to Dr. Luncheon, “The Speaker, Cabinet asserts, should recall President Ramotar’s most recent admonition about the provision of presidential assent to the two pieces of legislation....” He sought to further emphasise that the opposition’s resolve to impose its one-seat majority and its uncompromising stance will continue to present room for much discord. Against this background, he said that the Speaker has been written to regarding the intentions of the membership and the chairmanship of the parliamentary special select committees. A c c o r d i n g t o D r. Luncheon, the question has been pointedly asked if opposition members of parliament will chair all such committees on the basis of their one-seat majority even when a Government Bill is referred to these committees. “The answers are uncertain and the immediate past, which is the pre-recess period, since the first sitting in 2012 of the tenth Parliament...the immediate
By Abena Rockcliffe
Dr. Roger Luncheon past is not reassuring,” said the Cabinet Secretary. Just recently, Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition, David Granger, commenting on the need for the President to assent to Bills, said that there are intervening mechanisms that can be engaged. He said that “the president does not have absolute dictatorial powers so he is obliged to confirm to certain requirements of the National Assembly.” According to Granger, if the President fails to assent to Bills submitted by the opposition, not only will he have to show cause, but it could in fact lead to a “collision” which could see other Government business being affected. “We have had this problem before during the 2012 budget and we are better prepared to deal with the resistance and opposition by the People’s Progressive Party (PPP). The lessons we have learnt from the previous parliament is that the two opposition parties have to continue their collaboration and this is what we are doing.”
Relatives of the late Sandrama Poligadu, who fell victim to a recent place crash in Antigua, are calling on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to aid in the communication process between them and Antiguan officials. The accident occurred October 7 in Antigua and “two weeks later we still can’t get the body.” Speaking to this newspaper Wednesday, son of the deceased, Kisnasammy Poligadu, said that attempts were made to solicit help from the Ministry, but so far no such assistance has been forthcoming. Further, he stated that a Ministry of Foreign Affairs staffer directed the family to the Ministry of Public Works for assistance. The distraught eldest offspring of the victim, speaking on behalf of the family, said that they are going through a hard period coping with the death of his mother; but it is even more disturbing that the body has not yet been handed over. Poligadu said that his brother-in-law Krishan Khan had flown from Montserrat (the woman’s intended destination) to Antigua to identify the body. However, he has not been able to tie up arrangements to bring her remains back home or to ascertain how soon the body would be made available to be transported back to Guyana. Poligadu noted that from the little information gathered, the process is being held up as Antigua awaits a foreign pathologist to carry out a post mortem
examination. A friend of the family indicated that “I am the one who advised them to contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as I thought the entity would have been most fitting to assist in this regard.” The bereaved family had initially expressed concern about who is going to stand the expense for the body to be transported to Guyana. When contacted, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials were reluctant to comment on the matter. Hours after leaving her homeland, the 57-year-old from Williamsburg, Corentyne, Berbice, died when a nine-seater Montserrat-bound BrittenNorman Islander crashed shortly after takeoff from Antigua. The family indicated that the fatal journey marked the woman’s first air trip. She was on her way to see her hospitalized, pregnant daughter who lives in Montserrat. Her son-in-law, Krishan Khan, was awaiting her at the Montserrat Airport. He, however, suspected something had happened after there was an unusually lengthy delay. His worst fears were confirmed when the airport authorities informed him that the plane had crashed during takeoff on Runway Seven at the VC Bird International Airport, Antigua. Khan immediately informed the woman’s relatives in Guyana. Poligadu made the connecting flight from Guyana to Trinidad from where she took a plane to Antigua.
Dead: Sandrama Poligadu Speculation is that weather conditions may have been a factor in the crash. There had been heavy rains accompanied by thunder and lightning before and around the time of the crash. Meanwhile, reports are that authorities grounded Fly Montserrat was grounded on Wednesday. The airline on Tuesday received a letter from the Eastern Caribbean Civil Aviation Authority restricting it from flying to any Eastern Caribbean member state, the rjrnewsonline.com reported yesterday. Montserrat Premier Reuben Meade confirmed that the ban will remain in place until the airline meets certain requirements. The Eastern Caribbean CAA ban follows another incident in which a Fly Montserrat aircraft, carrying seven passengers from Antigua, rolled onto the grass on landing at John Osborne Airport in Montserrat on Tuesday morning. There was no injury and the aircraft was not damaged.The airport has been closed until the aircraft can be moved for further investigation.
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
Linden Commission of Inquiry… By Michael Jordan Two wounded Lindeners testified yesterday under oath that they saw police ranks shooting at protestors who had gathered on and near the Wismar/Mackenzie Bridge on July 18 when three civilians were slain. One of the witnesses, 34year-old mother of three, Alieshaw Barker, told the Commission that she managed to take two small children to safety even though she had been shot in both legs. She testified that she saw a man collapse on the bridge from gunshot wounds and that he appeared to be dead. The other witness, Linden miner Michael Roberts, recounted fleeing towards the Linmine compound and being shot in the face shortly after. He also alleged that he saw a man collapse in the compound and later learned that the victim was Allan Lewis, one of the slain Lindeners. The two witnesses stuck to their statements that they saw police ranks shooting at the protestors, despite being
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Wounded Lindeners say they saw cops shoot at protestors
subjected to intense grilling by attorney-at-law Peter Hugh, who is representing the Guyana Police Force. APNU parliamentarian and attorney-at-law Basil Williams is representing Barker and Roberts, who are seeking compensation for their injuries. They both insisted that they were not participating in the protest when they were shot. “HE LOOKED DEAD TO ME” Identifying herself as a single parent of four children, Alieshaw Barker told the Commission that she had left her 71 Half Mile, Wismar home at around 17:00 hrs on Wednesday July 18, 2012 for the Wismar/ Mackenzie Bridge in search of her 15year-old son. Ms. Barker said on arriving at her destination, she saw a massive crowd, ‘sporting, drinking and playing ball’ at the Wismar end of the bridge. She recounted that she saw some of her neighbours and asked of the whereabouts of her son. She was informed that the lad was at the Mackenzie end of the
bridge. “I left and went on the bridge in search of my son, and before I could reach at the Mackenzie end, I heard gunfire,” Barker said. “I looked towards the Mackenzie end at the Bosai fence. I saw a man running… he fell down; he looked dead to me. A Rasta man was behind him; he put his hand behind his (the fallen man’s) ears, and shook his head. I said ‘that man look dead to me, take that man to the hospital’.” Barker estimated she was about 17 to 18 feet away from the men at the time. “I turned back, and just as I turned back I saw two children, aged between five and seven. I hugged both of them and I say ‘this is no place for children, where is your mother?’ they crying and they say they don’t know where their mother is. So I say ‘the police shooting, this is no place for kids’. I hugged both of them and proceeded towards the Wismar end of the bridge. When I reached to the middle part of the bridge I hear gunshots again.”
She said that her right foot ‘canted forward’ and she felt a burning in her left leg. “I said ‘Oh my God I was shot’. I push the two children forward and I say ‘run for your life, don’t stop.’ “They stated to run, the Rastaman assist me getting off the bridge, because I was in pain.” Barker stated that she heard gunshots again and on looking back, she saw the police shooting towards the crowd, which was running from the Mackenzie end to the Wismar end of the bridge. The woman said she was in the midst of the crowd which was running past her. She said that three policemen in khaki had ‘short guns’ and some ranks in blue uniforms had ‘long guns’. According to Ms. Barker, she saw three of the police ranks in khaki and others in dark-blue uniforms coming towards the crowd “with their guns pointing at us”. The woman said that she eventually took refuge behind a shack, but then teargas was discharged near her hiding place. Barker alleged that she was then forced to run back
towards the crowd where the shooting was taking place. Barker said that she eventually managed to stop a passing taxi and asked to be taken to the Wismar Hospital Complex. “When I got there, there was no staff and there was blackout.” However, she said that a ‘sister’ bandaged the left leg and gave her an injection. She said that she was advised to seek further treatment at the Mackenzie Hospital, but went home after being unable to receive treatment at the facility. However, she said that residents decided to take her back to the Mackenzie Hospital, but when she was near the facility “there were police firing shots in the vicinity of the PPP offices and the Linden Technical Institute.” She eventually reached the hospital where she was admitted. An X-ray examination revealed that a bullet was lodged in her left leg. Ms. Barker said that she was also treated in Berbice. She subsequently presented
several medical receipts to the Commission. A police medical report submitted to the Commission stated that Barker suffered penetrating wounds and trauma to both thighs which compromised mobility of the lower extremities. Under cross-examination by Attorney-at-Law Peter Hugh, Ms. Barker stated that a bullet was extracted from her left leg. “Did you see the bullet?” Barker was asked by the lawyer. “Yes,” she replied. Asked whether she had submitted the bullet to the Guyana Police Force, the woman replied that she had not, owing to what she claimed was the incompetence of the police force and the misplacement of evidence. Pressed further, Barker stated that she had handed over the bullet to “Mr. Sharma Solomon.” Attorney Hugh then asked the witness whether she had heard police using a loud hailer and asking the crowd to ‘disperse or we will (Continued on page 14)
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Kaieteur News
Friday October 19, 2012
Woman homeless after fire razes Angoy’s Ave. home
Firemen douse what remains of the building. Inset: Bibi Zairoon called ‘Zai’ A 60-year-old Berbician woman watched helplessly as fire of unknown origin razed her two-bedroom wooden home yesterday afternoon. Bibi Zairoon called ‘Zai’ lived alone in the building which was situated at 4 Levi’s Dam Angoy’s Avenue, New Amsterdam. According to neighbours, the fire started at
approximately 15:50 hrs. They said the area had a power outage which lasted for the entire day. A male neighbour stated that he and some men had just finished working when they heard someone shout “Fire, fire ‘Zai’ house on fire.”At that time, flames had already engulfed the inside of the
building. The man said that Zairoon appeared in the yard and then attempted to enter the building, but she was prevented from doing so. Neighbours initially tried to break the door to see what they could save, but were quickly driven back by the raging flames.
By then, others tried to form a bucket brigade, but this proved futile. Two fire tenders arrived 15 minutes later. No other building was damaged. According to Bibi Zairoon, who stated that she suffers from hypertension, she recently purchased the house and was in the
process of renovating and painting the structure. She stated that at the time of the fire she was not at home. She had gone to her daughter’s residence in the same street when someone came and told her that her house was on fire. ”I ran barefoot back to my house. I was going into
the house to save some things when the boys pulled me outside and told me I will get bun up.” The woman constantly broke down in tears. She claimed that she had a lot of valuables in her house and lost everything. She could not estimate her losses. (Samuel Whyte)
Wounded Lindeners say they saw cops shoot... From page 13 fire,’ Barker said that she had not heard this order, neither had she seen police hoisting a banner warning the crowd to disperse. Under further questioning by Hugh, Barker conceded that she did not see who had shot her. However, the woman said that after being shot, she had turned around and seen police ranks firing in her direction. Michael Roberts, the other witness, also came in for intense questioning when he took the stand and alleged that he had seen the police shooting at the crowd. He had a tooth knocked out after being shot in the face and is also seeking compensation for his injury. Roberts, a miner, of Independence Avenue, Linden, told the Commission that he had arrived at the Wismar/Mackenzie bridge at around 11:30 hrs on Wednesday, July 18, 2012.
He told the Commission that he had gone to the area to wait for his wife, who is employed at the Mackenzie Magistrate’s Court. He said that his spouse had informed him that the bridge was blocked, so he came to wait for her on the Linden half of the bridge. He recalled that because the sun was hot, and because there was “an atmosphere of a fun-day”, he decided to seek shelter under a tent. According to him, the Wismar/Mackenzie boat service, as well as mini-bus and taxi services, had halted their services on the day of the protest. He said that he did hear a siren when police arrived at around 17:30 hrs, but he said that he did not hear a policeman on a loud hailer advising the gathering to disperse; neither did he see any banner displayed by the ranks. According to Roberts, he was some 80 feet away
from the bridge. Roberts conceded that when the police arrived at around 17:30 hrs, the protestors advanced towards the ranks. According to Roberts, he ran into the Linmine Utility Compound when the ranks eventually discharged tear smoke. He said that about two minutes after running to the compound, he saw two police ranks on the bridge, and admitted to hearing the sound of bottles breaking on the roadway. Roberts said that while running into the compound he heard “lots of gunshots being fired”. Told by attorney Hugh that he could not have recognized the sound as being gunfire, Roberts responded that he had undergone a one-year training stint in the Guyana National Service, when he had used firearms. “I heard explosions, I saw
one of the canisters fall on the zinc and I heard gunshots.” Questioned later by Commission member Justice Cecil Kennard, Roberts said that while he was running through the Landmine Utility compound, he saw a man, whom he was later identified as the now dead Alan Lewis, fall to the ground. Roberts said that his mistress turned Lewis over “and I told her to run before you get hit, then she told me that he (Lewis) was one of the guys who was under the tent with us.” But attorney-at-law Hugh suggested that Roberts never saw any police fire in his direction because of the crowd in the compound in which the miner had taken shelter. “I suggest to you that you merely saw one of the two policemen turn and raise his hand, and at that point, you turned to run again… and when you turned to run you felt something hit your face. You did not actually see any
police fire or discharge a gun in your direction,” Hugh contended. “I did see that, Sir,” Roberts replied. Hugh: “You were not in a position to see the police on the bridge.” Roberts: “I was in a position to see him, Sir.” Hugh: “Isn’t it your evidence, only a few months ago, you saw one of the policemen raise his hand, and at that time you turned, to run away?” Roberts: Yes Sir, I turned.” Hugh: “The last thing you would have seen would have been a policeman with his raised hand…having turned to run, you ran.” Roberts: “As soon as I turned, I felt the impact (of a gunshot) to my face.” Hugh: “Did you fall, or did you run?” Roberts: “I held onto my face and I told my Mistress (spouse) I got shot.” Hugh: “Did you fall, or did
you run?” Roberts: “I did not fall, I held onto my face and I started to run.” Hugh: “You would not have been focused on the police on the bridge having turned your head to run.” Roberts: “I was able to, Sir.” Hugh: You have eyes behind your head?” Also taking the stand briefly yesterday was Chief Fire Officer Marlon Gentle, who spoke of the damage to the PPP office and the Landmine Secretariat. He described the arson at the properties as “malicious setting of fires to buildings by person or persons unknown.” Another witness was Mr. Ronald Lewis of Garnett Street, Kitty, who had taken several photographs of events that occurred at Linden on Wednesday, July 18. He is likely to be questioned further today.
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
EBD Public Road expansion…
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Relocation of GWI pipelines ongoing Relocation of Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI)’s conduits and pipelines along the shoulders of the East Bank Demerara Public Road from Providence to Great Diamond is in progress, to facilitate the transformation to a four-lane thoroughfare. C o n s t r u c t i o n C o m p a n y, Macsood A h a m ad, has been contracted by the water company to the tune of $97M to install conduits and pipelines along the stretch. The contract commenced on October 6 and is for one month’s duration. Macsood Ahamad is currently executing works in Lot Three (from Diamond ‘high-bridge’ to Diamond Housing Scheme) of the fourlane road expansion project. Works on the road in that section have been stalled for several weeks owing to presence of utility poles and pipelines. Following the relocation of the pipelines, expansion works on the road will recommence. According to a representative of Macsood Ahamad, owing to the
presence of construction materials on the site placed by the road contractor, the relocation team had to remove mud to commence works. The representative said that the team will be faced with numerous obstacles under the surface of the road, but the diffic u l t y l i e s i n installing the pipelines on the western carriageway where houses are. He added that the contractor will have to cut every gap to relocate the pipelines. Meanwhile, on the eastern carriageway, the contractor would either have to break sections of bridges belonging to commercial banks or run the pipelines under the bridges. The representative added that relocating pipelines in the other two lots from Providence to Diamond ‘highbridge’ will proceed unhindered. According to GWI’s Public Relations Officer, Timothy Austin, the contractor will have to take responsibility for any damage to private property as stipulated in the contract.
Construction company Macsood Ahamad is relocating GWI’s pipelines in Diamond
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Former lawyer’s clerk admitted to the Bar Guyanese father rejects police theory on son’s death at Bajan store
Dead: Clinton Norton
From left, the partners of Cameron and Shepherd: Nikhil Ramkarran, Rafiq T Khan, Hari Narayen Ramkarran SC, Anita Mohan-Hamilton, Kamal Ramkarran and Josephine Whitehead. Anita Mohan-Hamilton was admitted to the Bar last Friday before the Honourable Madam Justice Roxanne George-Wiltshire. Her petition was presented by Mr. Hari Narayen Ramkarran SC, a partner of Cameron and Shepherd, Attorneys-at-Law. Mohan-Hamilton entered
the legal field as a lawyer’s clerk in 1986. She worked with a number of lawyers including Indera Persaud, the current Guyana Consul in Jamaica, in 1992. In 1993, she joined Cameron and Shepherd law firm as a clerk. There she worked in various departments. Her
tenure there saw her working primarily with Hari Narayen Ramkarran. Mohan-Hamilton attended Lusignan Primary, Annandale Government Secondary School and the University of Guyana. In 2010, she graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of
Guyana and later made her way to the Hugh Wooding Law School. She obtained the Legal Education Certificate this year. “With God on my side, together with hard work, perseverance and determination, I have completed this journey,” Mohan-Hamilton asserted.
(Barbados Nation) - A grieving family is rejecting a police theory that Guyana-born Clinton Norton broke and entered Liquidation Centre and bled to death after receiving a cut to his wrist by glass. Joseph Norton, father of the deceased man, whose body was found in a dark upstairs room of the Bay Street store on September 3, told the Daily Nation earlier this week that several bruises and burn marks on his son’s body suggested that he was beaten and tortured to death. The man, who telephoned the Nation from his New York office, also complained that the police had not fully cooperated with the family and as a result they were hoping to have a Coroner’s inquest conducted as a matter of urgency. Norton said that he last saw his son in Guyana when he visited him with his grandson in August and recalled that he had to request a wheelchair for him at the airport when he was leaving because he had an ongoing health problem with his knees.
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
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Friday October 19, 2012 ARIES (March 21 - April 19): Get ready for one of your biggest emotional walls to come down -- or rather, be torn down by a very compassionate person who wants to get to know you a little bit better! ******************* TAURUS (April 20 - May 20): Your latest business venture or job hunt represents a major opportunity to advance your financial status, and you should prepare yourself. If the best case scenario works out, you need to know how to handle this evolution in your socio-economic status. ****************** GEMINI (May 21 - June 20): Collaboration and teamwork is the way to go right now -- the energy between you and several other people will be powerful to the point of near-revolutionary. So pitch in and volunteer your services. ******************** CANCER (June 21 - July 22): Are you using up all of your energy trying to make other people happy? Not only is this a bad idea, it's an attitude that will only leave you unhappy -- which is unacceptable. ********************* LEO (July 23 - Aug. 22): You should follow the trail to frivolity today. Find an idea that is totally 'out there' and see where it leads you. There's no need to stick to your normal routine right now -- you can put things on auto-pilot, and they will go well. ******************* VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sept. 22): If you know that someone is talking trash today, call them on their bluff! You should be daring and more aggressive -- the universe favors bold behavior more than it favors passivity, and will give you the confidence boost you might need to
confront someone. ********************* LIBRA (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22): If you go out into the world today, put on your explorer's hat. Try to see everything as if it were a mysterious land. There are places you pass by every day that you've never really taken a hard look at before, so keep an eye out. ********************* SCORPIO (Oct. 23 - Nov. 21): Today, like most days, following the herd will only lead you to the land of boredom. You need to take your own path in order to get any type of stimulation or excitement into your day. ******************** SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21): If a friend isn't happy with the amount of time you're giving them, they are going to let you know about it today -- and don't expect them to be tactful. But before you get all defensive and angry that they feel so possessive about you, stop. .********************* CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 Jan. 19): You are reaching one of those critical points in a work or school situation today when you need to stop selling your ideas and start delivering on them. Show the people around you who you really are and what you are capable of. ******************** AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 Feb. 18): Have you ever tried to herd cats? If you need to organize any groups today, you might get a sinking feeling that you've been given an impossible task. ********************* PISCE S ( F e b . 1 9 March 20): All of your past choices have helped you become the magnificent person you are today -- you should be very proud of all the lessons you've learned, and all the paths you have walked.
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Friday October 19, 2012
$4B pumped into Region Four Key section of water system in six years Mahdia Road under repairs after two years
Measures to improve the local water system have seen approximately $4 billion being pumped into the Region Four water distribution system over the course of the past six years. A sum of more than $2.6 billion was directed to Georgetown alone, while another $1.4 billion facilitated improvement to the systems on the East Coast and East Bank of Demerara. This disclosure was made earlier this week by Minister of Housing and Water Irfaan Ali who speculated that “many persons might ask why we are linking the East Coast and East Bank with Georgetown. But part of the integrated water resource management system itself is to have the entire water distribution of Guyana interlinked in one common network that would support each other in different times of stress and hardship at different locations”. He pointed to the need to look closely at the potential that exists in reducing the cost of energy that contributes to the escalation of the operational cost at the Guyana Water Incorporated
(GWI). Among the possibilities he highlighted was that of hydro, which according to him, is set to become a reality very soon. He made reference to a study which was conducted on the highway that “...sought to capture the water resource that we have there and gravity-feed it down into the East Bank water network system.” “So we are going to add capacity to our research and development arm at GWI to relook at the geographic makeup and natural characteristics of our own system here to see how we can better capture those advantages in reducing the cost of the delivery of water,” Ali said. According to the Minister, it is not the desire of the administration to leave a legacy where 50 years on there is no blueprint for the water distribution facilities, including the sewerage system. It is for this reason, he said, that a proposed US$10M overhaul of the existing sewerage system will entail the creation of a computerised modelling of the current
system. This move, he explained, is to ensure that new employees could become acquainted relatively quickly with the system. “If we employ two new persons today, we can take them through the computerised modelling system and they will come up to speed with the design, layout, capacity and engineering functionality of the system we are developing to deliver to the people.” With financing from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the project will cater to a significant enhancement of the Georgetown sanitation system. The works consist of rehabilitation of the Central Georgetown sewerage system, including completion of pumping stations refurbishment. However, at the moment there are some possible constraints to the project which were highlighted by GWI’s Acting Project Manager, Mr. Orin Browne. He linked the possible constraints to fragile sewer pipes, damage to both Guyana Telephone and
Telegraph Company and Guyana Power and Light utility cables; breakage of water mains; difficulty in finding exact locations of existing sewer mains; narrow streets and roads within project areas and damage to bridges and entrances. The proposed project, which was endorsed yesterday at an Alliance For Change press conference, is aimed at improving the operational performance of the Georgetown sewerage system, through the reconstruction of its most critical components. This will include the complete replacement of the 5.5 km sewerage ring main and will serve to strengthen GWI’s operational and financial performance by improving asset management and decreasing energy consumption. The works, once completed, will also limit the transmission of the waterrelated diseases lymphatic filariasis and intestinal helminthiasis, through Mass Drug Administration activities, according to Browne.
Finally, commuters traversing from Brian Sucre Junction to Mahdia could breathe a sigh of relief, as that stretch of roadway is being repaired after two years. The $22.5M contract to upgrade the 15-mile stretch was awarded to Mekdeci Machinery and Construction. According to Region Eight Chairman, Mark Crawford, works on the roadway began last Saturday following a picketing exercise by Mahdia minibus drivers at the Bus Park in Georgetown on Friday. He related that for about two years no repairs were done to the roadway, which resulted in its current condition. While Crawford is pleased that travel time would be significantly reduced in that section, he added that the Mahdia community’s roads are also deplorable. “At present, it takes over two hours to travel this stretch… when the road is upgraded it will take a little
over 30 minutes. From this vast difference in travel time one could only imagine how bad the road is,” Crawford said. Operations Manager of Mekdeci Machinery, Kevin Ramotar, confirmed that the project began last Saturday and will be of three months duration. The contractor is hoping to complete works within that time frame, providing the weather continues to be favourable. Ramotar related that the company is tasked with upgrading the road, which includes grading the surface and placing laterite where necessary. “The road is in a bad condition and most of the surface would require placing laterite,” he said. In addition, the contractor has to clear the shoulders of the road, create drainage and install culverts. “With yearly maintenance programmes hinterland roads can be kept in great condition,” Ramotar opined
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
Clashes er upt a eek erupt att Gr Greek anti-austerity protests
A petrol bomb, thrown by protesters, explodes near riot police yesterday. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis ATHENS (Reuters) Greek police clashed with anti-austerity protesters hurling stones and petrol bombs on the day of a general strike that brought much of the near-bankrupt country to a standstill. In the second major walkout in three weeks yesterday, almost 40,000 protesters marched in Athens in a bid to show EU leaders meeting in Brussels that new wage and pension cuts will only worsen their plight after five years of recession. Tensions mounted when a small group of protesters began throwing pieces of marble, bottles and petrol bombs at police barricading part of the square in front of parliament, prompting riot police to fire several rounds of teargas to disperse them. A 65-year old protester died of a heart attack, hospital
sources told Reuters. Another three people were injured. Police detained about 50 protesters suspected of attacking them. Most business and public sector activity ground to a halt at the start of the 24-hour strike called by the country’s two biggest labor unions, ADEDY and GSEE. “Enough is enough. They’ve dug our graves, shoved us in and we are waiting for the priest to read the last words,” said Konstantinos Balomenos, a 58-year-old worker at a water utility whose wage has been halved to 900 euros and who has two unemployed sons. It was the third time since late September that tens of thousands of Greeks have taken to the streets holding banners and chanting slogans to show their anger at austerity policies imposed
by EU and IMF lenders in exchange for aid. Some were carrying Greek, Spanish and Portuguese flags and shouted: “EU, IMF out”. “Agreeing to catastrophic measures means driving society to despair and the consequences as well as the protests will then be indefinite,” said Yannis Panagopoulos, head of the GSEE private sector union, one of two major unions that represent about 2 million people, or half of Greece’s workforce. Greece is stuck in its worst downturn since World War Two and must make at least 11.5 billion euros of cuts to satisfy the “troika” of the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF, and secure the next tranche of a 130-billion-euro bailout.
WA S H I N G T O N (Reuters) - The United States said yesterday it was offering millions of dollars for information leading to the location of two al Qaeda members accused of facilitating the movement of funds and operatives through Iran. The Obama administration is offering up to $7 million for information leading to the location of Iranbased financier Muhsin alFadhli, who was among the few al Qaeda leaders who received advance notification
of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the State Department said. Up to $5 million is being offered for al-Fadhli’s deputy, Adel Radi Saqr al-Wahabi alHarbi, who is accused of working with a network that served as a pipeline for al Qaeda to move operatives and funds in South Asia and the Middle East. The U.S. Treasury also took action against al-Harbi, imposing financial sanctions that will prohibit U.S. citizens from dealing with al-Harbi and freezing any assets he may
have under U.S. jurisdiction. The Treasury had previously targeted six other members of the group in June 2011. Al-Fadhli was blacklisted by the Treasury in 2005. “We will continue targeting this crucial source of al Qaeda’s funding and support, as well as highlight Iran’s ongoing complicity in this network’s operation,” David Cohen, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement.
U.S. offers rewards for Iranbased al Qaeda operatives
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In New Hampshire, Obama hammers Romney over women, Iraq war (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama hammered Republican Mitt Romney over women’s rights and foreshadowed arguments he will make in an upcoming debate on foreign policy during a campaign stop yesterday in the battleground state of New Hampshire. The Democratic incumbent has rebounded since his sharper, more energetic performance in Monday night’s debate helped make up for his heavily
criticized, lacklustre appearance in their first encounter, which gave Romney a boost in public opinion polls. A Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll showed Obama holding a slight but steady lead, with 47 percent of likely voters saying they plan to vote for Obama compared to 44 percent for Romney, in line with the previous day’s results. “He’s back on the more positive footing he was on going into convention
season,” said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark. “He sort of has redeemed himself, if you will, from that first debate.” Both Romney and Obama are pressing hard to win over women ahead of the November 6 election. Obama has sought to build on any momentum he got from his last debate performance during two days of campaign stops, assailing Romney for not stating clearly his support for a law ensuring equal pay for
women. “Governor Romney still won’t say whether or not he supported a law to protect that right, no matter how many times he’s asked. This is not this is not that hard,” Obama said to a crowd of some 6,000 in New Hampshire. “I’ve got two daughters. I want to make sure they get paid the same as somebody’s sons for doing the same job. Pretty straightforward. Any confusion there?” A Romney spokesman dismissed Obama’s attacks.
“Today, President Obama only offered Granite State voters more misleading attacks to distract from his failed record, his reckless spending and his inability to present a discernible vision to move our country forward,” said spokesman Ryan Williams. With polls getting tight nationally, the focus is on swing states like Ohio and Florida that will likely decide the election. The Romney campaign said it was moving resources out of North Carolina, where it sees an increasing chance of winning, to allocate them to other battleground states. Romney’s economic plans have “resonated strongly” in the southern state and polls are increasingly widening, spokeswoman Sarah Pompei
said. The two men face off in their last debate on Monday in Florida, where the topic will be foreign policy.
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - The Guantanamo tribunal judge should deal with constitutional challenges individually as they arise rather than make a blanket presumption the U.S. Constitution applies in the trial of five men accused of plotting the September 11 attacks, a U.S. prosecutor argued yesterday. The matter arose in a pretrial hearing for alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Pakistani, Yemeni and Saudi captives facing charges that could lead to their execution. They are being tried at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in a tribunal system that Congress established to try non-U.S. citizens on terrorism charges. Critics have long charged that the Guantanamo base in Cuba was chosen to hold
such detainees mainly because former President George W. Bush’s administration believed it would put them outside the reach of U.S. law. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that although they were noncitizens held outside the United States, Guantanamo prisoners had the constitutional “habeas corpus” right to challenge their detention in court and make the government show evidence for holding them. It said the United States had “de facto sovereignty” because the Cuban base is entirely under U.S. control. It did not address whether Guantanamo detainees had other rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, such as the right to due process, the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, or the right to confront accusers.
President Barack Obama
Judge in 9/11 case weighs whether Constitution applies at Guantanamo
EU reaches compromise on bank supervisor timing (Reuters) - European Union leaders struck a compromise on a roadmap to establish a single bank supervisor for the euro zone after Germany and France papered over differences on priorities for overcoming the bloc’s debt crisis. Diplomats reading from the text of draft conclusions of an EU summit in Brussels yesterday said the leaders agreed on “the objective of completing the legal framework by the end of the
year” with implementation “in the course of 2013”. The point when the European Central Bank will effectively become the bloc’s banking supervisor is important because it would open the way for the euro zone’s bailout fund to recapitalise troubled banks directly, without adding to governments’ debts. EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said this was vital “to break the vicious circle between sovereigns and banks”.
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
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Cuba’s immigration reform casts spotlight on decades-old U.S. law MIAMI (Reuters) - Cuba’s decision this week to make it easier to leave and enter the country is unlikely in the short term to prompt a sudden exodus, but could result in a rethinking of preferential treatment Cuban migrants have long received in the United States. Alarmed by the number of Cubans arriving in Miami for economic reasons, rather than the political causes that prompted earlier waves of migration from the island, even some Cuban exiles are increasingly questioning a decades-old law that has guaranteed Cubans safe haven in the United States. The Cuban Refugee Adjustment Act of 1966 was passed during the Lyndon Johnson administration to adjust the status of some 300,000 Cubans who found themselves in legal limbo after fleeing Cuba’s socialist revolution of 1959, arriving in the United States on
temporary refugee visas. The law was unusual, as it did not require the Cubans to make a case for political asylum, and automatically granted them entry and the path to permanent residency. Nor did it envisage a cutoff date. In those early days, most Cubans - as well as U.S. policy-makers - never imagined the exodus would continue for decades, since they were convinced the communist government led by Fidel Castro would not last. The law has remained on the books ever since, giving Cubans a uniquely privileged immigration status, rivaled only by Hungarians in 1956. “In all candor, it’s anachronistic. The law really doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense today,” said Jose Azel at the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. Under new rules announced on Tuesday,
Cubans will no longer need to obtain a special exit visa to travel abroad, and will need only a passport. But most Cubans, who earn barely $25 a month on state salaries, will still face huge financial hurdles in order to travel, and opposition activists may still be banned. U.S. officials say the new Cuban migration rules will not affect existing visa programs for Cubans seeking to travel to the United States. “I think the question becomes whether more Cubans desire to travel and are applying for visas. ... So obviously, we need to see how it affects the flow of travel,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters on Tuesday. The United States already accepts about 20,000 Cubans annually via a heavily oversubscribed immigration lottery, as well as thousands more under special programs
for family members seeking reunification, and political asylum cases. But Cuba’s new migration rules could result in more Cubans seeking visas to travel to third countries like Mexico or Canada, and then making their way to the United States. The number of Cubans arriving without visas at U.S. borders and airports has ranged from 4,000 to 5,000 in the past couple of years, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The Miami Herald estimated it rose to 7,400 in the past year. Under the act, any Cuban who shows up at the U.S. border is automatically allowed entry, and can apply for permanent residency a year later. “The law doesn’t require any declaration of persecution. All you have to say is, ‘I’m a Cuban,’”
said Lisandro Perez, a Cuba expert at the City University of New York. The Cuban government has long railed against the 1966 law, saying it entices Cubans to abandon the island and flout immigration laws while also putting their lives at risk as they try to cross the treacherous Florida Straits. Most countries have stiff visa requirements for Cubans. Ecuador dropped its entrance visa requirement for Cubans in 2008, and has seen the number of arrivals jump to 27,000 in 2011 from 4,700 in 2007, according to the Tourism Ministry. Mexico was once a popular destination for smugglers transporting Cubans in fast boats because it was close and the government did not send intercepted Cubans back to the island. But in 2008, at the urging of Cuba, Mexico
signed an agreement to deport Cubans, which led to a sharp decrease in numbers. Thousands of Cubans have also obtained Spanish passports in recent years under a law designed to restore citizenship to the descendants of those who fled the country in the 1930s during the Spanish civil war. More than 60,000 passports have been handed out in the past three years, with a total of about 180,000 Cubans estimated to be eligible. As European Union members, they can enter the United States without a visa, and then claim residency under the Adjustment Act. “With Cubans free to travel to Mexico and Canada, ‘step-across-the-border’ economic migration will become a bigger problem,” said John McAuliff of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, which advocates better U.S.-Cuba relations.
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Kaieteur News
Chinese/Caribbean officials want enhanced mutual trade and investment China should seek deeper trade and investment cooperation with Latin America amid the global economic slowdown and sluggish international demand, senior officials said on Wednesday. China, as the biggest emerging market, “shares increasing complementarities with Latin American nations, the world’s most dynamic economies. Deepening bilateral trade diversifies China’s exports and also helps the global economic recovery,” Abdulahat Abdurixit, vice-chairman of the 10th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, said in a keynote speech in the 6th China-LAC Business Summit, which is being held in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, from Wednesday to yesterday. Bilateral trade increased about 30 percent annually since 2001 to reach $241.5 billion in 2011, while Chinese investment in Latin America totaled $10.1 billion in 2011,
16.8 percent of China’s outbound investment last year. China has become Latin America’s third-largest trade partner, and the region’s third-largest investment source, said Li Chao, deputy head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.However, the lackluster global economic situation is taking a toll on bilateral trade. “The sluggish world economic recovery and the festering European debt crisis reduced international demand and drove down trade between China and Latin America,” said Wan Jifei, chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, or CCPIT. China’s trade with Brazil the largest Latin American economy - rose 5 percent from a year earlier in the first nine months of the year, lower than China’s total trade growth in the same period, which was 6.2 percent yearon-year, but much higher than the 2.7-percent decline in trade between China and the European Union, the
country’s biggest trade partner, according to the General Administration of Customs. Yu Ping, CCPIT’s deputy head, said that natural resources accounted for a large share of China’s imports from Latin America and that the unbalanced trade structure should be adjusted. “We must enter a new chapter of trade with China” and improve the trade structure, while opening up bilateral trade in services, said Fernando Ocampo, Costa Rica’s vice-minister of foreign trade. Luis Alberto Moreno, the president of the InterAmerican Development Bank, said that China and the Latin American and Caribbean regions will strengthen mutual dependence, while urging direct investment in each other’s economies to overcome trade imbalances, a deficit of $96 billion in 2010 in favor of China. He added that mutual investments are “too small in view of the total trade volume. Tariff and non-tariff barriers need to be lifted”. (China Daily)
Friday October 19, 2012
IDB group member focus on business opportunities for Caribbean women Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation - Plans are in the making by the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), to produce a comprehensive set of metrics for evaluating countries’ environments for women’s business start-ups and growth in Latin America and the Caribbean. This was disclosed by MIF’s General Manager, Nancy Lee who said the WEVentureScope, to be produced in partnership with the Economist Intelligence Unit, will examine the factors that strongly affect women’s opportunities to own, manage and grow micro, small and medium-sized businesses. Those factors will include the business and entrepreneurship environment, access to finance, education and skillbuilding opportunities, and the availability of social services. “This index, the first of its kind, will provide a great leap forward in our understanding of key influences on women’s entrepreneurial opportunities.
Nancy Lee It will also help us pinpoint the kinds of public and private interventions that are most effective in helping women start and grow businesses,” said Lee in making the announcement
during the “The Power Women as Drivers of Social Growth and Inclusion” conference, an international event organized by the IDB, the United States Department of State and the Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion of Peru. The IDB said the index will include at least 25 qualitative and quantitative indicators, an interactive map with country scores, adjustable weights for the components that comprise the scores, country rankings, country reports, and a summary of key findings. It will also have a dedicated, interactive website. The first edition of the WEVentureScope will be launched in early 2013. The IDB said the WEVentureScope is part of a larger, recently-launched MIF initiative that promotes women’s economic empowerment, including efforts to unlock and support women’s entrepreneurial potential.
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
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Colombian government, FARC rebels Govt. seeks free hour from media to meet in Cuba for peace talks HURDAL, Norway/ BOGOTA (Reuters) Colombian government and leftist rebel negotiators agreed to meet in Cuba in midNovember to start what are likely to be thorny peace talks aimed at patching together an end to half a century of conflict, both sides said yesterday. Talks, which opened in Norway this week, are the latest in a long history of attempts to resolve the war which has left tens of thousands dead and millions more displaced since the founding of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in 1964. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is betting that a decade of U.S.-backed blows against the FARC has battered the group to the point it will seriously seek to end the fighting after so many previous efforts ended in shambles. But in the first sign of discord, rebel leader Ivan Marquez slammed foreign oil and mining interests in
Colombia, saying their presence was destructive and should be discussed. Humberto de la Calle, the government’s lead negotiator, ruled that out. “The peace process will be successful if it is serious, realistic and efficient,” de la Calle said in Hurdal, Norway. “We are not discussing the model of economic development. We are not discussing foreign
investment. For that to be discussed on the Colombian agenda, the FARC have to lay down their arms, enter politics and win elections,” he said. In a carefully stagemanaged event, Norwegian organisers were able to avoid what became a symbol of the failure of the last attempt at peace in 1999: a vacant chair. Back then, a red-faced President Andres Pastrana sat next to the empty seat of FARC founder Manuel Marulanda, who failed to turn up. This time, the two sides appeared jointly yesterday at a plush hotel - the first time they have met publicly in a decade. The negotiators entered the conference room together, then sat at a table with representatives of Cuba and Norway between them. They did not talk or shake hands. The government delegation sat stone-faced as Marquez spoke for half an hour following short opening remarks by de la Calle. The sides then held separate press conferences.
Jamaica Observer – Jamaica’s population has increased by less than one per cent per annum since 1991, while life expectancy has increased - with women negligibly more than men - the 2011 Population and Housing Census has shown. The survey also found that there has been a decline in the 0-14 age group, while the working age population increased in comparative since 2001. The major findings of the census will be presented by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) at a press conference in Kingston on Wednesday this week. STATIN also said that information relating to
housing stock also shows an increase. All countries are required by the United Nations to undertake a census at least once every 10 years. The just completed exercise was Jamaica’s 14th. The Population and Housing Census is the total process of collecting, compiling and publishing demographic, social and economic data pertaining to a specified time, to all persons in the country. As stated in the Principles and Recommendations of the United Nations, “the most important capital a society can have is human capital”. The census data are used primarily for planning, policymaking and administration.
From a government perspective, the data inform response to the demand for social amenities such as schools, health facilities and water supply. Private sector firms also use them for market decisions, such as where to locate business entities that target specific population groups and where and how to provide the services that satisfy the needs of the population. According to STATIN, the data collection process for the 2011 Census was most challenging. However, there was a heightened sense of awareness with the theme ‘Everyone counts... you, me, all a wi’.
Humberto de la Calle
2011 census shows marginal increase in population
Trinidad Guardian The People’s Partnership administration wants one free hour of media time to air government programmes to inform the public, Communications Minister Jamal Mohammed said on Monday night. “ We ’ r e r e q u e s t i n g t h i s very respectfully. We are not making any demands,” Mohammed added. He was speaking in the Senate’s 2013 budget debate. Mohammed, who said there had been some concern about the issue, said the initial suggestion had been for two hours but, he said, there was consensus on seeking only
one hour of free airtime from the media. He said while some ministries had received billion-dollar allocations, his had received $69 million for the operations of state-owned CNMG and the Government Information Services Ltd (GISL). Mohammed said some people might call Government’s information on its work “propaganda,” but the state had a duty to the population to relay its information publicly for people to be properly informed rather than operate on misinformation. He said the ministry’s draft communication of
information policy, which would be released in upcoming months, was committed to press freedom. He said he would “fight to the death” to defend people’s right to speak or publish, even if he disagreed with what they said. Among opportunities in the policy, he said, was the issue of radio/TV licences, part of which involved agreement for Government to have 14 hours a week of radio/TV time, free. He said it was broken down to two hours daily of free air time. He said T&T had over 30 radio stations and ten television stations.
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Friday October 19, 2012
Reporters without Borders calls for Independent Commission of Enquiry PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - CMC - The media freedom organization Reporters Without Borders has called for the creation of an independent commission of enquiry into revelations that the confidential phone records of Anika GumbsSandiford, a reporter with the Trinidad Guardian, were illegally passed onto a government agency here. The organization has also expressed concerned about the effect of a smear operation against certain journalists and the government’s desire to force the privately-owned broadcast media to carry official announcements free of charge as in some Latin America countries, where they are called “cadenas.” “An attempt was clearly made to violate the confidentiality of Anika G u m b s - S a n d i f o r d ’s sources, although this is one of the cornerstones of freedom of information,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The case recalls the one at the start of the year involving Newsday‘s Andre Bagoo, who was also investigating a conflict within a state institution. “In the present case, the authorities seem to have resorted to domestic espionage, which is all the more outrageous as Prime Minister Kamla PersadBissessar ’s government publicly undertook to end such practices in 2010 leading to parliament’s adoption of the Interception of Communications Act “ H o w, u n d e r t h e s e circumstances, is a minimal
degree of trust to be restored between the government and the media? The creation of an independent commission of enquiry is imperative.” According to media reports, the Chaguaramas Development Authority (CDA), a state development a g e n c y, obtained GumbsSandiford’s phone records from the state-owned Te l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s Services of Trinidad and To b a g o ( T S T T ) i n a n apparent bid to trace her source for an article published on September 9. The story revealed that, in an unprecedented move, planning and development Bhoe Te w a r i e had overturned the CDA b o a r d ’s decision to dispense with a law firm’s services for being too expensive, and that he was now trying to disband the board. Reporters Without Borders says the attempt to trace a journalist’s sources comes at a time of new tension between the government and many journalists critical of national security minister Jack Warner’s decision to deny the media access to government’s crime figures. Against this backdrop, Reporters Without Borders has also taken note of a recent announcement from communication minister Jamal Mohammed in which he stated that all privatelyowned broadcasters would be required to carry up to five minutes of government messages every hour between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. for no compensation.
“Such a measure is not in accordance with the requirements of pluralism,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Its implementation would create the conditions for a media war and there is still time to stop this.” Earlier this week the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) said it is “disturbed” at reports that GumbsSandiford’s t were recently handed over to a state agency following the publication of an article. According to MATT,the Constitution guarantees the right of the individual to respect for his private and family life and freedom of the press. “The media are frequently the only means through which whistleblowers in both the public and private sectors are able to bring wrongdoing to light without risk to themselves. This is because the media have previously been able to guarantee the confidentiality of their sources. “This confidentiality is now under threat, if private individuals are able to bypass the law and unearth the identity of such sources. If whistleblowers can no longer speak to the media in safety, then corruption, waste, mismanagement and many forms of injustice may go unchecked. “The Media Association called for a full and rapid investigation by TSTT and the police, and for those involved to brought to justice if, as it appears, the law has been broken,” the media group said.
WASHINGTON - The World Bank Board of Directors yesterday endorsed a new strategy that will guide the World Bank Group’s engagement in Suriname for the next two years. The Interim Strategy Note (ISN) is closely aligned with Suriname’s Development Plan (2012-2016) and focuses on improving good governance and social inclusiveness, as well as increasing economic diversification and growth. “We are pleased to have resumed the relationship with the World Bank Group. Their development and competitiveness knowledge, financial products, and convening power will be
important for supporting the new social and economic agenda of Suriname,” said Gilmore Hoefdraad, Governor of the Central Bank of Suriname. Suriname fared well during the global economic crisis, with economic growth estimated to have risen from 3 percent in 2009 to 4.1 percent in 2010 and 4.2 percent in 2011. The country’s recent economic performance, one of the best in the region, has been driven by a rebound in the prices of S u r i n a m e ’s main commodity exports (gold, petroleum, and alumina), higher production and export of gold and alumina, and
increased government spending in 2009-10. “We are committed to supporting Suriname’s development plan,” said Françoise Clottes, World Bank Director for the Caribbean. “The Government sees the World Bank Group as a partner and a source of strategic advice for cuttingedge global knowledge and best practices on development.” The new ISN does not envisage lending and focuses on analytical work designed to inform policymakers and build knowledge on issues such as financial management, competitiveness, and social development.
World Bank renews partnership with Suriname
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
Fistic entertainment for Berbicians as nation’s ‘Simon Pures’ pound it out this weekend
DDL Beverage Sales Manager, Alexis Langhorne (2nd L) and Marketing Assistant, Almira Kassim (extreme R) is joined by Mr. Ninvalle (2nd R) and Mr. Poole at the launching ceremony yesterday morning. More than 50 boxers out of gyms countrywide will be on show when the Guyana Amateur Boxing Association (GABA), in collaboration with the Demerara Distillers Ltd (DDL), presents two nights of fistic fury at the Central Police Station Ground, New Amsterdam, tomorrow and Sunday Night. This card is the second of a series following closely on the heels of the inaugural Andrew Lewis Juniors U-16 Boxing championships, staged on the northern tarmac of the Andrew Lewis Boxing Gym, Independence Boulevard Albouystown about two months ago. GABA had partnered with the Demerara Distillers Ltd and the latter organization had committed to two similar outings before the year is through in territories outside of Georgetown. Yesterday morning, DDL Beverage Sales Manager, Alexis Langhorne
and Marketing Assistant, Almira Kassim handed over the sponsorship package to the President of the GABA, Steve Ninvalle at his Main Street office in the presence of GABA Technical Director, Terrence Poole and the media corp. Mr. Ninvalle said that he was enthused with the developmental programme put in place for the young Simon Pures which will enhance the general objective of nurturing them for future national duties. He expressed deep gratitude to the DDL team while assuring them that their generosity would be pivotal to the success of GABA long term objective. Ms Langhorne acknowledged Mr. Ninvalle’s sentiments while explaining that the decision to sponsor the tournament was not a difficult one since her firm was very much interested in the devel-
opment of the young boxers. She noted that Guyanese boxers are talented and needed the support to do well. It was based on this analysis that her executive affirmed to support for the card. Mr. Poole also extended gratitude to the DDL executives and assured that the young boxers would turn in action packed encounters. He urged the boxers to train diligently in preparation of several imminent tournaments including the National Intermediate and National Open Championships scheduled for early November and mid December respectively. Several entities and individuals were also acknowledged for their diligent support in this and other ventures of GABA including the Minister and the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, Digicel and the Guyana Defence Force.
Mr. Poole also acknowledged the contribution of members of the Guyana Police Force whose facilities would be used throughout the tournament. GABA is also extending thanks to Monty Proffit of Trustee’s Pawn Shop, Roy Bacchus, Eton Cordis and Kerwin Chase. GABA is concentrating heavily on the development of the nursery and over the past months Mr. Poole had led a delegation of coaches to the Mining Town of Linden and subsequently Berbice, on a talent search/fact finding mission to unearth talent for future developmental programmes. It was following observations of the team that Berbice was chosen for tomorrow’s tournament. The team of coaches will conduct a similar exercise on the Essequibo Coast in the near future.
ICC fighting ‘war’ against corruption - Richardson Cricinfo ICC Site - Dave Richardson, the ICC chief executive, has conceded that the recent sting operation by India TV involving six umpires from the subcontinent, who allegedly were willing to divulge information and even give favourable decisions in exchange for monetary profits, is a prime example of how far the tentacles of corruption have reached in cricket. Richardson, who became chief executive on July 1, said
cricket was confronting a “war” against corruption and the ICC was aware that the bookmakers were now targeting domestic Twenty20 leagues as a result of a tightening of security and education of international players by the anti-corruption and security unit (ACSU). “It is everybody now unfortunately: everybody is susceptible, the curators, the groundsmen,” Richardson said at the unveiling of the ICC Champions Trophy, which
will be hosted in England in the summer of 2013. “At international level, whether it is a bilateral series or whether it is an ICC event, the attention to that aspect of the world game is at the same level every time we walk out onto the field so to speak. “So it won’t be any less, it won’t be any more than normal. But the bottom line is, it is a bit of a war we are fighting and our anticorruption unit has their work cut out to make sure the
players are kept away from temptation and that we end up with a corruption-free event.” On October 8, India TV, a privately-owned Indian television channel, exposed details of the sting operation, which was carried out by undercover reporters. Nadir Shah (Bangladesh), Nadeem Ghauri and Anis Siddiqui (Pakistan), and Sagara Gallage, Maurice Winston Zilwa and Gamini Dissanayake (Sri Lanka) were the six umpires named in the sting.
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Sixers all but through to semis after convincing win
In his last match of the tournament, Shane Watson put an in all-round effort to make sure Sixers made it to the semi-final © Associated Press Cricinfo - Lions scored 56 runs off their last 57 deliveries, losing seven wickets, to completely undo a quick start provided by Gulam Bodi, who scored 61 off 44. Although Jean Symes provided quick 23 in the end, Lions ended with an underwhelming 137, which Sydney Sixers chased with ease despite a middle-overs stumble of three wickets for 14 runs. With their third win out of three and superior net run rate, Sixers are now all but through to the semi-finals. Bodi and Symes continued in the same form that had helped Lions win their previous match, against Chennai Super Kings, but Sixers wove a comeback around the two. They scored 84 in 10 overs between them, the rest managed just 53. Not only were the others guilty of going slow, they also got out after eating up those deliveries. It was not the two leading Sixers pace bowlers that slowed down Lions, but the medium-pace of Shane Watson and Josh Hazlewood that took the wickets to keep pegging Lions back. Bodi, on the other hand, kept hitting the ball over midwicket and extra cover. Pat Cummins’ first over went for 14, and Mitchell Starc went for a huge six in his first. Hazlewood, though, got Alviro Petersen in his first, and Watson did that to Quinton de Kock in his second. De Kock, who scored a fifty against Mumbai Indians, managed just four off 14. Neil Mckenzie started calmly again, but couldn’t kick
on, and went back for 17 off 16 when Hazlewood when he opened the face to Hazlewood in the 11th over, managing only an edge. Zander de Bruyn made it worse with four off 10, and Lions were now just 91 for 4 in the 14th over. Symes and Bodi pushed Lions back on track a 29-run partnership in 3.4 overs, but Starc came back with both their wickets in the 18th over. Lions were pulled back again, and Sixers were left with a middling total to chase. The start Sixers got off to wasn’t the flashiest, but Watson and Michael Lumb stayed together for 8.3 overs. While Lumb went only at a run a ball, Watson opened up to take 19 runs off the sixth over, bowled by the quick but erratic Chris Morris. Aaaron Phangiso once again provided Lions with a comeback in the middle overs, getting rid of Lumb and Dominic Thornely in successive deliveries. When Phangiso got Watson on the slog sweep in the11th over, SIxers had gone from 60 for no loss to 74 for 3. The next two overs went for just eight, taking the asking rate up to 7.71 for the last seven overs. Brad Haddin then went on a sweeping spree, sending Symes for three consecutive sixes. Two more wickets fell later, but under six an over was not going to trouble Sixers. Scores: Sydney Sixers 141 for 5 (Watson 47, Haddin 32) beat Lions 137 for 9 (Bodi 61, Symes 23, Starc 3-19, Hazlewood 2-18) by five wickets.
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Friday October 19, 2012
‘Breast Cancer Awareness’ month...
Roraima, Digicel, Avon form alliance to stage 25-lap Cycle Race
(from left) DIGICEL’S Head of Marketing Jacqueline James, GCF’s Julian Alves, Roraima’s Brian Allen, cyclist Alonzo Greaves and Digicel’s PRO Shonnet Moore seen at the Press Briefing on Wednesday. With many activities planned to commemorate ‘Breast Cancer Awareness’ month, Roraima Cycle Club in association with Digicel and Avon has formed an alliance to stage a massive 25 laps Cycle Race on the outer circuit of the National Park on October 28. On Wednesday last, Club
President Brian Allen, Guyana Cycling Federation Vice-President Julian Alves and promising young cyclist Alonzo Greaves were part of the a team that participated in the launching of the event at the Digicel Head Office which also saw in attendance Head of Marketing Jacqueline James and PRO Shonnet Moore.
Allen in his presentation commended Digicel for choosing the club to partner them in the initiative and went further to explain that cycling has been used to promote awareness of many other diseases. He said Digicel has risen the bar by offering to reward the respective winners with
lucrative prizes for the one off event which will see the winner of the Open category carry away $100,000, while the junior, female and veteran segments will also take home monetary prizes in addition to trophies. Additionally, the winner will be allowed to wear the ‘Breast Cancer Awareness’
jersey to any event thereafter for one year. Alves, also expressed appreciation to Digicel for selecting the sport to bring to the forefront the ‘ Breast Cancer Awareness’ campaign and singled them out as one of the leading corporate entities that puts back a sizeable portion of the money
Ministries/Corporations/Business Entity zones up and... From page 32 Frankies, Ravi 6, RattiWariors, Big 6 and Big K. LEGUAN - Starts this Sunday at Enterprise. LINDENAND MAHDIA Have completed Zone 1. CANJIE – to start this Sunday. ESSEQUIBO – Zone 1Rocket, Brothers, Adventure, Video Club, Big Bird, Mafia, to name a few will be played tomorrow. Action will continue in the Cooperation Zone at
Transport Sports Club at 6:00 pm today. Some of the teams expected to play in the Ministries/Corporations/ Business Entity zones are: Banks DIH, Ansa Mc Al, Demerara Distilleries limited (DDL), Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, National Insurance Scheme, Bovell’s Construction, National Agricultural Research Institute(Nari), F&H, Caricom, Bank of Guyana, Courts (Guyana) Ltd, Guyana
Lotto Company, Cummings Electrical Services, Regal, Metro, Ainlim, Guyana Police Force, Excalibur Security Service, Guyana prisons Service, Professional Guard Service, Demerara Power, Guyana Power and Light(GPL), Republic Bank, Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry, Hand in Hand Insurance Company, GTM, US Embassy, Beharry Group of Companies Ltd, Mayor and Town Council, Guyana Fire service, National
Communication Network, Guyana Public Service Union, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Labour, Human and Social Services, Ministry of Works, Office of the President, Presidential Guard Service, NCERD, Pegasus Hotel, CCWU King’s Jewellery World, Steve’s Jewellery World, Guyana Water Incorporated, International Six (Shew’s General Store),
Guyana National Newspaper, Stabroek News, Kaieteur News, Grace Kennedy (Guyana) Ltd, Scotia Bank(Guyana) Ltd, Guyana Revenue Authority, Ministry of Home Affairs, GT&T, Digicel, GNIC, Kojac, Kings, GNSC, LPK, GPSU, DeSinco, Amatuk (PIKE Street, Kitty), Mike’s Pharmacy, Nalico, Scotia Bank and Guyoil. For further information contact can be made with Mr. Colin Mc Ewan (Turning Point) on 687 2074.
they earn from valued customers. He called on more members of the business community to duplicate the act of Digicel since the development of sports requires substantial financial support. James in her remarks stated that their involvement in the race “is our way of saying that we continue with the promotion of good health and showing those living with the disease that we are behind you.” She added that it is another way of encouraging them to have hope and not give up. Greaves, who is also a Digicel Brand Ambassador disclosed his readiness to repel all the challengers, adding that his preparations have gone well and the aim right now is to go for the win. The race starts at 09:00hrs.
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
GABBFF Seniors 2012 – ‘Rise of the Machines’
Sleepin International on board
Owner of Sleepin International Clifton Bacchus strikes a pose with Tananarive McGowan (right) and Eustace Abraham. Comfortable rest, meals and habitable surroundings are some of the many ingredients that goes along with creating and maintaining a body that thrills thousands of fans. These are some of the very ingredients that Sleepin International Hotel has decided to offer the two guest posers that will be appearing tomorrow evening when the Guyana Amateur Body Building & Fitness Federation (GABBFF) host their Senior Championships for this year. Being held under the theme, “Rise of the Machines”, over 30 of the best bodies in Guyana (male and female) will collide with the aim of out flexing each other to catch the eyes of judges in order to be crowned the best in their respective categories then the ultimate showdown featuring the male category winners who will vie for the crown of Mr. Guyana 2012. The GABBFF has been pulling out all the stops to ensure a quality show and have secured the pair of athletes who will be the guest posers; Canada’s National female Masters Heavyweight Champion , 40 year-old Tananarive McGowan who is Jamaican born. McGowan would be partnered by Guyanese Eustace Abraham who is also based in Canada, the two athletes have promised something special for the fans. Yesterday, Owner of Sleepin International, located at 24 Brickdam, Clifton Bacchus took time out from his busy schedule to welcome McGowan and Abraham to his Hotel and as sponsor of their stay, said he was very honoured to have them as his
special guests. “We at Sleepin International are very pleased to welcome you here for the next couple of days as part of our family and I am confident that you guys will surely have the fans rocking on Saturday night at the show. This is our little way of giving back to the society by assisting the GABBFF to have you here.” McGowan said that she was very happy to be in Guyana for the first time and is promising to do her best on stage tomorrow evening. She
also said that she feels at home {like Jamaica} having seen some of the city. Abraham, who is also an Executive Member of the GABBFF, said he was quite happy to be giving back to the sport here noting that McGowan is a very good friend of his and when the notion of having a female guest poser came up he approached her and she readily accepted the invitation to come to Guyana. Show time tomorrow is 19:00hrs and admission is $1,000.
GFSCA Softball cricket continues Sunday The Guyana Floodlight Softball Cricket Association (GFSCA) Nationwide Male/ Female softball tournament sponsored by Mike’s Pharmacy, Ariel Enterprise, Trophy Stall, Ramchand Auto Spares, Survival, Motor Trend, and Petama Enterprise, continues on Sunday Oct. 21 with a number of matches at several venues. Fixtures are as follows: EVEREST GROUND: Pitch #1- 9:00AM- Floodlight VS Success Masters. 11:00AM- Fram VS Rafman. 1:00PM- Herstelling VS Country Road. Pitch #29:00AM – Bedi Ramjewan Masters VS East Bankers Masters. 12:00PM- Wellman VS Parika Defenders. Pitch #3- 9:00AM Regal Champs VS Lady Jaguars. 10:00AMTrophy Stall Angels VS 4R Lioness. 11:00AMWellwoman VS Enterprise Stars. 12:00PM- Fazal Kayume Angels VS Mahaics Creek Princesses. 1:000PMEnterprise Stars VS Mahaica
Creek Princesses. QUEENS COLLEGE GROUND: Pitch #1-9:00AMSuccess Warriors VS Renegade. 11:00AM- Regal XI VS Renegade. 1:00PMPark Rangers VS Enterprise Legends. Pitch #2-9:00AMRegal Masters VS Never Lose. 12:00PM- Savage Masters VS Better Hope Masters. MINISTRY OF EDUCATION GROUND: Pitch#1-9:00AM-Trophy Stall A VS Queens Park Rangers. 11:00AM- Trophy Stall A VS Cena XI. 1:00PMQueens Park Rangers VS J&J Bengal Tigers. Pitch#29:00AM- Trophy Stall B VS Tornado. 11:00AM- Amlya’s Furniture Store VS Jaguars. 1:00PM- Rockaway VS East Bankers. OGLE GROUND: 9:00AM- Builders Lumber Yard VS Flashers. 11:00AMAccomplishment VS Builders Lumber Yard. 1:00PMLusignan Third Street VS Desperado.
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Kaieteur News
Friday October 19, 2012
Pietersen back in England fold for tour to India (Reuters) - Kevin Pietersen has been added to England’s test squad for next month’s tour to India after being dropped over a controversial text-message row. The decision to recall the South African-born batsman was made after he met up with coach Andy Flower, captain Alastair Cook and other senior players and members of England’s management team earlier this week.
“We were keen Kevin should hold a series of faceto-face meetings with team management and senior players before the test squad departs for the UAE and India next week,” England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) managing director Hugh Morris said in a statement on Thursday. “The meetings were constructive and cordial and all outstanding issues have been resolved. All the
England players and management are now keen to draw a line under this matter and fully focus on the cricketing challenge that lies ahead in India.” Pietersen was dropped by England for the third and final test against South Africa at Lord’s in August after admitting sending provocative texts to the tourists’ players. But the batsman denied allegations he told them how
to dismiss former captain Andrew Strauss. Strauss quit cricket after South Africa won the test series 2-0. The ECB’s national selector Geoff Miller said it would be good to have an extra batsman in the squad especially as Ian Bell was due to return home for the birth of his child midway through the tour of India. “We are pleased to welcome a player of Kevin’s
Kevin Pietersen
proven international calibre back into the squad for such an important test series,” said Miller. “As we anticipate Ian Bell will return home for the
birth of his first child around the time of the second test in Mumbai, the team will benefit from having an extra batsman in the squad.”
F & H Printing Countrywide Million dollar Plus Dominoes Competition...
Ministries/Corporations/ Business Entity zones up and running this weekend The F& H Million Dollars plus Dominoes Competition is underway with some zone finals already contested. Action is due to continue tonight at the Transport Sports Club from 6:00pm. Matches are currently being played in every region. However, the coordinators are still working to get few areas up and running. These areas should commence by next week. Although the traditional team matches will be continuing, the main focus of the competition this week has been mobilization of the Ministries/Corporations/ Business Entity Teams. The Organizing Committee has delivered official invitations to approximately 70 teams which fall into this category. If any interested team is this category has unavoidable not received an official invitation from the Committee,
the organizers are offering their profound apologizes and is kindly ask that these teams make contact with Mr. Colin McEwan on the number listed below. Some corporations have commenced playing and the organizers are hoping that most if not all of the Corporations turn up today at 18:00hrs at the Transport Sports Club for registration and playing of matches. Meanwhile, in BARTICABoat Crew & Lotto has qualified in Zone 1. Zone 2 starts this weekend. GEORGETOWN – Lions and LRB qualified in Zone 5. WEST BANK DEMERARA – Zone 1 finals between: Mix-Up vs. West Side vs. Riddim will be played tonight. Zone 2 Quarterfinals starts this weekend with teams including Shattas, (Continued on page 30)
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
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Hope optimistic that Golf Classic will be bigger and better Entering the fourth year of existence, this year’s Digicel Golf Classic promises to be bigger and better than previous years according to Sponsorship Manager Gavin Hope who expressed such optimism during the launching on Wednesday in the Company’s Boardroom. Hope, speaking at the occasion said that the entity was extremely pleased with the way the Lusignan Club has hosted the event in the past, while the growth in participation and the significant importance of the tournament are developments that has encouraged them to continue to be associated with the Classic. “Indeed we are pleased to be associated with the Classic, we’ve seen it grow over the past four years and also witness a number of young players improve during that period by virtue of playing in the tournament and we hope that the Club is thrilled by our efforts to make it a bigger and better tournament,” Hope told the gathering of club executives and media operatives. Representing the Club were Secretary David Mohamed, Alfred Mentore and female player Joann Deo, while also in attendance for Digicel were Public Relation Officer Shonnet Moore and Head of Marketing Jacqueline James. Mohamed in his
remarks thanked the Company for maintaining its support for the Classic, adding that it remains one of the most important tournaments on the Club’s itinerary since it provides many visiting and local players an opportunity to get in valuable practice before the Guyana Open which is usually played the following weekend. He lauded Digicel for being one of the biggest supporters of the game locally, indicating that without the support it would be difficult for the Club to have the kind of exposure that it is currently enjoying. Deo noted that the Classic is a highly anticipated event, especially since it enables players to get a feel of the Course ahead of the Guyana Open which is played the following weekend. Mentore spoke of the great partnership that exists between Digicel and the Club which has been forged over the past four years and seems to be getting stronger each year. Most of the players according to Mentore who feature in the Guyana Open take the opportunity to participate in the Digicel Classic thereby making it a really big event on the Club’s Annual Calendar. The tournament is set to be played on October 27-28 and players are expected from the USA, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname.
ECB to host 40 over tourney this weekend, final under lights in Pomeroon The Essequibo Cricket Board 40-over competition is set to commence today with a number of matches across the county involving the eight area committee teams; Wakenaam, Leguan, Bartica, East Bank Essequibo, Pomeroon, North, South and Central Essequibo. Ricardo Adams, Wayne Osborne, Nokta Moses, Imran Khan and Oyono Sampson are expected to lead Wakenaam when they face Bartica today at the Wakenaam Community Center ground. Andrew Wong, Mahase Richards, Robin Narine and Kenzo Baksh are expected to lead the visitors challenge. South Essequibo will be led by Anthony Adams, Dillon Heyliger, Rovin Dusraj, Otis Roberts and Tameshwar Deonarine, while North will depend on the likes of
Uvindra Balgobin, Dharamdeo Lall, Patrick Rooplall, Devindra Lall and Herry Green. The teams will clash at Zorg. Ramesh Narine, Anthony Persaud and Brian Persaud will spearhead Pomeroon against Latchman Rohit, Narendra Madholall and Yougeshwar Lall of Central Essequibo at Affiance. Leguan, a team capable of holding their own in any given situation, will look to Huckumchand Savitir, Aseeb Khan and Muneshwar Jattan to take them through, while Trevor Benn, Jason Heyliger and Kevon Boodie will be at the helm for East Bank Essequibo. The semifinals will be contested tomorrow followed by the final on Sunday under lights in Pomeroon.
Club Secretary David Mohamed (centre) addresses the gathering in the presence of (from left) Digicel’s Gavin Hope, golfers Alfred Mentore and Joann Deo and Digicel’s Shonnet Moore.
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Kaieteur News
Friday October 19, 2012
Marian Academy Secondary School Badminton tournament 2012 underway
Students of the Marian Academy involved in the Badminton tourney take time out for a photo. The Marian Academy Secondary School Badminton Tournament started on Tuesday at the school’s badminton courts. The Primary section of the school tournament was played off over the past two weeks. Narayan Ramdhani and Jonathan Mangra advanced to the Boys Singles
semifinals, while Meshonn Persaud and Angelica DaSilva reached the Girls quarterfinals. The results of matches played are: Boys Singles Semifinals: Narayan Ramdhani defeated Simon Joseph: 21-3 Jonathan Mangra defeated Nicholas Hickens: 21-6 Girls Singles First
Round: Alexa Williams defeated Kelly Brassington: 21-6 Aaliyah Rodrigues defeated Lanika Persaud: 21-13 Girls Singles Quarterfinals: Meshonn Persaud defeated Krystal Peters: 21-10 Angelica DaSilva defeated Sophia Choo-Hen: 21-9
GTTA/Digicel Schools’ Tournament starts today The Digicel-sponsored National Schools Table Tennis Championships will commence today at the National Gymnasium with players expected to compete from across the country in four top categories. Schools from Bartica, Region 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 10 will be competing for national honours at the event that had an unprecedented number of schools from across Guyana last year, which lead to the championships having to be extended for an additional two days. The categories that will be contested include 18-Years-and-Under Teams; 15-Yearsand-Under Teams; 13-Years-and-Uunder Teams and 11-Years-and-Under Teams. Local telecommunications giants, Digicel are the primary sponsor of the event. The event was officially launched on Wednesday, and the GTTA has stated that the competition is nursery for unearthing new and emerging talents in the sport. It was also revealed that it is part of the association’s attempts to decentralise the sport. “The tournament format is quite interesting and lends itself to keen competition since there is the involvement of a doubles match, which negates the strength of some of the stronger teams,” a release from the GTTA indicated yesterday. The tournament will be played according to ITTF regulations: a team shall consist of a maximum of three players in each division and a minimum of two players can comprise a team (the team can be mixed with boys and girls); a school can enter no more than two teams in a particular category; any team that plays an over-aged player or infringe the rules will be
Godfrey Munroe
disqualified from the tournament. Special awards will be given to the Most Outstanding Male; Most Outstanding Female and the Most Improved Players; the overall team champions will be given the Digicel Trophy, which is the school with the most wins in the respective categories.
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
Shondell Alfred to fight for prestigious WBC Super Flyweight World Title Shondell Alfred
A release from the Guyana Boxing Board Of Control has informed that an agreement has been reached through its President for Shondell “Mystery Lady” Alfred to fight Mexican, Zulina Munoz for the vacant WBC Super Flyweight Title. The fight is scheduled for November 24 in Mexico City. The release stated, the WBC Title is widely regarded as the most prestigious in the boxing world and the highest possible level of achievement in the sport. Zulina Munoz known as La Loba (The She-Wolf) is a 25 year old Mexican fighter who lives in Mexico City but hails from San Vincente, Chicoloapan in Mexico. She has an outstanding record of 35 wins, 24 coming by way of knockout, against only 1 loss and 2 draws. She has fought a total of 38 fights. Munoz has held the WBC Silver Female Bantamweight Title since June of 2011 and
Zulina Munoz
won the WBC Silver Female Super Flyweight Title on 29th September 2012. She is a seasoned and tough campaigner. The vacant title is occasioned by the stepping down of Anna Maria Torres to start her family. Torres, widely acknowledged as one of the best female boxers of this era is revered in her native Mexico. Torres has ruled the division since 2006 as the WBC Superflyweight Champion, successfully defending her title eleven times. Shondell Alfred has held the WIBA Bantamweight Title since 2010 and is the Guyana Bantamweight Champion and has expressed great excitement at this opportunity declaring that it will not be wasted. It has also been agreed that regardless of the winner, should the fight be close and a rematch warranted, it will take place in Guyana in 2013.
High level field for Norman Singh Turf Club Horserace Meet this weekend Following the closure of entries for the Norman Singh Turf Club’s October 21 Horserace Meeting close last weekend, the entrants indicate that the action promises to be a scorcher. The Meet is being held in collaboration with Jumbo Jet Auto Sales and close to 70 horses have been registered. Over $7.5M in cash prizes and trophies are on offer. The track is said to be in excellent condition and an exciting day of racing is anticipated in the eight races carded. Among the horses expected to be on show are; Score’s Even, Perfect Circle, California Strike, Diamond Dazzling, Red and Lovely, Who is on the case, Got to go, Night Crescendo, County Armagh and the Message will be in the field for the feature B & Lower race over 1400M for a $1,200,000 purse. The 3 yrs old Open -West Indies Bred 1400M gallop for a $500,000 prize will see the likes of RJ Express, Windy War, Settle in Seattle, Princes Kiara, Red Cloud, Rosetta, Rock Sonia and Feels like Gold in action. The 2 yrs old Open –West Indies Bred 1200M gallop for $400,000 prize money will see Wild Grinder, Gold Rush, Gold Princess, Monsoon, Princess Alicia, Another Jet and It’s my turn in heated battle. The 2 yrs old Open for Guyana Bred racehorses in a 1100M sprint for $300,000 will feature Party Time, This Cat don’t play, She’s so special, Silent Night, Lucky Gold, Black
Warrior, Easy to win and Dream Boy. The E & Lower over 1200M for a $450,000 purse features Work Force, Fairy Landing, Majestic, Super Cat, Traditional Man, War Craft, Top of the Line and Captain Crook. The G1 & Lower 1200M race has $300,000 at stake and in the running are Summer Classic, De Girls Dem Sugar, Peace and Love, Gabriel’s Gold, Bridle Stone Corner and Prado’s Gold. The I Class race covering 1200M has $150,000 on offer and leading the charge for that prize are Black Water, Golden Reprise, Prixie Fire, Little Tip Top, Mona Lisa and Royal Time. The Unclassified Div. 1, 2 & 3 (J,K&L) race over 1200M for $120,000 will see Kevin, Diplomat, Pick Pocket, Bounty Flyer, Windy Killer, MacGyver and Wonder Flower in the hunt. The H Class race has been removed from the programme. Among the sponsors are Banks DIH and Digicel. Race Time is 12:00pm sharp and horse owners are asked to be at the venue on time for a prompt start of the races which the organisers intend to stage before darkness sets in. All races are being run under the rules of the Guyana Horse Racing Authority. All 2 yrs old horses shall provide their Certificate of Registration. Further details can be accessed by contacting Ghansham Singh (Ganesh) @ 6493636/600-3626 and Compton Sancho @ 6900569 or the Club’s Office No.6 Village, WCB.
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Kaieteur News
Friday October 19, 2012
Busta Champion of Champions Cup launched - top 8 Berbice cricket clubs to contest for 1st place $100,000
IT’S A BUSTA MOMENT! Managing Director of Guyana Beverage Company Robert Selman is all smiles as he hands over the first place trophy at stake to RHTY&SC’s Hilbert Foster in the presence of GBC staff members. At left is Marketing Manager Shameza Yadram. By Franklin Wilson With the aim of highlighting the rich talent in the Ancient County of Berbice and to the promotion of sports as a positive avenue for youths, the 9th edition of the Busta Champions of Champions cricket competition was launched yesterday afternoon at sponsors, Guyana Beverage Company, Diamond, East
Bank Demerara. Attended by Managing Director Robert Selman, CEO/ Secretary of organising club Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club (RHTY&SC) and Marketing Manager Shameza Yadram among others, the media was informed of the successes of the tournament over the past years which are the propelling factors for Selman and his company’s continued partnership.
Eight (8) of the best clubs including seven-time and defending champions Rose Hall Town Gizmos & Gadgets will compete for the top honours and top prize of $100,000. The other teams are Port Mourant – the other winner, Skeldon, Albion, Young Warriors, Bermine, Blairmont and West Berbice. Selman, continuing his remarks shared that with the help of the RHTY&SC and
customers in Berbice, the company was able to build a Warehouse which is considered one of the best there. “The way they have run the competition, the way they have spread our name – Busta - I mean is second to none. Through the sponsorship of this champion of champions in Berbice they have produced a lot of national players and someway along
the line we have helped.” He also took time out to highlight the fact that the persons who have been tasked with the responsibility of overlooking cricket in Guyana, have problems. He voiced his displeasure that the recently concluded World T20 tournament which saw the West Indies emerging as champions did not have one Guyanese player and this was despite the quality players Guyana has been producing over the years. All were reminded that Guyana Beverage Company and its parent company in Trinidad & Tobago, S. M Jaleel gives back to the society in two ways: “Giving back to the people in the form of sports and giving back to the people in the form of education. I want to wish you well Mr. Foster, you and your team for 2012 and hope that you continue to do a good job. If I am satisfied that it’s well done, then 2013 we’ll also be on board.” Foster in his brief stated that this year’s tournament promises to be exciting with a number of leading players expected to turn out for their clubs including, Delbert Hicks, Sewnarine Chattergoon, Davendra Bishoo, Richard Ramdeen, Zamal Khan, Jonathan Foo, Gajanand Singh and Narsingh Deonarine. First round action will see Albion at home to Skeldon; Young Warriors taking on West Berbice at the
Cumberland Ground; the Area ‘H’ Ground will host the match between Rose Hall Town Gizmos & Gadgets and Port Mourant with Bermine travelling to engage Blairmont. Guyana Beverage will provide coloured T-shirts for all the teams, white balls for matches, Busta drinks as well as stand the costs for umpires. It was reported that the final will be aired live on NCN Radio. The winning team will pocket $100,000 with the losing finalist taking home half that amount. Individual prizes will be awarded to the best batsman, bowler and player-of-the-final. Foster in his missive, thanked Guyana Beverage Company on behalf of the Club for their continued commitment to Berbice cricket. “We are very confident that with our proven organizing skills, the 2012 edition would be a great success. Cricketers playing the game in Berbice can consider themselves the most fortunate in the Caribbean and even the world with a record 25 tournaments being planned for 2012/2013 at all levels. The BCB with strong support from the RHTY&SC intends to make Berbice the role model cricket administration and with over 160 off the field activities completed for this year we are well on our way.”
Friday October 19, 2012
Kaieteur News
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Malta Brand sponsors Ambulance for Courts Pee Wee Football Competition
Banks DIH Non-Alcoholic Malts Brand Manager Clayton McKenzie poses with Troy Mendonca of Petra Organisation (left) and staff of the Davis Memorial Hospital yesterday.
T
he Courts Pee We e S c h o o l s F o o t b a l l Competition, which is set to
commence tomorrow with eight matches at the Thirst Park ground, received a significant boost yesterday
when Banks DIH NonAlcoholic Malts Brand Manager Clayton McKenzie confirmed his Company’s
support for an Ambulance to be present during the staging of the matches. During a simple
s y m b o l i c c e r e m o n y, McKenzie and officials of the Petra Organisation Troy Mendonca and Rishawn Sandiford joined staff of the Davis Memorial Hospital Dr. Warren Creed, Kathy Fabriga, Deon Alfred, Raymond Persaud and Rudolph Daly for the occasion meant to assure players and parents that the Organisers are leaving no stone unturned in guaranteeing that safety and the presence of competent medical personnel is of utmost importance. Mendonca speaking on behalf of the Organisers first thanked McKenzie for his Company’s support and assured that the staff that will accompany the Ambulance are all competent, having worked with them during the staging of the ‘Guinness Greatest of the Streets’ Competition held earlier this year. Meanwhile, the teams
have been divided into four groups with each comprising four schools and will play each other in the round robin format with the top two progressing to the quarterfinals, while the remaining two from each group advance to play for the ninth to sixteenth place finishers. Desktop Computers will be given to the top four finishers, while every school that participates will benefit from the donation of two Coby Boom Boxes apiece in addition to trophies and medals. Meanwhile, opening day fixtures are as follows: Marian Academy versus St. Pius from 10:00 hrs; St. Sidwell’s vs. Ketley; Green Acres vs. Sophia; Tucville vs. St. Gabriel’s; West Ruimveldt vs. Success Academy; St. Margaret’s vs. F. E P o l l a r d ; S o u t h Ruimveldt vs. Redeemer and North Georgetown vs. Enterprise.
t r o Sp ‘RISE OF THE MACHINES’ bodybuilding extravaganza for Sports Hall tomorrow evening
Tananarive McGowan and Eustace Abrams give a sneak preview of what fans can expect at the show
H
er name is Tananarive McGowan, Jamaican born but now living in Canada. She sports a well toned, muscular frame that belies femininity yet she is very much conscious of her identity. She flew into Guyana to be a part of the ‘Rise of the Machines’ show, a bodybuilding fiesta organized by the executives of the Guyana Amateur Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation (GABBFF), scheduled for the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall tomorrow evening. Recently she carted off the honours in the Women’s Masters Over 35 category at the Canadian National Bodybuilding Championships staged in Edmonton, Canada, August 18 last. She also earned a 4th place in the heavyweight category at that championship. Now McGowan has promised to wow her audience when she appears at the above mentioned show and she states that no one will want to miss it. Shortly after arriving in Georgetown, Ms McGowan attended a press conference at the Olympic House, High Street Georgetown, and joined several members of the executive committee of GABBFF to brief the press of particulars of the show. Those present at the forum were President of the GABBFF, Kevon Bess, General Secretary, Videsh Sookram, Committee Member, Moressa Sookram Treasurer,
Jamie McDonald and popular bodybuilder, Eustace ‘Robocop’ Abrams, who will also flex his muscles at the show. Ms McGowan said that she has been involved in the sport for more than 17 years and has developed a great love for it. “I want all women to know that they can participate in this sport and still retain their femininity,” she said. McGowan, who hails from the country of the legendary Usain Bolt, advocated that while her countryman is the Bolt, she is the Beast. Mr. Abrams also added his voice saying that the show will be top notched. He said that he has a special performance for those attending and he says to come expecting top quality action. Mr. Bess said that the programme will see more than 35 bodybuilders from 10 gyms spread across the country in a glitzy, ‘don’t you dare miss it’ affair. “We’re taking the sport to a next level,” he boasted. Several corporate entities have supported the show including Digital Technology, Trophy Stall, Bourda Market, DeSinco Trading and Sleep Inn among others. Admission into the venue is $1,000 and tickets are available at most bodybuilding gyms including Fitness Express, John and Sherriff Streets, Campbellville.
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