CARIBBEAN ROUNDUP
Bahamas
The Bahamas government has welcomed
the latest ratings from the USbased
Moody’s which reclassified the
country’s outlook from “negative” to
“stable.”
In its February report, Moody
announced the Bahamas’ sovereign
rating outlook to stable from negative
and affirmed the debt grade at
‘Baa3’, citing as main trigger behind
the revision important
progress in strengthening
its fiscal policy
through the introduction
of fiscal rules and
more frequent and in-depth reporting
of the fiscal accounts.
Standard and Poor’s credit rating
for Bahamas stand at BB+ with stable
outlook.
Minister of Finance, Peter Turnquest
said that the evaluation represents an
“independent and impartial assessment
of the country’s progress on what had
been a dire and untenable fiscal situation.”
He said the recent results are
encouraging as they underscore that
the strategies employed by the government
to stabilize the fiscal situation
and strengthen the economic fundamentals
are bearing out.
Barbados
Barbados is embarking on a fish
silage project after the authorities say
between 30 and 70 percent of every fish
caught by local fishermen is discarded.
Minister of Maritime
Affairs and the Blue
Economy, Kirk Humphrey
said, “we are not
catching enough fish
and a lot of what we do catch is wasted.
They say up to 30 to 70 percent of every
fish is wasted in Barbados and that is
indeed too high.”
He said this project is so vitally
important because it gives us the opportunity
to reduce the wastage of the fish
by finding ways to use more fish, but
more importantly by utilizing that for
something else.
Humphrey said the project is an
initiative between the government of
Argentina, the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) and involved the
Ministries of Maritime Affairs and the
Blue Economy.
The minister said the primary object
of the project was to make use of discarded
fish and reduce the large percentage
of fish thrown back onto the
near shores, which pollutes the waters
and creates an environmental hazard.
Caribbean
Caribbean countries have been
warned that the rainfall over the next
three months may be “drier than usual”
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The idea for the Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator was fl oated following the devastating 2017 hurricane season which saw two
Category Five hurricanes that severely damaged a number of islands. Hurricane Irma left signifi cant damage to public infrastructure,
housing, tourism, commerce, and the natural environment in the British Virgin Islands. See story on Page 22.
Inter Press Service / Kenton X. Chance
in some islands, resulting in a progressive
increase in wildfires.
The Barbados–based Caribbean
Climate Forum (CariCof) in its latest
Caribbean Climate Outlook, which
was recently released said with weak
El Nino conditions forecast to persist,
chances of drought and recurrent dry
spells in the second half of the dry season
are increased and heatwaves will
start occurring locally into May.
It said the frequency of wet days and
wet spells should be
low during March and
April, but the chance
of extreme wet spells
tends to re-emerge in
April or May, with some concern for
flash flooding and flooding potential
arising then.
CariCof warned of the potential for
slightly faster than the usual depletion
of large water reservoirs and soil
moisture in the Greater Antilles and the
Leeward Islands.
It said that there would be rising
flood potential towards May, especially
in coastal Guyana.
Guyana
The Guyana Revenue Authority
(GRA) says it has collected Guy$199 billion
in revenue last year as compared to
Guy$171 billion in 1917.
Commissioner-General, Godfrey Statia
said the GRA is not in the business of
driving people out of business, “we try
Caribbean L 4 ife, March 8–14, 2019 BQ
to work along with taxpayers for them
to pay their taxes.”
He said taking away assets from the
taxpayers is the last resort, after indicating
that the authority had anticipated
it would have
collected Guy$181
billion last year.
Statia said the
GRA has been working
with delinquent taxpayers to meet
their financial obligations to the state,
noting that many taxpayers who have
challenged the matter in court have
lost.
He said that Guy$15 billion in arrears
had been collected last year, including
Guy$7 billion during the tax amnesty.
Jamaica
Jamaica’s Prime Minister, Andrew
Holness has warned criminals bent on
committing murders and other crimes
that they will not escape the long arm
of the law.
The warning comes after what he
describes as the resurfacing of criminality
in St. James since
the State of Emergency
(SOE), which started
in January last year,
ended on Jan. 31, this
year, following the opposition party’s
refusal to support any further extension
.He said the government will act if
even if the opposition feels that it is
their duty to offer comfort to those who
will cause discomfort.
He was speaking at the groundbreaking
ceremony for the state-ofthe
art J$1.296 billion Closed Harbor
Park development, popularly known as
Dump Up Beach, in Montego Bay, St.
James recently.
At the same time as the prime minister
was speaking, a gunman reportedly
invaded a restaurant at the intersection
of Top Road in Norwood in the parish,
shooting to death a man and woman.
Minister of Security, Dr. Horace
Chang, who is also the Member of Parliament
for St. James North Western,
which includes the community where
the double murder took place, condemned
the killings after visiting the
scene.
Meanwhile, the police is investigating
eight murders over a 12-hour period
last week after gunmen went on a rampage
in Westmoreland, in the Western
parish.
Haiti
The African, Caribbean and Pacific(
ACP) Group of States has expressed
“deep concern” at the
ongoing political crisis
in Haiti, where opposition
forces have been
staging street demonstrations
in a bid to force President,
Jovenel Moise out of office.
Continued on Page 8
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