CARIBBEAN ROUNDUP
Antigua
Antigua’s Parliament has given the
government the green light to borrow
a US$1.58 million loan from Banco del
ALBA to acquire additional shares in
the cash-strapped regional LIAT.
Prime Minister Gaston Browne told
legislators that his administration
anticipate that the recapitalization of
the airline will make LIAT more efficient
and profitable as he warned of salary
and wage reductions.
He said a condition
of the new capital
would be that there
has to be cuts including
a reduction in salary
and wages.
Antigua and Barbuda currently holds
34 percent of the shares in the airline
and earlier this month discontinued
its interest in purchasing some of the
shares owned by the Barbados government.
The government has sought to
acquire the LIAT shares owned by Barbados,
through a take-over of the liability
of Barbados to the Caribbean Development
Bank (CDB).
The other shareholder governments
of LIAT are Dominica, St. Vincent and
the Grenadines and Grenada.
Browne told Parliament that he had
negotiated the loan to fund LIAT is
September with US$800,000 of the loan
amount utilized to cover “the transactional
expenses at a percentage of two
percent”
He said the loan will be termed over
a period of l0 years at six percent per
annum with an annual payment of
about two million US dollars a year.
Barbados:
The Barbados government has placed
a ban on single-use plastic packing,
containers and utensils, effective Jan.
1, 2020.
According to the Minister of Maritime
Affairs and the Blue Economy
Kirk Humphrey, retailers are urged to
remove those items by Jan. 1, next
year.He said that so far, most retailers
have been complying with the pending
legislation, and local bag manufacturers
were already producing more environmentally
friendly bags.
Humphrey said the manufacturers
of plastic bags have been able to make
natural organic resin-based plastic bag.
The ban will see products such as
petro-based single-use plastic cups;
cutlery including plastic knives, forks
and spoons; (both plastic and Styrofoam);
and Styrofoam containers used
in the culinary retail industry being
prohibited.
Bahamas
Bahamas Health Minister, Dr. Duane
Sands has announced a ban on all sugary
Caribbean Life, N 4 ovember 15-21, 2019
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A man holds an ill baby as he sits with US military doctors who arrived on the U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS
Comfort, as Haitians get free treatment, at the Killick Coast Guard Base, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday, Nov.
8, 2019. Haitians are getting free access to U.S. military doctors from the ship on a fi rst-come, fi rst-serve basis
for general, pediatric, dental, ophthalmological and orthopedic care. Associated Press / Dieu Nalio Chery
drinks from government healthcare
facilities and public schools, effective
from Dec. 1, 2019.
Initially, the government
considered a
sugary drinks tax, but
that was change to a
ban on the drinks.
However, due to the impact of Hurricane
Dorian, the Ministry of Health
decided to delay the implementation.
According to Dr. Sands, the ban
should have come much sooner, as telltale
signs of an unhealthy nation are
everywhere.
“The culprit is the Parent Teacher
Association who brings doughnuts to
sell and sodas to raise money,” he said.
The Health Minister said as a deterrent,
vendors may be forced to set up
substantially further from school campuses,
maybe about a l00 or 200 feet
away from the school.
A survey conducted earlier this year
— the 2019 STEPS Survey — revealed
60 percent of Bahamians add two or
more spoons of sugar to tea and coffee;
32 percent eat “sweets” the more times
a week; and 92 percent of Bahamians
drink one to three cans of sugar beverages
every single day.
When the survey was released in
August, Sands said in a one-year span,
the average Bahamian consumes 64
pounds of added or discretionary sugar.
Jamaica
The Jamaica Constabulary Force
(JCF) has distanced itself from the collapse
of the case against 29 alleged
members of the Westmoreland-based
Dexter Street (Middle East) East Gang,
who were freed by a High Court recently
after the Office of the Director of Public
Prosecutions (DPP) withdrew the case
against them.
The alleged gangsters,
including four
women were charged
with breaches of the
Criminal Justice (Suppression
of Criminal Organization) Act
2014, commonly referred to as the antigang
legislation.
But in a statement, the CFJ said that
it “would like to make it abundantly
clear that solid police work was done in
the preparation of the case.”
It said also that “every effort” had
been made to have the key witness
placed under the Witness Protection
Program.
“However, despite our best efforts,
the individual resisted police protection
and eventually disappeared altogether,”
it said.
The Dexter Street Gang had been
linked to nearly 40 murders in western
Jamaica since 2016 and the police
believe that a shipment of 19 guns and
more than 4,000 rounds of ammuntion
seized at the Kingston Container
Terminal on November 17 last year was
destined for the gang.
St. Lucia
Prime Minister Allen Chastanet says
his administration has so far not taken
any “definitive decision” as it relates to
the buggery laws in St. Lucia.
He said that decision
is going to require a lot
of dialogue and discussions,
adding that his
government does not
have an official position on it as yet.
Chastanet told reporters even as he
has acknowledged that while the matter
has become a global issue, there were
many definitions as to whether antibuggery
laws impede human rights.
He dismissed suggestions that antibuggery
laws send the wrong message
to the world and could affect the tourism
industry.
“We have seen countries which have
gone and decriminalized buggery and
have reversed their position. We have
Continued on Page 26
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