K
Key oversight NEWS mechanisms not yet in place for oil money
Monday Edition
AIETEUR
Guyana’s largest selling daily & New York’s most popular weekly
September 21, 2020 -Vol. 13 No. 39
Online: www.kaieteurnews.com
This is a recipe for disaster - Industry expert
Price $80
Online readership yesterday, 133,687
Conflicting accounts given by Edghill, Patterson on CJIA expansion Special audit We Must Resist Being Robbed
Sleeping being conducted driver wakes into million$ spent on private lawyers up after killing by APNU+AFC - AG pedal cyclist Rose Hall Estate EITI to pursue begins rehiring full disclosures of process; over 400 beneficiaries in severed workers extractives deals registered - assessment of factory complete
- Says political will is necessary
Corentyne 13-year-old girl missing
Guyanese are intense and passionate about elections. As they should be. But when it comes to the most important issue of their lives and those of their c h i l d r e n a n d grandchildren, they couldn’t care less. Not even when the biggest economic crime ever committed in Guyana takes place before their eyes and under their noses. A multi-billion US dollar economic crime is being perpetuated by political leaders and their secret partners and nearly all Guyanese shrug and continue to bend over to be ruthlessly worked over by the same people for whom they fought so gallantly. The Canje and Kaieteur blocks are estimated to hold over seven billion barrels of oil, but the two blocks and their billions of barrels have been given away in a secret deal by
PPP/C leaders to mysterious characters under cryptic circumstances. The mystery men have then sold part of their interest to ExxonMobil. The PPP/C leaders are mum about these deals. They want this to be kept secret and away from prying eyes. Kaieteur News will not do so. We will not allow our children and grandchildren to be cheated out of their rightful inheritance. We, our children and grandchildren can have a life free of want and poverty. We can all be rich, but the right deals have to be made. The Canje and Kaieteur oil blocks are part of our heritage and our wealth to be held in trust for those coming after us. It is not the PPP’s or PNC’s to give away recklessly and criminally for the crooked benefit of persons unknown. We
did not risk our lives for five long and dark months to have our wealth given away by the direct beneficiaries of our efforts. It is why we at Kaieteur News keep asking: Who owns these blocks? Who benefits? What are the financial and other arrangements under which these deals were struck? When will Guyanese begin to realize how they are being robbed? We resisted our democracy being stolen. We must resist with equal vigour and determination the stealing of our wealth. Guyanese should and must care. If we fail to do so, the bright future for our people which our wealth guarantees will disappear into the pockets of robbers who masquerade as political leaders, those who we elected to secure and protect our interest. We must start caring now!
Years later, with hundreds of millions spent, several - says Minister schools still incomplete Manickchand $214
million advanced to BK Int. for Yarrowkabra Secondary $60 million advanced to Courtney Benn for St. Rose’s High
Who really owns the Kaieteur and Canje oil blocks, do the leaders of this land care to tell the nation?
Monday September 21, 2020
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Kaieteur News
Years later, with hundreds of millions spent, several schools still incomplete - Minister Manickchand By Mikaila Prince Years have passed, and despite contractors receiving millions in advanced payments for the construction of several schools, they remain incomplete with their work continuing to move at a snail’s pace. The Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand on Friday lambasted the previous APNU+AFC for mismanaging the construction of these schools, while promising that such blundering will not occur under the new administration of the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C). Minister Manickchand reminded the House that before the PPP/C had demitted office in 2015, the party had secured a $10B loan from the World Bank, aimed at constructing secondary schools in key villages, namely Golden Grove, Yarrowkabra, and Plaisance. The Education Minister first spoke of the Golden Grove Secondary School, the contract for which was signed on October 1, 2018, and the completion expected for January, 2020. What is concerning, however, is that within the two years that this contract has been awarded and despite the allocated contractual time on the project expiring, only 74% of the school’s construction has been completed. “The school is not ready,” Manickchand told the House.
- $214 million advanced to BK International for Yarrowkabra Secondary - $60 million advanced to Courtney Benn for St. Rose’s High
Education Minister, Priya Manickchand “The school is not up. A whole generation of children has passed through the system and continues to go to schools that are not appropriate.” Attention was then turned to the contentious $827M Yarrowkabra Secondary School on the Soesdyke Highway. This contract was awarded on December 31, 2019 when the coalition was deemed to be in a caretaker mode by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). Nonetheless, the Education Ministry under the APNU+AFC had signed the multi-million contract with the contractor, BK International Incorporated on January 7, 2020. Some $214M has already been advanced to BK International, but a mere 3.5%
of the works have completed, the Minister said, as she added that at this time, the contractor should have completed at least 8% of the works. “The APNU/AFC inherited.” Manickchand said, “The money from us to build. They get the money from us. They get the drawing from us. They get the project manager from us and they couldn’t finish it. We are saying to the people of these communities, that we will finish these schools. We will finish them because we understand how important it is for your children to receive a world-class education, how important it is for them to have comfort and to have a building that they can attend to.” Attention was then turned to the construction of the St. Rose’s High School, which was awarded to Courtney Benn Contracting Services in August of 2018. Two years have passed, with the contractor receiving a $60M advance from the government, but to date, only 8% of the works have been completed. Raising further concern is the issue of the contractor abandoning the $352M contract. According to the school’s Board’s of Governors (BoG), the
contractor was tasked with installing approximately 220 timber piles in late in 2019, which was completed in January of this year. However, just after that pile driving exercise, the Board had observed that the contractor had removed all of their construction pile driving and other equipment, remaining piles and all construction personnel from the site. “It is an indication to the Board that the site has been seemingly abandoned by the contractor,” the Board wrote in a statement on September 8, while noting that no explanations were given to them by the contractor for their abandonment. Kaieteur News had confirmed the contractor’s evacuation of the site during a visit to the Church Street site on September 3. There, this publication was greeted with bushes, discarded pieces of logs and no personnel, not even a security guard. The only heavy-duty equipment on site was an unmanned Bobcat machine. Alarmingly, the issues with the contractor did not stop there. As the variation process of pile installation unfolded, the Board had written that it had observed that the contractor, in “a peculiar move”, refused to make their work plan public.
COVID-19 test backlog now cleared, results to be available within 48 hours - Minister Anthony Now that the backlog of COVID-19 test results has been cleared, Guyanese will be able to receive their test results within 48 hours, Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony disclosed during the COVID-19 update on Friday. Anthony stated that these results will be from the most recent testing conducted. Presently, samples being sent to the Nation Public Health Reference Laboratory are being managed and processed promptly. The minimum time for processing of test samples is 28 hours and the maximum is 48 hours according to the Minister. “At one point, we had a large backlog and that was when we were doing more broad scale testing and so because of that backlog, we had to reduce the number of testing that we did for those persons who would just walk in and who felt like they want to have a test without being in contact with persons exposed or so,” Anthony said.
Just recently, the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) testing unit at the East Street entrance started sending persons displaying no symptoms of the virus to other facilities to get tested. This was in light of the major backlog of over 1,000 tests that the Ministry was working to combat. One of the hospital officials related that it was not a case where they were neglecting persons who did not display symptoms; they were just prioritizing the testing of those persons who were showing symptoms of the virus. Persons who were not showing COVID-19 symptoms were referred to the Ministry of Health’s office on Brickdam to have their tests conducted. After taking office, Minister Anthony highlighted that it was a case of more tests being conducted producing more positive cases. Before his administration went into government, there was a low
Minster of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony number of tests being conducted daily, but now around 300 tests are being conducted daily according to the Minister. At his Budget Debate 2020 presentation, Minister Anthony noted that the Ministry would have trained more staff to increase the testing of samples. He also stated that previously there was just one shift of workers working in the lab, but now
there are three shifts of workers trying to produce timely results. Other efforts to reduce the backlog of cases included sending test samples to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) in Trinidad and Tobago for testing. An initial batch of 500 samples was sent to clear a backlog of 1900 COVID-19 test samples. Later, another batch of 138 samples was sent following the return of the first batch of samples. The Minister also engaged in talks with officials from Roraima, Brazil about conducting testing of samples taken in Region Nine, given the availability of a lab and Roraima’s proximity to the region. This talk came after it was discovered that the delivery of timely test results in the region was being hampered by the lengthy transportation process of samples from Region Nine to the National Reference Lab in Georgetown.
In fact, the contractor had also refused to share their work plan with the School Board, despite numerous formal attempts made to do so. “Further the contractor,” the Board wrote in their statement, “sought to prevent the contracting entity (the Ministry of Education) from holding regular stakeholder consultation update meetings with the Board or any other stakeholders, which is vital
for a project of this nature, size and complexity, as it allows for smooth execution of works, while keeping all informed of the issues and concerns arising from construction.” It should be noted that in late 2019, the Auditor General (AG), Deodat Sharma, had advised the APNU+AFC regime to terminate the multimillion dollar contract and to recover whatever monies Continued on page 23
EITI to pursue full disclosures of beneficiaries in extractives deals - Says political will is necessary
The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is of the view that transparency in beneficial ownership is critical to mitigating corruption and preventing illicit flows of finances. That is why it is partnering with Open Ownership (OO) – a global advocate for transparency – on a new programme called Opening Extractives. The programme is intended to accelerate beneficial ownership transparency in the extractives industry. Transparency in this regard means the public is fully aware of who ultimately controls and benefits from a company and its operations. In an industry where high revenue flows are quite constant, the EITI says it is important for the people to be informed. EITI said that the programme design was informed by interviews with many stakeholders, such as international beneficial ownership transparency experts, and the responses show that they perceive the issue to be complex. “The research shows that there is no single path to institutional reform.” EITI said in a statement last week. The research which the partnership has conducted indicates that there is a high demand for technical assistance to achieve beneficial ownership transparency. However, what appears most formidable are barriers that revolve around political will, “especially when there are vested interests in maintaining opacity in a lucrative sector such as extractives,” EITI stated. It said that political will is critical for the programme’s success. This will inform the selection of a shortlist of 20 countries to participate in the programme, after which information will be shared with all members. Components noted by EITI which are pertinent to achieving beneficial ownership transparency are political stability, regulatory effectiveness and the rule of law, components which for Guyana are threatened or are weak. For Guyana, beneficial ownership transparency has not been accomplished. The signing away of the Kaieteur and Canje blocks by the Donald Ramotar administration in 2015 has raised major concerns about transparency in this regard. To this day, despite major corruption red flags exposed by local newspapers, and even by Global Witness, an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the giveaways has yielded no results. Guyana still does not know who all of the true beneficiaries are of the various transfers of interests for those blocks. Guyana joined EITI in 2017. Implementation of its principles is an ongoing process, but it is unclear whether the change in government has hampered this, as is a concern of EITI. Guyana’s first EITI report 2017 was published last year. The deadline for the next report is 2021.
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Kaieteur News
Monday September 21, 2020
Kaieteur News Printed and Published by National Media & Publishing Company Ltd. 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown, Georgetown, Guyana. Publisher: GLENN LALL - Tel: 624-6456 Editor: SHARMAIN GRAINGER Tel: 225-8465, 225-8491. Fax: 225-8473, 226-8210
EDITORIAL
Ruth Bader Ginsburg A letter published last week in this paper raised a simple but serious issue as relates to apparent implicit gender bias encoded into the provisions of one the most fundamental government services in Guyana, the National Insurance Scheme. Asked the writer: “Why is it that only a widow can benefit from survivor’s benefits in the event her spouse dies? This is the 21st century, where both men and women are fighting for equal rights, and in most cases they emerge successful. Women, apart from motherly and widely duties, have taken up the mantle of being a financial provider in homes. Some men have even reversed their roles with women, opting to stay at home and take care of the kids whilst the women work. If NIS checks their records, they can see women make up a huge percentage of contributors. As it is right now, a woman can access survivor’s benefit from NIS if her husband dies, even if she is healthy enough to work and is not disable but a man cannot have access to such if his wife dies unless he is proven disable. Why the double standard?” The writer, a woman, goes on to explain that she and her husband had agreed that he would stay at home and she would be the working partner in the relationship, a situation that the NIS current rules on survivor’s benefits are discriminatory against. Indeed, if the sort of gender audit that the writer suggests were to be undertaken on public institutions and the rules that govern the provision of services in Guyana, we’d be sure to find an intrinsic and archaic bias, either discriminatory against women or, as in the case highlighted, indirectly discriminatory against by presuming an ongoing patriarchal prejudice when it comes to gender roles. The same day this letter was published, thousands of miles away from Guyana, a woman died, a woman whose life was spent in deconstructing this exact sort of situation in her own country. That woman was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. As dramatized in ‘On the Basis of Sex’ the biopic about her early career as a lawyer, one of Bader G i n s b u rg ’s e a r l y, d e f i n i n g c a s e s ‘ M o r i t z v s . Commissioner of Inland Revenue (1972), saw a man, Charles Moritz, contesting the tax agency’s refuse to provide him a tax reduction to compensate for his hiring of a nurse to take care of his ailing mother, a refusal based on the fact that he was not a woman nor was he previously married. The similarity to the NIS situation the letter writer described above would not go unnoticed. Bader Ginsburg would go on to win the case for Moritz with the court deciding that the man could not be discriminated against on the basis of his sex in accessing the fundamental benefit afforded to him, and any such discrimination was unconstitutional. Bader Ginsburg would go on to use one defence tactic employed against her – a listing of all the gender-based laws that would be affected of Moritz won – to systematically fight against those same laws. It was this campaign that saw her appointed as a judge in 1980, and then her nomination to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1993, the second woman Supreme Court Justice after Sandra Day O’Connor. B a d e r G i n s b u rg ’s w o r k w a s n o t o n l y representative of the ongoing fight for gender equality in America (and by extension the world) but she herself was a shining example of what was possible when the fight for gender representation is successful. America has lost a giant at a critical time, and arguably so has the world.
Who benefits from our oil? DEAR EDITOR, Reference to your front page news headlines (KN Sep 17, 18, 19), please note that regardless of which party is in government, the nation should be told who own the oil blocks. Who will benefit from the oil blocks? We learn that portions of the oil blocks were sold to foreigners but no taxes were collected and no profit sharing paid to Guyana. Worse, few Guyanese are hired in the oil industry. And the US$140M collected so far and sitting at a New York bank - would Guyanese reap much benefits from it? Who will manage it? Will the money go to a handful of corrupt
politicians? When it comes to oil money, it seems that a few politicians from three political parties are hiding information from the public. They behave like they plan to share loot; behaving like kindred peas in a pod. They accommodate each other on misappropriation of the peoples’ money. There is an understanding when it comes to corruption. Plenty oil money is coming to loot. There may be plans to join forces for criminality. Have Guyanese noticed that no one was convicted of corruption regardless of which party or politician in
government? In opposition, one side attacks the other for corruption but when in office, it forgets about the corruption it condemned and those complicit. Are they protecting each other? Is it business as usual? People are being murdered and there is race hate. The parties blame each other for race violence. Opposing each other publicly is for public consumption to fool the population. On oil and misappropriating funds, I believe, their position is the same. They may be focusing on financial criminality relating to oil dollars and therefore may have unity on
oil money. Neither side will commit to sharing it with the nation, especially the poor, I am convinced. The budget was recently presented and is being debated. The oil money was not included in the current budget presentation. Why? One honcho didn’t want the budget to include oil money. He will handle that himself. Is there a plan for the oil money? Will the plan be above board? Is this why a Lambada is placed in a Ministry in a very crucial position to effectuate the plan of the master who is in charge? Yours truly, Shawn Simmons
A catfish country with catfish for leaders DEAR EDITOR, I heard this fishy story, which is par for the course in Guyana. This one is about catfish, with whiskers designed to disguise and distract from the real big money issues in this country, which pass over our heads and leave us poorer and dumber. Here we are with all of these challenges and catfish jumps out from the frying pan put on hold in the cold storage applied by the US, and into the pungent fires of Guyanese attention. It is a rather smelly priority, when there is narcotics, money laundering, Venezuela, national security and sovereignty (on the dark side); and transparency, clean governance, and moral leadership (on the bright side) that ought to be among the higher considerations of citizens of this country. It might be more fitting to say that what we have in this country is not moral leadership, but moral treason, leadership one. We do not have the kind
of knowledge that we should on our crude, but there we were tabling catfish, which certainly means something to some fishermen and exporters, but not much to most Guyanese, especially those who have no truck with unscaled fish. We should not be talking about catfish or making a big deal over our riverine friends when AGM, a foreign investor, is about to import hundreds of overseas workers to replace Guyanese who are, most likely, going to get the boot. If there was one thing that the US Secretary of State did caution about, it was to conduct business on our terms. Of course, this raised an immediate objection by those from the Far East, who felt unfairly targeted. I say: tough luck, buddy. Clean up your act. That was yesterday when catfish made the rounds, only for us to find out today that Guyanese workers are going to get run into the ground. Instead of focusing on this business about lifting the ban on catfish, I think it would be
better to place a ban on all these leadership subterfuges and the dissembling that are now part of the wellconstructed daily feedings from political governors. Why not work diligently to lift the ban on our thinking about all that oil and gold slipping out of our grasp, and stop this nonsense over a couple of millions of US dollars of Guyanese catfish? Let’s show how smart we are, instead, and convert that same banned catfish into saltfish and smoked fish and dried fish and be content with the nutritional benefits that give strength to concentrate on governance standards and values. It is a sign of leadership slickness that they can get the handpicked to meow like contented kittens about catfish, while many secrets remain about our precious oil. The secrets were so ironclad and inviolate that even Mr. Pompeo tiptoed around them and went nowhere near exposing anything or improving anything with some smattering of
conversation with the powers of Exxon. On that one, it was no way Jose! Or whatever they call us schmucks in this part of the world. It was all about giving up Venezuela, with no one crying for Guyana. As I look at that Shiprider Agreement, I think that it is more of a free rider agreement. There is the rider and the ridden. Guess which one is Guyana? I have to wonder about our ability to think and to appreciate where we are today, how blessed we are. We are worried about a few tons of catfish not going anywhere, while the whole riverbed of oil floats away in one tanker after another, with nobody the wiser or unduly exercised. Are we thinking human beings or dumb beasts of burden? We have a catfish mentality, which is no wonder that leaders and outsiders fry us brown at every opportunity, and then hang us out to dry and smell up the place. A fine lot we are. Sincerely, GHK Lall
ROAD BLOCKS and CURFEW DEAR EDITOR, Please let me say from the beginning that I am no expert on law enforcement, but would like to think that I have a reasonable amount of common sense. I do not live in close proximity to any of the major public roads, but know persons who do, and from whom I have heard persistent reports of vehicular traffic, traversing these roadways, “outside of the curfew hours”, between 6pm and 6am. I have read reports of vehicular accidents occurring during these hours of curfew and only yesterday, read a report of such a “hit and run” accident resulting in the
death of a person. The victim had just celebrated his birthday, had arguments with this wife and others and was allegedly not on his best behaviour. Even if that were so, it is no reason for his life to be snuffed out in that manner. My plea is that the police set up road blocks, possibly at intervals at five/ ten miles on the major roads, in all three counties, as well as in Georgetown, at strategic points, within an hour of the curfew starting and ending (7pm and 5am). These road blocks can be manned by one policeman and one or two
C o m m u n i t y / neighbourhood police person(s), (where these exist) or, in their absence, by a member of the RDC/ NDC. I would also hope that systems be instituted to avoid “enhancements” being “worked out” to avoid prosecutions. Should these attempts still not work, sterner measures can be attempted. N a t u r a l l y, p e r s o n s deemed to be essential workers, like medical p e r s o n n e l o n d u t y, o r emergency situations (persons being taken to and from medical facilities) can be exempted. Another situation
which caused me to be doubtful is if strict adherence and enforcement is being paid to the curfew is the loud music from known “hang out” bars, wash bays and even houses and places of entertainment. Many such places are in close proximity to police stations and if residents can “enjoy” the sounds, a mile away, surely the police at these stations do so too. I strongly urge those responsible to consider these suggestions and observations, in order to avoid “blame” for the rise in COVID-19 cases being unfairly thrown at them. Regards, H. N. Nawbatt
Monday September 21, 2020
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President Ali is steering The arms of the United States are long, strong and uncertain Guyana in the right direction DEAR EDITOR, Within the space of less than forty-eight hours, in the wink of an eye, the dream became a reality and it was over before the fireworks exploded to light up the sky. After all the “hullabaloo,” the speculations, the fears, the anticipations, the predictions and the reservations, the commotion and excitement subsided with the departure of US Secretary of State, Mr. Mike Pompeo. Although it was royalty from America, the highest ranking officer to visit Guyana’s shores, the trip was not celebrated in the regular pump, grandeur and Guyanese style, all because of the COVID-19 protocols, restricting the splendor of this country’s cultural hospitality and beautiful sceneries to be exhibited in its full glamour. Nevertheless, it was strictly business from the minute the eagle landed. There was no chance for “squandermania at its best” to occur as anything parallel to what the Attorney General in parliament reflected on from the APNU+AFC Party’s handling of an US$8M justice reform project. Not only did the US Secretary learnt about this mishandling but he also was present to get a first-hand knowledge about the lackadaisical attitude and carelessness of the past caretakers who spent some $1B on expired medicines and medical supplies thus wasting the hard-earned taxpayers’ money. Imagine all that wastage only for the perks involved! How can America ever again have faith and trust with such dishonesty and callousness from the perpetrators responsible for such a colossal destruction? No wonder Guyanese from all sides of the political divide were left “hand to mouth”, not knowing where the next meal would come from. Again, he (Pompeo) was privy to gross mismanagement of GWI, one of the public utilities that was singled out for scrutiny at the Public Utilities Commission by the new administration, which had earlier relieved their Chairman, one of the political appointed officers. GWI did not pay GPL for the past two years, having accumulated a $7B bill for electricity usage. If you cannot run a utility company successfully, how can you run a country progressively? Shame on you PNC! Secretary Pompeo was privileged to
enjoy the circus show that was hosted at the Court where the second petition was filed to challenge the 2020 election poll, asking the court to nullify the declaration of Dr. Irfaan Ali as president. Imagine the tricksters, defrauders and riggers having the cahoots to want to get rid of a person whom the US Secretary of State himself helped to put in office legitimately! Oh, what a jovial laugh he must have enjoyed. How preposterous can silliness publicly advertise its vanity! A well timed PNC propaganda misfired. But it is good, such a high ranking American Officer could have witnessed the bombastic behaviour of the PNC shrewd characters. Perhaps, now he intimately understands how the callous PNC incalcitrants dragged this country down to its knee and strangled the growth of Guyanese by wasting time while engaging in frivolous and expensive activities. Now he knows how far these ruffians would go, drawing no line for a boundary. If there is one impression that Secretary Pompeo will leave with it will be, the devious past caretaker government of APNU+AFC Party led by a heartless president, was not only a corrupted and callous administration, but one that was truly engaged in instability, destabilization, were a pack of shrewd tricksters and greedy fraudsters who never had the interest of the people at heart, who never cared for the development of the nation but was primarily interested in fully taking care of themselves and protecting and safeguarding their personal future. Secretary Pompeo made it clear, he has no reason to want to deal with such inhumane characters and America will not hesitate to deal with such monstrosity to protect any friendly nation. On Secretary Pompeo’s next visit to Guyana, as an anticipated higher representative, the PPP/C government would want to assure him that he will be welcomed to a different tune playing to serenade him in a
different scenario, one that will be more appeasing to his taste and comfort and to an environment that is more conducive to the traditional hospitability that does not languish skepticism and attack on his fellow grounded marines. There is more to this trip than the eyes and ears were privileged to. The atmosphere under which all businesses were conducted, dispelled any fear for the unnecessary concerns expressed by patriotic Guyanese and also hypocritical Guyanese. Some Guyanese love this country and genuinely mean well when they rationalize that politicians will sell out the birthright of the land at the expense of the real working mass. While, some Guyanese pretentiously fake an impression behind disguised sentiments when they accuse an administration of rogued activities, knowing fully well that “ a guilty conscience speaks louder than words.” One thing is clearly pellucid to the US Secretary of State and that is, he does not want the international community or anyone else to try to convince him that the PNC/R is a well-oiled machine dedicated to the cause of undermining the interest of the PPP/C government and as such, they will continue to destabilize this country on the long run and in the end, it is the poor Guyanese people who will suffer, regardless of political affiliation or ethnicity. So, all the input from the American government, financial or otherwise, will be at stake and their hard work and effort are subject to be in jeopardy. Will the United States want to risk that or will they implement all preventative methods possibly available? The arms of the United States are long, strong and uncertain. Anyone involved in entertaining the thought of thwarting democracy in Guyana in any form, kind or shape, at any one time or in any part of this loving country that wants to unite and move forward, has to think twice under US Secretary Pompeo’s watch. Respectfully, Jai Lall
DEAR EDITOR, Admittedly, I have had my doubts, but I am now convinced that the PPP under President Irfaan Ali is taking Guyana to a place where every Guyanese will be able to enjoy a good life. The new President has clearly started off on the ‘right foot’; an encouraging sign to those who were worried that the PPP might resort to the policies of the Ramotar administration. President Ali has shown that his administration is different, and I believe that he deserves the support of every Guyanese, irrespective of their ethnicity or party affiliation. Perhaps the most significant sign that President Ali is serious about Guyana’s development is his decision to embrace a strategic alliance with the United States. This is a historic moment in our history, as it marks the first time ever that Guyana’s strategic national interests are correctly aligned with those of the West. For this reason, those who have opposed the PPP in the past because of that party’s Marxist posture now have no justification for withholding support for President Ali and
his administration. This should result in the attrition of many PNC supporters whose support of that party was based on the premise that the PNC is the ‘lesser of the two evils’; that is that the PNC is ‘less left’ than the two leftist parties in Guyana. Now, with the PPP clearly a prowest party, Guyanese are given two distinct political choices. The actions of the Granger administration showed that the PNC remains a leftist party; one that believes in high taxes and restrictive business policies. The new PPP administration on the other hand has so far shown that it is a more business-friendly, low tax party. These differences present clear distinctions between the two major political forces in Guyana; a tax-and-spend socialist PNC, or a pro-west, market oriented, low-tax PPP party. By shifting its posture, the PPP may have found that magic bullet so desperately needed to kill the pattern of race-based politics in Guyana. Faced with two distinctly different political choices – a market-oriented/pro-west PPP or a leftist/pro-China PNC, Guyanese voters will have
something other than race on which to base their decision of which party to support. Those who believe in a market-based economy and low taxes would likely support the PPP, while those who prefer socialist tax-andspend policies will more likely support the PNC. These clear political policy differences remove race as the only differences between the two political choices. The PPP must be careful that it does not squander this moment to kill our race-based politics. It must remain open to welcome the support of those former PNC supporters who now see their political beliefs more closely aligned with those of the new PPP. Guyana is therefore at a crossroad; it can move beyond ethnic-based politics to a new place where Guyanese can now support a political party based on policies or ideological beliefs. Time will tell if this is indeed a watershed moment in Guyana’s history. I hope that it is, and I wish President Ali every success as he endeavours to steer Guyana in the right direction. Respectfully, Max Mohamed
Government’s position that approval of the Payara oil well is not a “make or break” moment may cost Guyana to lose billions Dear Editor, While some of our politicians divide our people by inciting racial riots, Exxon is laughing all the way to the bank, wallowing in enormous profits from the first oil well, Liza 1, in Guyana. Exxon is seeking approval for a new oil
well called Payara in the Stabroek oil block. Despite all the experts advising that Guyana should use the approval of the new Payara oil well as an opportunity to leverage a better deal with Exxon going forward, in a recent press conference, the
Guyana government through its chief spokesperson, Vice President (VP) Mr. Jagdeo, said the Payara approval is not a “make or break” moment for Guyana. True, it was the APNU+AFC’s Trotman that (Continued on page 6)
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Kaieteur News
Call for articles for Journal on Indentureship DEAR EDITOR, This year marks the 100th anniversary of end of indentureship. Being such a historic occasion, a journal is being launched focusing on articles pertaining to indentureship, indentured or girmitya labourers and their descendants, all people of Indian decent. The first issue of the journa l i s s l a t e d f o r December 2020. The name: International Journal of Studies of Indian Diaspora with a focus on the older Indian diaspora. To c e l e b r a t e a n d o r recognize the presence, accomplishment, contributions and the challenges Indians face in the diaspora and to commemorate the centenary ending the practice of Indentureship/ Girmitiya labour in 1920, following Abolition of Indenture Labour Act 1917, this Special Issue on Indian Diaspora (People Of Indian Origin) is going to be published in December 2020 under a reputable publisher. People of Indian Origin (PIOs) are found all over the world with many moving beyond their early destinations as ‘twice migrants’ or ‘double diaspora’ as is the case of Indo-Guaynese or IndoTrinis or Indo-Surinamese or Indo-Jamaicans or IndoSt Lucians or IndoGrenadians, etc. They also have extensive transnational networks with their former ‘homeland’, ‘ancestral land’, and countries of their kith and kin and who are dispersed g l o b a l l y. T h i s s p e c i a l issue of JOSID will cover
all topics on historical and contemporary context of PIOs and the Indian diaspora in any part of the globe, in all disciplines including articles that are interdisciplinary in scope, including the natural sciences. Articles on interethnic relationship are also welcome. Complete original paper with references may be submitted to the Editor in Chief Prof. Ghan Shyam, Banaras Hindu University ( B H U ) at: gshyam2005@gmail.com. BHU is the equivalent of the Ivy League universities of America graduating some of India’s leading scholars especially in the medical sciences. Several Guyanese and other IndoCaribbeans studied at BHU going back to the mid 1900s. I met Guyanese and students from Trinidad, Mauritius, and Fiji on the campus during visits in 1985, 1990, 1995 and several trips thereafter as a guest lecturer. Swami Aksharnand studied at BHU. The papers for JOSID may be about 50006000 words and illustrations, figures, maps and graphs may be prepared in black and white that may be kept to the minimum. Papers received would be peer reviewed for enhancing and maintaining quality of the publication. Authors may follow the same GUIDELINES as in standard social science journals with MLA format. The deadline for submission of paper is November 5. Yours truly, Vishnu Bisram
Monday September 21, 2020
Additional opportunities with the US DEAR EDITOR, Congratulations to the team that met with the US. It must be noted that going forward some key opportunities should be pursued: 1. A meeting with the US and Mr. Guaido to pen an agreement to abide by the ruling on Essequibo by the ICJ. 2. An agreement on preferential pricing for oil
supplies from Venezuela upon the opening of the market in exchange for continued usage of our water ways and airspace. Allowing for Guyana to focus on its green initiatives around sustainable energy development. 3. US support for deportee management and rehabilitation. Increasing improvement in the Judiciary and accelerating the
implementation of law and order initiatives. 4. Increased access to organic agriculture markets in the US. Such a fast track trade agreement for this and other Guyanese goods will be mutually beneficial to our economic growth and add value to their increasing focus on healthy living. It is great that a renewed relationship has begun
between our two countries and with a view on a long term relationship the opportunity to have further and meaningful discussions in these areas of opportunity can provide substantial gains for both countries. Best regards, Mr. Jamil Changlee Chairman The Cooperative Republicans of Guyana
Mr. Khan’s utterances has betrayed the trust placed in him as an ERC representative DEAR EDITOR, The recent comments by Ethnic Relations Commision member Hajji Roshan Khan as it relates to the recent events in Berbice are irresponsible, incendiary and unacceptable of any Guyanese, much less a member of the Ethnic Relations Commission. The ERC has since distanced itself from these comments and we urge the
Muslim community to withdraw its nomination of Mr. Khan and/or demand Mr. Khan’s resignation from the ERC. We also urge the ERC to immediately review the utterances of Mr. Khan and to censure him accordingly, as these comments are contrary to a number of the Commission’s 24 constitutional functions.
While there have been many unfortunate, ill-advised and divisive statements from leaders in both the PPP and PNC, Mr. Khan should be held to a higher standard as a Commissioner of a constitutional body with a mandate to counter the very type of sentiments that he has deposited into the public domain. Utterances of the nature
Mr. Khan has made betrays the trust placed in him as the ERC representative of our brothers and sister who practice Islam. Yours truly, Seville Ferreira Andrew Adams Avinash Ramraj Ryan Khan Leonard Rampersaud and 515 other concerned citizens
...Government’s position that approval of the From page 5 rushed to sign a very bad agreement, rejecting advice given by its advisory team. The PPP must not rush down that same road repeating the APNU+AFC’s mistake and rejecting good advice given by many, including our indomitable major newspapers, and the Oil and Gas Governance Network (OGGN) comprised mainly of Guyanese living abroad. It is important that the Government’s position indicates that the Government will not just follow the beat of its own drum, and not listen to anyone else. During a recent press conference, Mr. Jagdeo said while Exxon and the Government of Guyana do not see eye to eye on issues
related to the Payara license. “…I don’t see this and the government doesn’t see this Payara as the make-or-break,” he said. If we don’t renegotiate now, when? After we rush into another bad deal? We need to maximize our benefits from each and all of our wells. The VP said, “we don’t favour flaring. We’re opposed to flaring. And secondly, we believe that any water discharged, whether reinjected or discharged must be treated to international standards. But these are generic positions. We see this as a continuum. Exxon is not gonna disappear tomorrow. The Payara license is not the only opportunity that we have to get what the President said we wanted and what the PPP campaigned on, which is an industry that benefits the investor but significantly, benefits Guyanese, our people through jobs, business opportunities, etc…There are numerous opportunities in this continuum.” The VP said there will come a time when the government will hold discussions about local content and related legislation. He said there would be another negotiating opportunity when talks are held about the development of gas fields, the price for gas, how much of it comes onshore, and how it will benefit the people, and that
the government is eager to engage in a discourse on training opportunities for locals. Nation, understand this – the biggest benefits from oil come from the royalty, the profit sharing, Exxon paying taxes (they don’t pay taxes now), and efficiently auditing the costs submitted by Exxon to make sure we are not getting robbed of USD billions through inflated expenses reports. These are the high-end items if there is a continuum. The local content is important but that’s not where the biggest gains come from, and is not a substitute for better royalties or profit share. The biggest beneficiaries from a better local content policy would be the middlemen businesses, not the poor people of Guyana. The trickle-down effect from local content is not as huge as if we were to renegotiate for a better royalty, profit share, requiring Exxon to pay taxes in keeping with our tax laws, or pay for all oil spills. For every 1% increase in royalty, at US$50 per barrel, we stand to gain an estimated US$4 billion. That’s more than you can get on a better local content policy. (Local content refers to Guyana companies getting some of the oil-related contracts for goods and services, and Guyanese getting oil jobs and training). The government must understand that getting the
maximum benefits for our poor, destitute people, is not a multiple-choice question where the answer is A, B, C, or D. The answer is “E”, “all of the above.” This notion of a “continuum” seems to be an inappropriate answer to the call for renegotiation. We urge the Government to commit unwaveringly and unequivocally to renegotiation that includes: higher royalties; higher profit share; Exxon paying taxes (and amendment or removal of the stability clause); efficient auditing of oil expenses claimed by Exxon; clear agreements that Exxon pays for oil spills not recoverable from our profit share; strict penalties for flaring, oil spills and release of polluted water; better local content; etc. Nation, I ask you to “Speak now or forever hold your peace.” Speak up now and let’s back the legally elected government as it stands up to Exxon for the people of Guyana. As I said before, if the contract is renegotiated or not, the political and business elite will still live large and have the good life. The rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer. Please sign the Oil and Gas Governance Network (www.oggn.com) petition now, calling for renegotiation of the Exxon contracts. Go to https://www.change.org/ Guyana_oil_contracts_need_renegotiation Yours truly, Dr. Jerry Jailall
Monday September 21, 2020
Kaieteur News
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AFC MP, David Patterson
Alliance For Change (AFC) Member of Parliament, David Patterson is now challenging the Irfaan Ali administration to renegotiate the Stabroek Block agreement with ExxonMobil. During his address in Parliament on Thursday, the shadow Oil Minister reminded that the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) has repeatedly promised throughout its elections campaign to renegotiate contracts in the oil sector. “It is well within their right as the sitting government to do as promised,” Patterson stated. “They have been
Monday September 21, 2020
Kaieteur News
Patterson challenges PPP Govt. to stop “chirping” and get a better oil deal
chirping for more than three years that there is a better deal to be had. Well, if there is, go get it.” He added that the Opposition will not stand in the way of any process that would bring additional benefit to the people of Guyana. Local press has shed light, over the years, on various aspects of the contract with ExxonMobil, Hess and CNOOC, which have been criticised as illegal, unfair and/or lopsided. Most daunting was recent news that Guyana’s neighbour to the east, Suriname, will take home 36 percent of the revenue from the production of oil out of
its lucrative Block 58. This represents a staggering share of the revenue when compared to the 14.5 percent Guyana is taking home from production in the more lucrative Stabroek Block. Controversy over the contract gained ground internationally when anticorruption watchdog Global Witness released the report, Signed Away, which outlined the suspicious circumstances under which former Natural Resources Minister, Raphael Trotman awarded the contract. Global Witness said that Guyana will lose about US$55B over the life of the agreement due to its poor terms. It also urged renegotiation, and an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the award. When the report came out earlier this year, the APNU+AFC coalition defended its handling of the 2016 award. It said that the contract was fine. Patterson on Thursday said that some assertions being made about the efficacy
and value of the contract are baseless. He thinks the contract will bring tremendous benefit to Guyana. It is the opposition’s belief, according to Patterson, that the contract signed in 2016 was a vastly improved one, when compared to the 1999 agreement signed by the PPP/C.
The Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo had said during his time as Opposition Leader that the contract is poor. He had said that it was necessary for the 1999 contract to give ExxonMobil generous terms because there was no indication that Guyana’s offshore was so lucrative. He said that for the 2016
contract, however, there can be no excuse for the poor terms. The renewed contract moved the royalty from one percent to two, among some marginal changes. Despite accepting that the contract is poor, Jagdeo has said that the PPP/C will not renegotiate the deal.
Guyana records 65th death; 101 new COVID-19 cases
Guyana now has 65 COVID-19 related deaths. The latest fatality is a 51 -year-old man from Demerara/Mahaica (Region 4) who died while receiving care at a medical facility. The update comes even as the Ministry of Health (MOH) reported a total of 101 new COVID-19 cases. The new cases brings the total number of confirmed cases to 2, 269. According to the updates, Region Four has 82 new cases, Region One has 16 new cases, Region Three has two new cases and Region Eight with one new case. There are 16 persons in the COVID-19 ICU, 83 in institutional isolation and 767 in home isolation. There are also 55 persons in institutional quarantine. The number of persons who have recovered to date is 1,339.
Meanwhile, the Ministry outlined that its officials have contacted all relatives and persons to facilitate contact tracing and rapid assistance to everyone who may have been exposed to the now-dead person. The Ministry is also appealing to the general public to respect the confidentiality of the deceased and his family and to allow them to mourn their tragic loss in peace. At the interim, all Guyanese are reminded to observe the protocols of the COVID-19 Emergency Measures Order, which is in effect until September 30, 2020. The Order emphasises the need for correct and consistent use of a facemasks when leaving homes, the importance of maintaining the six feet physical distance from others, and the need for good hand-hygiene to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.
The dashboard released yesterday by the MOH.
Monday September 21, 2020
Kaieteur News
Mass testing of the population is now absolutely necessary It is still taking two days for the results of coronavirus testing to be available. This is way short of the two hours which was promised by President Irfaan Ali. Unless the time between a test and its results can be reduced to less than half of an hour, it makes little sense to undertake mass testing. But mass testing is now necessary for an accurate assessment of the incidence of the virus. Hong Kong has a population of approximately 7.4 million persons or about 10 times that of Guyana’s. Over the past two weeks, China has tested 1.7 million of these persons in what has been described as a massive testing exercise. Comparatively, it would amount to testing about 170,000 Guyanese. Why did China engage in this mass testing even though Hong Kong has less than 5,000 coronavirus cases? The reason for the mass testing was to determine the number of asymptomatic cases. This result would then be used to determine the pace of reopening sections of the entertainment sector such as theme parks and bars. The APNU+AFC undertook limited testing. In the early phases, tests were only being done on persons who displayed one of three symptoms of the disease or those who had been in contact with persons who had been confirmed as positive or suspected to have the disease. The average number of tests undertaken between March and August was only 30 per day. By the time testing was expanded – and it was only expanded in a limited way – the number of asymptomatic cases would have increased. What we had then was the failure to sufficiently increase testing as was done in the
case of Barbados which has one tenth of the total number of positive cases and whose economy is now open to international flights. The virus is now spreading like wildfire in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname. This spread is believed to be accelerated by the opening of the economy. In Guyana, the economy opened even before it was formally supposed to do so. A number of businesses and individuals could no longer have afforded to remain closed and therefore at least three weeks before the APNU+AFC announced that there would be a six-phase opening of the economy, nonessential businesses had already started to open. There was little or no enforcement of the regulations which had been tabled. Up to now, there is still limited enforcement. Even when it comes to the wearing of facemasks, this is not being properly enforced. Persons can be seen walking the streets, entering stores, liming at road corners and travelling in public transport without facemasks. Workers in public and private sector offices are pulling down their masks underneath their chins so that they can chat freely with their fellow colleagues. In many businesses, the system of rotation of staff is not being implemented. This column has said before that the country cannot expect a different result if it continues to do things the same way. Right now daily tests are averaging just over 200 which is more than six times the average in the previous five months. But all these tests are doing is confirming that there is a high incidence of the virus; they are not reducing the spread. This is why two things need to be done immediately.
First, the testing capacity and turnaround time for tests results needs to be reduced. Once this is done and test results can be made available within half an hour of the test, then mass testing can be undertaken to identify as many asymptomatic cases as possible. Forcing persons who are asymptomatic to isolate will allow for a slowing of transmission, hopefully. But there also needs to be social restrictions to help further curb the spread of the infections. But this is proving problematic because the government is not keen on limiting institutional spread at the price of the economy. The reason why there was a riot in the prison is because there were rumours that as many as 120 prisoners have tested positive. If the virus is in the prison, it is likely to be widespread in the barracks, factories and offices. Mass institutional testing therefore should be done beginning with the police, the army, the prisons, the fire service and then moving on large companies which employ hundreds of staffers and then to government employees, especially those working in poorly ventilated offices. Guyana needs to begin doing a minimum of 1,000 tests per day over a two-week period but only if results can be guaranteed the same day. This may require increasing testing in the regions. Unless mass testing is done, we may end up with mass deaths. And nobody wants that. (The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
Dem Boys Seh…
Dem boys bin go round in circles When dem boys bin marry, dem bin had to go round de fire seven times. Dem boys nah believe in superstition, so dem boys bin reluctant fuh do this. But den wan old man come up and explain dat it was de tradition. Dem boys ask what is the meaning of de tradition and de old man explain. He seh dat a couple does guh around de fire seven times because each circle is 360 degrees and the only number from 1 to 9 which cannot divide 360 is 7. So
dis tradition is meant to emphasize that nothing should divide a husband and wife. But dem boys know dat today all sorts of things does divide husband and wife. Even de food wah does cook in de house does cause problem in marriage. It so happen, dat dem boys meet a man. And all he was talking about was how he going home to eat some nice food wah he wife cook. So dem boys ask he, why it is dat he wife gat fuh cook fuh he. Dem boys ask he why he
cannot cook fuh he wife instead. De man get up and seh dat it is the duty of a wife fuh cook fuh she husband. Dem boys tell he how dat is old-time thinking and dat no wife is under any obligation fuh cook fuh she husband. De man seh dem boys wrong. Dem boys ask him why. He seh: “According to de Geneva Convention, all prisoners… must be fed!” Nah talk duh in yuh house, unless yuh wan end up in de hospital!
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Monday September 21, 2020
Kaieteur News
THE FREDDIE KISSOON COLUMN
A helpless 16-year-old girl, her grandmother and 3 LGBT victims Kit Nascimento published a letter in the Kaieteur News and the Stabroek News last Saturday repeating the description of the violence a 16-year-old girl penned in a missive in the newspapers on September 12 about what the rioters and robbers did to her, and her grandmother, in Region 5 after David Granger and Joe Harmon went up there and incited people. In doing so, lives were lost, properties were burnt down, vehicles were torched and countless innocent persons were attacked and robbed including the 16-yearold and her grandmother. That letter appeared in public on the 12th of this month, yet no women’s organization had basic decency to pen a word
of empathy for that little girl and her granny. It is getting on to two weeks since Granger and Harmon tried to instigate racial confrontations in Guyana and no human rights body like the comical Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), the asinine Transparency Institute of Guyana (TIGI), the hypocritical Red Thread group and all those racist women organizations that are driven by publicity rather than genuine concern for the poorer classes of women in this land, have uttered a word. I am tempted to ask if the silence on what happened to that 16-year-old girl and her grandmother is because of their ethnicity. Let’s avoid
interpretations and look at facts that are naked, graphic and gargantuan. Today is 10 days since that little Berbician youth wrote about the horror and evil that visited her and her grandmother. There hasn’t been a word of sympathy but 75 women plus the GHRA, plus TIGI have shown concern about the recent visit of the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. Since the Henry cousins were killed, there has been an outpouring of justified sympathy for them but not one word about what Granger and Harmon did. What Granger and Harmon did deserves the most trenchant condemnation by every decent mind in and out of
Child Protection Week 2020 themed towards protecting children, empowering families to cope with the COVID
Guyana. Harmon and Granger are destructive politicians who have no place in 21st Century Caribbean politics. GHRA, TIGI, Red Thread, and all the other hypocritical women’s groups and individual ladies that commented upon Pompeo’s visit have displayed a barren mind for all Guyanese to see but it is also a dangerous mind because that mind serves political and ethnic purposes. Let’s return to naked facts. When the GECOM chairman, Claudette Singh, was misbehaving in the most unprofessional way from March 4, there were justified condemnations of her misplaced ethics. The Chronicle front page (of May 3) carried three statements from prominent women deeming the criticism of Singh an abuse of women. They were co-founder of STEM Guyana, Karen Abrams; UG lecturer and now Deputy Vice Chancellor, Dr. Melissa Ifill; and Director of the Government’s Consumer Affairs Commission, Dawn Holder-Cush. These three women have nothing to say about what happened to the little Berbician girl and her
grandmother. Just a slight diversion. I want these three women to know that this is one citizen of Guyana who believes Claudette Singh has done this country a horrible disservice for which she should face perpetual chastisement. Do you think these three women named above will use even half a word to denounce Granger and Harmon? Do you have an opinion why they supported the GECOM chairwoman and will remain silent on Granger and Harmon? Go through the list of women’s organizations that signed the letter against Pompeo’s visit last Thursday in the Stabroek News and you will see how disturbed the mind can become. The list includes the usual suspects and people whose political connections are suspect. Here is a sample; Bonita Bone Harris, commonlaw wife of Ronald Waddell; Joycelyn Dow, common-law wife of Rupert Roopnaraine; Red Thread, an open sympathizer of the WPA which was part of the 2020 election rigging machine; Dr. Alissa Trotz, close affiliate of Red Thread and WPA. Here is the one on that list
Frederick Kissoon that was shameful – SASOD. This is an organization that looks after the interests of the LGBT community and since its birth has never published a statement on anything whatsoever except on LGBT matters. Now it has developed a sudden interest in Pompeo’s visit. You would have thought their first priority would have been to show concern for members of the LGBT community who could be victims of the violence that Granger and Harmon instigated. Three members of the LGBT community were victims when gangs during the mayhem stopped a minibus and robbed all the passengers. One of the LGBT victims was cuffed in his face when he held on to his smart phone. You know, I do love my pets more than humans. (The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
Corentyne 13-year-old
GIRL MISSING
Through the Childcare and Protection Agency (CPA), the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security will be observing Child Protection Week 2020 which kicks off from today to September 29 under the theme “Protecting Children and Empowering Families to cope with the Global Pandemic.” The Ministry stated that the theme this year resonates with their continued efforts to ensure Guyanese children are safe and they are also aiming to build the capacity of the children’s families, enabling them to create an environment which allows for children to “reach their potential” even in these challenging times. The main highlight of the week will be the “Breaking the Silence on Child Sexual Abuse” virtual rally, which will be held on Wednesday, September 23, and feature Minister, Dr. Vindhya Persaud delivering remarks, in addition to various child advocates. Cultural activities will also be displayed from different groups of children. Guyana first observed Child Protection Week in 2004. It is an annual national project with the purpose of increasing common awareness and providing a better understanding of the importance of primary
prevention needed to reduce child abuse and neglect in the country’s society. The Ministry stated that the project instills the core principle, that child protection is everyone’s business. They are encouraging individuals, local communities and groups which includes but is not limited to religious organizations to take swift action in ensuring that children’s rights are not violated and that they can live within communities where they are not faced with harm and any form of abuse. Earlier this month, the Minister met with local NGO, Blossom Inc. after they paid her a courtesy call. Minister Persaud discussed with the representatives of organisation ways in which certain areas can be bolstered to prevent child abuse, and programmes to enable women to be gainfully employed. Blossom Inc. is a child protection advocacy agency that operates in Regions One, Two, Four, Seven and 10. Persaud gave the representatives her assurance that her Ministry will continue to engage child advocacy groups, as a part of their efforts to protect children from the various forms of abuse.
A 13-year-old has gone missing from her home in Brighton Village, Corentyne, Berbice and, Kaieteur News understands, a probe was launched into her disappearance. Missing is Aliyah Busgith, who was last seen by her mother at their Brighton home on the 15th September, last Tuesday. Reports are that her mother, Reshma Badrinauth, a single parent, was having a bath but when she stepped out her daughter was nowhere to be found in the house. Relatives in a Facebook post described Aliyah as being brown in complexion, tall in height with curly black hair. Additional information provided to this publication revealed that the teen was allegedly cyber bullied by the son of a police sergeant attached to the Guyana Police Force in Berbice. Relatives had stated that some distasteful videos of the teen surfaced on social media, purportedly leaked by the police officer’s son who was known to the teen. The mother had then opted to visit the Childcare and Protection Office at Whim and then made a report at the Whim Police Station. It was after that report was made that the teen went missing from her home. Badrinauth again visited the CCPA at Whim and was advised to make a missing person report at the Whim Police Station. It is understood that the relatives of the police officer’s son have told police that they have no knowledge about the whereabouts of the teen. The missing teen’s mother told reporters that since her daughter went missing, she managed to make contact with her once and was told by the teen not to worry and, “that when some aunty draw pay, she will come
Missing 13-year-old, Aliyah Busgith home back but I don’t know which aunty.” According to the worried mother, she went to the Central Police Station in New Amsterdam and was sent back to Whim Police Station and then again sent to Number 51 Police Station. “Them say 51 is where I suppose to file the report so I went”, she said. Badrinauth is of the belief that the police are not taking her daughter’s disappearance seriously and disclosed a report was filed against the police officer’s son for his alleged actions. The mother is pleading with anyone who may have any information to make contact with the nearest police station or call her telephone number, 683-3404.
Monday September 21, 2020
Kaieteur News
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Monday September 21, 2020
Kaieteur News
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Conflicting accounts given by Edghill, Patterson on CJIA expansion Former Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson has refuted claims by the current Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill, regarding the reduced expansion of the USD $150M Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA). It was during his second presentation to the National Assembly that Edghill told the legislature that the scope of works was reduced by the APNU+AFC from 9,000 square meters, to 4,046. With these changes Edghill shared that an additional USD $6.5M would be necessary to bring the airport to optimum functioning. However, Patterson sought to debunk those claims by Edghill, as he indicated in a statement to Kaieteur News yesterday that the reduction of air-bridges, and thereby the reduction of the scope of works was done before the APNU+AFC assumed government in May 2015. Patterson asserted that it was the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) who made the changes to reduce the number of air bridges. The former minister supported his claims by sharing the airport’s monthly progress report, dated at April 2015 — one month before the APNU+AFC won the 2015 General and Regional Elections. In the report, which was prepared by consultancy firm, MMG Group, it was recorded that on May 20, 2013, the airport’s contractor China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) had submitted a preliminary
Former Minister of Public Works and APNU+AFC Parliamentarian, David Patterson
Current Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill
design for consideration by consultancy firms WSG and GIAC prior to commencing the Detailed Design. Moreover, there were six options of terminal and apron layout. The report went on to state that after discussing the original six options for the apron layout, on August 2, 2013, WSG received government approval for Option D and a project budget increase of $2.8M USD to construct Option D. Since this approval, due to further efforts by the designers, an optimized version of Option D was submitted giving a seventh option to consider. Prior to CHEC commencing the Detailed Design, WSG/GIAC asked MMM/CEMCO to undertake a high level review of all seven layout options previously provided by CHEC. Then on August 4, 2014, a letter report was written by MMM/CEMCO to WSG stating the issues found from
the review of the seven options. Following that letter report, MMM/CEMCO presented the findings of the review to WSG, GIAC, GCAA and other key CJIA stakeholders on August 13, 2014. On November 27, 2014, WSG proposed a terminal/ apron layout option with a reduced version of the Optimized Option D and an extension of the proposed pier to the existing terminal building. On December 12, 2014, CHEC submitted drawings showing the removal of the Code D/E portion of the apron south of the control tower and integrating the Code D/E Stands on the remaining Code C portion of the apron (Option Optimized D-la). There were also two options for the extension of the proposed pier to reach the existing terminal building. The first had the pier right to the existing terminal which Continued on page 18
A page of the April 2015 monthly report on the projected provide by Patterson.
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Monday September 21, 2020
Kaieteur News
Indigenous communities facing a gap in the delivery of education - Shuman
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Indigenous communities in Guyana are currently facing a gap in the delivery of education, a critical issue amid a global pandemic according to Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Lenox Shuman who made this observation in his presentation at the Budget Debate 2020 last Friday. Shuman, who is representing the joinder list of A New and United Guyana, The New Movement and the Liberty and Justice Party, the latter of which he cofounded, was making his maiden presentation in Parliament. He stated that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has revealed many “systemic failures and deficiencies” within Guyana’s education sector and the governmental sector, leaving Indigenous people struggling all across the country. Shuman said that children in the coastland areas are having an easier time ensuring they get access to their education as compared to those children living in the hinterland regions. Coastland children are more equipped with the necessary tools for online learning, which has now become the main route in the delivery of education since schools being closed in March. “Our communities are struggling through COVID19. Schools on the coast are
Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Lenox Shuman enjoying internet access, TV, and radio broadcast learning tools, while many of our Indigenous communities are expected to self-teach in a language that is somewhat alien to them, in preparation for exams that are mostly void of their collective histories,” Shuman said. Shuman also stated that governments have been neglecting the Indigenous languages. He maintained that languages such as Portuguese and Spanish are added to almost every school curriculum, yet Indigenous languages are being referred to as “dialect” by governments and they are slowly dying away. He stated that it is hard for those who speak Indigenous languages to
access a proper education because they are often being taught in a language that is “alien” to them. The Deputy Speaker said that where there is a right allocated to a group of people in the constitution, there must be provisions for those rights and in this case, it is not being done. Shuman also highlighted several other issues within Indigenous communities and hinterland regions. He stated that these areas are lacking proper roads and there are “sluggish” internet connections amongst other things. He noted that these issues are indictments of all previous administrations and he hopes for them to be addressed. He also revealed that there is now the threat of climate change within these areas, posing a risk to these Indigenous communities and the way of life of the people residing in them. President Irfaan Ali had announced an allocation of $800M for the Amerindian Development Fund. Many measures have also since been announced to cater for the Indigenous communities in Guyana, many of which are yet to be implemented, but Shuman has stated that he is pleased with several aspects of the proposed plans for Guyana’s Indigenous peoples.
Saying Legal Affairs Ministry left dormant for five years “inaccurate” – MP Roysdale Forde Opposition Member of Parliament, Roysdale Forde has refuted statements from the governing People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) that the Legal Affairs Ministry under the stewardship of M i n i s t e r B a s i l Wi l l i a m s w a s l e f t “dormant” for the five years that the APNU+AFC Coalition was in office. According to Forde, the Budget Speech also “inaccurately” stated that apart from a few Anti- Money Laundering Bills, there were no major legislation passed. “This is nothing further from the truth,” the MP claimed, stating that records show that the period 2015-2020 was “one of the most active periods of Legislative activity and a period in which significant and consequential Bills were passed.” Further, he said that a total of 96 Acts along with 208 pieces of subsidiary legislation were produced by the Attorney General’s Chambers and Ministry of Legal Affairs. “The notable improvements to the AntiMoney Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism legal and regulatory framework,” he added “by way of enactment of Amendment Acts and Regulations, under the APNU/AFC government are indeed worthy of mention.” Added to this, he said, during the 11th Parliament, the Legal Affairs Ministry pushed out several Acts to strengthen the legislative framework to address corruption. These include the enactment of: The State Asset Recovery Act 2017; The Witness Protection Act 2018; and The Protected Disclosures Act
Opposition Member of Parliament, Roysdale Forde 2018. Several pieces of legislation, aimed at promoting a strong and resilient financial system, modernizing the financial sector and providing protection and greater access to services within the sector, were also enacted, Forde said. Among those are: The Insurance Act 2016; The National Payments System Act 2018; The Deposit Insurance Act 2018; The Bank of Guyana (Amendment) Act 2018; The (Continued on page 23)
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Sleeping driver wakes up after killing pedal cyclist A contractor, 44, was on Saturday last awoken from his sleep after he had struck and killed a pedal cyclist with his car along the Zeeburg Public Road, West Coast Demerara. Dead is Somattie Persaud, 39, a fish vendor of 75 Mandal Street, Zeeburg. According to police reports, Persaud was struck down at around 15:20hrs. Investigators were told that Persaud was at the time riding along the southern side of the road heading in the western direction when she met with the fatal accident. The contractor who hails from Zeelugt, East Bank Essequibo was also heading along in the same direction as Persaud at a normal rate of speed. However, the man reportedly fell asleep at the wheel and only awoke when he heard a loud impact. The man exited the car and noticed that his car was stationary against a fence. Nearby on the parapet lay Persaud motionless, with noticeable injuries about her body and not too far away from her bicycle. The contractor was then assisted by a passerby who rushed the woman to the Leonora Cottage Hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival. The contractor was later arrested and taken into police custody. A breathalyzer test was conducted but it showed that the man was not under the influence of alcohol.
Kaieteur News
Motorcyclist involved in Friendship accident succumbs
Conflicting accounts given... From page 15 involved some demolition (Option Optimized D-lb) and the second had the pier adjacent to the existing structure with an extension to the existing apron to allow for the shift in the aircraft park positions (Option Optimized D-lc). On January 28, 2015, WSG/GIAC wrote a letter confirming Option Optimized D-lb was the preferred option of the Apron and instructed CHEC to commence the Detailed Design of Phase 1 based on that layout. In order to address the previous difference of opinion of costs, the scope had been reduced. Minister Edghill had indicated that the additional works to be executed by the new government, measuring 4,954 square meters, is estimated to cost $1.2B, while the supervision and the consultancy for the design of the new project will cost $69M. While the contract for this project hasn’t yet been awarded, Edghill maintains that it is necessary in order for the airport to become a regional hub.
Monday September 21, 2020
The motorcar in the burial ground moments after the accident. Almost three weeks after being involved in a serious accident on the Friendship
Public Road, East Coast Demerara, motorcyclist Eon Anderson, 41, on Saturday
succumbed to the injuries he sustained, a construction worker of 88 Vigilance, East Coast Demerara. On September 1, 2020, Anderson the rider of motorcycle CJ 9825, was involved in an accident with motorcar PVV 2930. Kaieteur News understands that around 17:30hrs, a sales representative of Non Pariel, East Coast Demerara, was proceeding west along the southern side of the Vigilance Public Road, ECD, in motorcar PVV 2930 and when in the vicinity of the Vigilance Police Station where two ranks were performing duties, the driver of the motorcar slowed down. However, as the driver approached the police, he accelerated his vehicle and while in the vicinity of the Friendship Public Road, he collided with Anderson who was proceeding from south to north from Friendship Access Road onto Friendship Public Road and ended up into the path of the car. That resulted in the driver losing control of the vehicle and ending up approximately 250 ft away from the point of impact, into the Friendship Burial Ground, while Anderson fell onto the roadway where he received injuries about his body. He was picked up by
Eon Anderson public spirited citizens in an unconscious state, placed into a vehicle and transported to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation where he was seen and examined by a doctor and admitted a patient in a critical condition. He, suffered head injuries and a fractured left foot as a result of the accident. According to a police report, the ranks that were on duty in front of the Vigilance Police Station witnessed some parts of the accident. A breathalyzer test was conducted on the driver of the motorcar and it revealed that he was below the legal limit. When contacted, Regional Commander Khali Pareshram told Kaieteur News that the investigation is ongoing. However, he did not state whether or not the driver of car will be charged.
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Special audit being conducted into million$ spent on private lawyers by APNU+AFC – AG A Special Audit is currently being undertaken by the Auditor General’s Office into the millions of taxpayer dollars expended by the previous A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition administration to procure the services of private lawyers for electionsrelated litigations and other personal matters. Revealing this was Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister, Anil Nandlall. According to Nandlall, the last regime paid the staggering sum of $146,099,180 GYD from 2017 to 2020, to private lawyers. That figure however, only relates to the invoices discovered at the Attorney General’s Chambers. He was quick to point out that “dozens of other invoices” cannot be found for the attorneys retained by the APNU+AFC during the “melee of madness”, the five months from March to August 2020. It was during that period, he added, “a series of disgraceful and useless cases were filed, in an effort to get the Judiciary to conspire with the rigging cabal at Congress Place, to pervert democracy.” With the litany of court battles regarding the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections, suspicions arose that the previous administration took money from the National Treasury to foot their expensive legal bills, when they should have been paying for the cost out of party coffers. While the Auditor General is expected to provide a clearer picture as to the extent
Attorney General, Anil Nandlall of the spending, Nandlall, from the invoices he discovered, provided some insight into how much APNU+AFC paid taxpayer dollars to private attorneys. For the case against the Coalition’s unilateral appointment of Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chair, James Patterson, then Attorney General Basil Williams reportedly retained two Barbadian Queens Counsels, Hal Gollop and Ralph Thorne. Together the two lawyers were paid approximately $10 million for their services. According to Nandlall, that cost did not include hotel and accommodation listed in the retainer contract. Moreover, Nandlall revealed Thorne was also paid an additional $4.2 million in state funds to represent then AG Basil Williams in his private capacity in a case where was sued by the former Solicitor General, Prithima Kissoon. With regards to the NoConfidence Motion cases, Nandlall highlighted that a battery of lawyers earned “big bucks”. Among them was Attorney-at-Law Maxwell Edwards who was paid $4
million for his participation in the No-Confidence case and Senior Counsels, Rex McKay and Neil Boston who were the legal counsels for Compton Reid, a farmer from New Amsterdam who had challenged the NoConfidence Motion in his private capacity. According to Nandlall, they were all paid $12 million by the Attorney General’s Office. In addition, Dr. Francis Alexis, Q.C from Barbados was paid $5 million in the same case. Delving further, the AG pointed to a case where Attorney-at-Law, Roysdale Forde, SC, appeared on behalf of the then Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan in a private case. Jordan had sued now Public Works Minister, Juan Edghill in his private capacity but used over $1.7 million from the state’s purse to foot the bill. Forde is currently an APNU+AFC parliamentarian. Other invoices, Nandlall explained related to the payments for Attorney-atLaw, Mayo Robertson, who also represented the Coalition’s interest in a number of recent elections’ cases. He said that Roberston was paid $1.9 million for the No-Confidence Motion case with an additional $1 million in another case involving the then AG Basil Williams and another $600,000 for a private matter. As it regards the Eslyn David case, where that private citizen also challenged the results of the elections using the recount figures, Nandlall disclosed that the coalition through the Attorney General’s Chambers paid Maxwell Edwards again roughly $4M for legal services.
...Saying Legal Affairs Ministry From page 16 Financial Institutions (Amendment) Act 2018. Further, Forde highlighted that there were several other enactments including: The Constitution (Amendment) Act 2015; The Coroner ’s Act 2016; The Public Utilities Act 2016; The Telecommunications Act 2016; along with The Cybercrime Act 2016 + 2018. The Opposition MP also noted that under the Criminal Justice Sector Reform Programme, guidelines, rules and procedures
for the implementation of a Restorative Justice Programme have been developed. “Further, he said, a Restorative Justice Bill of 2019 has been laid in the Assembly.” Turning his attention to the 2020 Budget itself, Forde made the contention that “not a single piece of legislation” has been identified to advance or improve the Justice Sector. “This is unacceptable. The babble by the Attorney General failed to remedy this situation. It is manifest that there will be grave policy incoherence,” the MP added.
...Years later, with hundreds of From page 3 were advanced. This advice was issued after the AG recorded that little to no work had begun on the construction site, even after a year had passed. Minister Manickchand maintained that such mismanagement and slothfulness is
“indefensible”, as she asserted that, “It is unacceptable and together we must say to contractors that you cannot give us service like this. Our children deserve better! I’m sounding a warning now to contractors who will work with us that we are not going to tolerate
this sloth and neglect on the projects that this Government has.”
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Halep sees off Muguruza to reach Italian Open final
Romania’s Simona Halep celebrates after winning her semi final match against Spain’s Garbine Muguruza. (Pool via REUTERS/Riccardo Antimiani)
ROME (Reuters) - Top seed Simona Halep overcame Spaniard Garbine Muguruza 6-3 4-6 6-4 yesterday to reach the Italian Open final and stay on course for her third straight WTA title. Romanian Halep, who skipped the U.S. Open amid the COVID-19 pandemic, won the Dubai title before the Tour was suspended and lifted the Prague crown on its resumption. The 2018 Roland Garros champion cruised through the opening set against Muguruza and was on course for an easy win but Muguruza, who took a medical timeout for a back
Monday September 21, 2020 ARIES (Mar. 21–Apr. 19) You may feel a bit restless and unsettled without really knowing why, Aquarius. Stresses on the job could churn up repressed resentment from the past that you need to release. TAURUS (Apr. 20–May 20) Squabbles may come up between you and a sibling or neighbor, Taurus. Your ability to compromise is definitely called for here. If you aren't careful, this could turn into a battle of wills. GEMINI (May 21–June 20) Money matters might cause you a few headaches, Gemini. You could be torn between the desire to put money aside for the future and the impulse to buy something that you've wanted for a long time. CANCER(June21–July22) Too much rigorous exercise over the past few days might have you feeling a little sore and tired. Your nerves may be on edge, and you could be more likely than usual to snap at those around you. LEO (July 23–Aug. 22) Spiritual breakthroughs may have you feeling a little disconcerted, Leo. Clearing away deadwood, such as past traumas, might tell you a few things about yourself you'd rather not face. VIRGO (Aug. 23–Sept. 22) A virtual conference of some kind could touch upon some pretty volatile issues, Virgo. People could disagree to the point that the meeting turns into a shouting match.
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LIBRA (Sept. 23–Oct. 22) Is your significant other caught up in family problems and unable to spend time with you? Don't let your insecurity get the best of you. Your partner needs to deal with family now. SCORPIO (Oct. 23–Nov. 21) Matters involving communication seem to be fouled up, Scorpio. Messages may not get delivered, emails may not go through, and people might misinterpret your words. SAGIT(Nov.22–Dec.21) Your values could oppose those of a business or romantic partner today. One of you may be overly pragmatic and the other too idealistic. CAPRI(Dec.22–Jan.19) If you've been having trouble reaching a romantic partner, Capricorn, it might be a good idea to stop trying. Your friend is having a rough day and might not make the best company. AQUARIUS(Jan.20–Feb.18) You may feel a bit restless and unsettled without really knowing why, Aquarius. Stresses on the job could churn up repressed resentment from the past that you need to release. PISCES (Feb. 19–Mar. 20) Too many people could be vying for your attention today, Pisces. All of them want advice or help. This could be flattering, and you'll probably want to help them, but it can also be unsettling and make it hard to focus.
issue, battled back from 2-4 down to win the second set and force a decider. Watched on by a small group of fans who were welcomed back for the first time since the Tour was shut down, Halep regained focus in the third set and switched gears to surge ahead 5-1. Muguruza was not done yet, however, as she clawed her way back to 5-4. But the 2016 French Open champion, who was serving to stay in the match, made successive double faults to gift victory to Halep. The Romanian, who is looking to extend her winning run to 14 matches and seal a first title in Rome, will next face the winner of the second semifinal between Karolina Pliskova and Marketa Vondrousova.
...Expansion of women’s From page 23 coming years. We will continue to engage the Government of Guyana and our corporate partners to assist us in this endeavor. We simply cannot do it alone.” The level of commitment from FIFA in this aspect of the sport, your thoughts? “Across the globe there is a clearer understanding of the tremendous positive impact football has on females. There are many studies that highlight the socioeconomic effects of broad participation by girls and women in football. There is also the business side of the equation, every female that engages football will go on to become a fan, which can be measured in viewership, ticket sales, etc. FIFA and Concacaf understands this and have placed great emphasis on the growth of the Women’s game and we are obliged to do our part here in Guyana. In 2021, the Nation will witness an exciting season of female football at the primary and secondary school levels, community tournaments and Club competitions as well. We have naturally gifted athletes in Guyana who only need the opportunity to showcase their talent – the GFF will continue to work hard as is needed towards this but I must reiterate, we cannot do it alone.”
...Delhi Capitals claim Super-Over win after From page 21 another four. Twelve came off that Rabada over - it could have been 13 but for a tight but erroneous call of short run when Jordan turned for a second run leaving the Capitals’ sixth bowler, Stoinis, to defend 12 off the last over. Agarwal smacked the first ball for six, high over longoff, and seemed to have the match all sewn up two balls later with a drive that beat long-off to his left. That left one to get off three balls. A dot ball followed as Agarwal slashed at and missed a bouncer outside off. Stoinis brought all but one of his fielders into the 30-yard circle, and bowled a
wide full-toss. Did he mean to? Who knows, but Agarwal picked out deep point, the only fielder on the boundary. Then, with one to get off the last ball, Jordan flicked powerfully, but just within range of Rabada, who moved a step to his right at square leg to pull off a terrific reflex catch. There was no logical reason for the Capitals to still be alive in this match, but logic was taking a day off. Scores: Delhi Capitals 157 for 8 (Stoinis 53, Iyer 39, Pant 31, Shami 3-15, Cottrell 2-24) beat Kings XI Punjab 157 for 8 (Agarwal 89, Ashwin 2-2, Rabada 2-28, Stoinis 229) via the Super Over.
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Chelsea 0-2 Liverpool: Mane at the double as Kepa makes another howler SportsMax - Sadio Mane scored twice as Kepa Arrizabalaga made another calamitous error in a 2-0 victory for Liverpool over 10man Chelsea, with Thiago Alcantara conceding a penalty on his debut. Frank Lampard’s side hardly laid a glove on the Premier League champions at Stamford Bridge and their cause was not helped by Andreas Christensen’s red card late in the first half, with Mane then scoring twice in the space of four minutes after the restart. Mane’s second was a gift from the much-maligned Kepa, whose days as Chelsea’s first choice seem numbered with Rennes goalkeeper Edouard Mendy supposedly close to joining. Thiago – who came on as a half-time substitute following his £20million move from Bayern Munich – marked his Liverpool debut by fouling Timo We r n e r t o g i v e a w a y a penalty, but Alisson saved Jorginho’s spot-kick to cap a miserable day for
Chelsea. Kepa needed Christensen to block Roberto Firmino’s goal-bound flick after the goalkeeper left his line and was beaten to a loose ball by Mohamed Salah in the 13th minute. Momentum swung in Liverpool’s favour on the cusp of half-time when Christensen brought down Mane and was sent off by referee Paul Tierney, who changed his initial decision to book the defender after a VAR review. Wi t h n e w a r r i v a l Thiago thrown into the fray due to a reported thigh problem for Jordan Henderson, it took just five minutes for the Reds to make their numerical advantage count – Salah and Firmino combining to set up Mane, who headed in from six yards. While Liverpool’s quality crafted their opener, their second was handed to them as Kepa’s pass was intercepted by Mane and he fired home. Thiago’s clumsy tackle on
Werner handed Chelsea a lifeline, but it was one Jorginho failed to take with his tame penalty easily saved by Alisson. Kepa went a small way to making amends for his mistake late on, pulling off two saves in swift succession from Mane and Salah to keep Liverpool’s winning margin down to two. What does it mean? Bigspending Blues no match Much was made of Chelsea’s transfer spend of approximately £200m heading into this season, but on Sunday’s evidence Lampard’s men are far off mounting a title tilt. All 11 Chelsea starters had average positions inside their own half throughout the encounter, and they managed just three shots on target, including Jorginho’s failed spot-kick. Mane off the mark Salah was the star for Liverpool in their victory over Leeds United last week, but it was Mane who took centre stage this time. The Senegal
Sadio Mane (#10) celebrate scoring on of his goals with teammates. forward is only the third Liverpool player to score a Premier League brace at Stamford Bridge, after Steve McManaman in December 1995 and Philippe Coutinho in October 2015. Christensen’s moment of panic sets Chelsea back Thiago S i l v a ’s
introduction cannot come quickly enough for C h e l s e a . C h r i s t e n s e n ’s mistake handed Liverpool the impetus, as he became the first player since his boss Lampard – back in 2009 – to be sent off in a league fixture between the sides.
He was also the first Blues player to see red at Stamford Bridge since David Luiz in 2017. What’s next? Liverpool visit Lincoln City in the EFL Cup on Thursday, while Chelsea are in action against Barnsley a day prior.
Early preparation has benefitted Windies: Taylor DERBY, England, CMC – Captain Stafanie Taylor b e l i e v e s We s t I n d i e s Women’s early arrival in England has served as a massive boost for her side in the five-match series against the hosts starting here today. Speaking in an online media conference, Taylor said the squad had settled in well and grown accustomed to conditions and the surroundings, to the extent the venue now felt like “home”. “The good thing is we’ve been here for quite a while now. It feels like home,” the Jamaican said on Saturday. “Normally when we go on a tour it’s like we’re the away team but this time we feel like we’re the home team pretty much. The girls are in good spirits, we’ve had a few weeks to get out there and get used to the conditions and everything is going well. “There’s just one more day of practice and we’re going to utilise that and get ready for the game on Monday.” The Caribbean side arrived here on September 1 to contest five Twenty20 Internationals against the hosts, a series that will
Lee-Ann Kirby tasted form with a half-century in the second warm-up match. signal the resumption of i n t e r n a t i o n a l w o m e n ’s cricket following the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar to the men’s Test tour in July, West Indies Women have been thrust into a bio-secure bubble in Derby since their arrival, and are restricted from interaction with those outside.
And Taylor said despite the COVID-19 restrictions, there was a consensus among both teams about the return of the women’s game. “If you ask all the female cricketers, they would tell you it means a lot, given what happened in the World Cup [earlier this year],” Taylor pointed out. “You had 80-something
thousand people at games and how many millions more watching [on TV]. It’s hard with the COVID now and setting the game back. “So it’s really nice that the women are back up and running … slowly female cricket is getting back and we’re really happy it’s back up and running.” We s t I n d i e s h a v e benefitted from two intersquad practice matches w h i c h s a w Ta y l o r g e t among the runs, along with veteran all-rounder Deandra Dottin and LeeAnn Kirby, the latter back in the West Indies side following a long break. But even considering We s t I n d i e s Wo m e n ’s batting woes at the World Cup in Australia earlier this year, Taylor backed her side to produce runs during the series. “It’s not a concern at all. We basically played against ourselves and if you split the teams, you have to try and balance it and when you look at the scorecard you can see that most of the batters were actually getting runs,” she noted. “And that’s what we need, for the batters to spend time out in the middle, get [themselves] in
even though we were playing against ourselves but mark yourselves hard and I think we did just that.” She added: “The pitches here are really good – sometimes slow,
two-pacey – but the conditions in England [means] it’s never hot for too long so mostly in the evenings it’s a bit chilly but we just have to go out there and play some good cricket.”
Djokovic battles past Ruud to reach Italian Open final ROME (Reuters) - Novak Djokovic was made to work hard by Casper Ruud in blustery conditions before the world number one got past the unseeded Norwegian 7-5 6-3 yesterday to reach the Italian Open final. The Serbian had to save two set points in the first set before finding his groove to reach his 10th title clash in Rome and remain on course to win his 36th ATP Masters 1000 crown and overtake Rafa Nadal on the all-time list. Defending Rome champion Nadal crashed out of the tournament in the quarter-finals on Saturday after a straight-sets defeat by Diego Schwartzman. “It was a tough two-setter today. It was over two hours for two sets,” said Djokovic, who equalled Nadal’s tally of Masters 1000 titles by winning the Western & Southern Open last month.
“I definitely had to work hard for most of the points and it was really anybody’s game in the first set. “It was probably the windiest day since we arrived in Rome and it was quite tough to handle that. But the second set was much better, I got used to it and started swinging through the ball better.” Argentine Schwartzman takes on Canadian young gun Denis Shapovalov in the second semi-final later yesterday, with the winner meeting Djokovic today. Djokovic started sluggishly and trailed 4-5 in the opening set but broke back and won the final three games to take the early advantage in the contest. The Serb, who fired 12 aces in the match, served with much better accuracy in the second set and broke to go ahead 3-2 before closing out in style.
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Kaieteur News
Delhi Capitals claim Super-Over win after Marcus Stoinis’ late magic with bat and ball ESPNcricinfo - Seam movement and bounce with the new ball. A 20-ball halfcentury that came out of nowhere. A two-wicket over ending with a nasty injury. A slow-burning, calculated rescue act that all but aced a tricky chase. A short run that wasn’t. Then, with one run required from three balls, somehow, Marcus Stoinis, who had also been the Capitals’ gamechanger with the bat, produced a dot and two wickets. The second match of IPL 2020 contained pretty much everything, until an anticlimactic Super Over handed two points to the Delhi Capitals and heartbreak to the Kings XI Punjab, particularly to Mayank Agarwal whose 89 off 60 balls had rescued them from an abject 55 for 5 in their chase of 158. Just as he was against the Kolkata Knight Riders last season, Kagiso Rabada was the Capitals’ Super Over hero. He took out KL Rahul with a well-directed bouncer, which following the batsman’s premeditated movement towards the leg side, and bowled Nicholas Pooran next ball. Pooran’s slog across the line wouldn’t have been cause for too much censure in the regular part of a T20 game, but it was an unwise shot off the third ball of a Super Over, in which teams are only allowed two wickets. That left the Capitals just
Mayank Agarwal drives powerfully. (BCCI) three runs to get, and they completed the job with no additions to the day’s quota of twists and turns. A fast bowlers’ pitch With only three venues hosting this tournament, the pitches will, at some point, slow down and offer plenty of assistance to the spinners. For now, though, they’re keeping the fast bowlers interested. Saturday’s surface in Abu Dhabi had a healthy covering of grass. Today’s pitch in Dubai was wellgrassed too, and offered seam movement and plenty of bounce. Both teams filled two of their overseas slots with fast bowlers. It was an Indian quick,
however, who made the most of the early help. Delivering with his trademark upright seam, Mohammed Shami nipped the ball around, got it to spring off the pitch, and sent back Prithvi Shaw and Shimron Hetmyer in his second over. He had two catches dropped in his first over too, but one of them Rahul putting Shikhar Dhawan down off a gloved hook - turned into a run-out. A recovery, and an eyecatching debut From 13 for 3 at the fourover mark, there was a bit of rebuilding to be done for the Capitals. Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant ensured they wouldn’t lose another wicket
Record number of participants at Caribbean Coaches Boxing Seminar A total of one hundred and seventy eight (178) boxing coaches from 17 Caribbean Countries yesterday participated in a seminar to update them on rules and regulations that govern refereeing and judging. The virtual seminar was organized by Americas Boxing Confederation vice president and Chairman of the Caribbean Steering Committee for Boxing, Steve Ninvalle, and conducted by Chairman of the AIBA Referee/Judges Commission Ray Silvas of the USA. Participants were lectured on better understanding AIBA technical and competition rules and understanding the work of referees and judges among others. In giving opening remarks, Ninvalle told participants that it is encouraging to see so many persons registered for the
Ray Silvas
Steve Ninvalle
programme. “To have 176 persons on this is a regional record. While I applaud this I ask that whatever we learn here is not kept to ourselves. We must share it with the boxers and all others in the boxing community,” Ninvalle said. His sentiment was shared by Silvas who confirmed that it was the largest number of participants he had lectured
to at any one time. “This is larger than the 140 I did in China,” Silvas added. The countries participating were: Anguilla, Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and US Virgin Islands. Yesterday’s virtual seminar was one of three in the last two months.
Kagiso Rabada and Marcus Stoinis have plenty to smile about. (BCCI) for another 10 overs, but the Capitals’ run rate remained in check. Staying below 6 an over even at the 12-over mark. One of the main reasons for this was the performance of Ravi Bishnoi, the 20-yearold legspinner, who performed the difficult act of keeping Pant quiet despite being the left-hander’s obvious target to go after. He did this by slanting the ball across Pant from over the wicket, and almost exclusively bowling sliders and wrong’uns that veered away from his hitting arc. He exhibited impressive control over his lengths as well, and only conceded 13 runs to Pant off 12 balls, ending their skirmish by bowling him off the inside edge. Iyer had a better time against his designated target, hitting the offspinner K Gowtham for three towering sixes. Ever since his India return late last year, Iyer has shown he’s become a ruthless hitter against spin, and this ability should come in handy for the Capitals right through this season. Stoinis goes berserk Just when Iyer was looking dangerous, Shami returned to the attack in the 15th over and dismissed him with a well-disguised knuckle ball. There were no boundaries in that over, or the next one from Bishnoi, or the one after that from Sheldon Cottrell. After 17 overs, the Capitals were 100 for 6 and looking at a total in the region of 130. They ended up with 158, thanks to one of the most remarkable slog-overs efforts the IPL has ever seen. The bowling wasn’t great - Chris Jordan and Cottrell didn’t vary their pace all that much, and kept missing their length while going for yorkers, both
wide and straight - but Stoinis’ hitting was magnificent. He took guard on off stump to get closer to the line if the bowlers went wide, and that also allowed him to put away straighter deliveries behind square on the leg side. From there, it was all still head and stable base, and the last three overs brought the Capitals 13, 14, and an eye-watering 30 runs respectively. Stoinis ransacked 49 runs in the last three overs of the Capitals’ innings. Only Virat Kohli and Andre Russell have scored more in that part of an IPL innings. Ashwin’s two-way impact Just as in the first innings, the new ball did a bit in the second too. Kings XI expected this, and also had a not-particularly-steep target to chase, so their top order played out this phase with a little more caution than Shaw and Hetmyer in particular had done for the Capitals. Rahul muscled a Mohit Sharma freehit for a monstrous leg-side six but was otherwise circumspect until he was bowled by an inducker from Sharma in the fifth over. Agarwal was even more circumspect: he was on 4 off 10 at the end of the fifth over. Ashwin came on for the sixth over, and took a wicket with his first ever ball for the Capitals, against the team he captained last season; Karun Nair was the victim, falling to a top-edged sweep. Four balls later, Ashwin burst through Pooran’s defences with an arm ball from round the wicket. Kings XI were 34 for 3, and were looking at negotiating 19 more balls from Ashwin, but in an attempt to dive and save a single down the ground, he dislocated his left shoulder and left the field in what appeared to be intense pain.
Glenn Maxwell fell in the next over, miscuing Rabada to mid-off, but Kings XI had a bit of a lifeline. With Ashwin unable to bowl any further, targets could be found among their other five bowlers. Agarwal comes agonisingly close When Kings XI lost Sarfaraz Khan at the end of the 10th over, they needed 103 from their last 60 balls with only five wickets in hand. Agarwal at that point was batting on 13 off 20. The boundaries began to arrive for him, but still in small, measured doses: a pulled six off Stoinis in the 11th over, two fast-hands slashes square on the off side off Anrich Nortje in the 13th. Amidst all this, the left-arm spinner Axar Patel kept him and Gowtham quiet, finding a bit of in-drift and getting the ball to skid towards the stumps. With 74 needed off 36, Gowtham went after Sharma, picking his slower delivery and launching it over the long-on boundary before flat-batting a short one over mid-off for four. He fell in the next over, off Rabada, but Agarwal kept Kings XI in touch with the required rate with two more fours off Nortje in the 17th. If Ashwin had been able to bowl, Sharma may not have had to finish his quota. As it happened, Sharma bowled the 18th and conceded two sixes to Agarwal, who was by now picking his spot and finding it ruthlessly, even if it meant carving full balls over point. Then, in the 19th over, Agarwal got the bit of luck that his innings deserved, Iyer putting down a chance running to his left from deep midwicket and giving away (Continued on page 19)
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Kaieteur News
Monday September 21, 2020
Stunning Pogacar claims maiden Tour title in anti-climatic finale PARIS (Reuters) - Tadej Pogacar became the first Slovenian to win the Tour de France after he retained the yellow jersey in the 21st stage yesterday, a day after he pulled off a major coup to take the overall lead. While Sam Bennett won the final stage, the day belonged to Team UAE Emirates rider Pogacar, who will celebrate his 22nd birthday today and is the youngest man to win the race since Henri Cornet in 1904. Pogacar, who claimed the yellow jersey from a stunned Primoz Roglic with a monumental performance in Saturday’s time trial, also won the white jersey for the best Under-25 rider and the polka dot jersey for the mountains classification. Roglic ended up second, 59 seconds behind, with Australian Richie Porte taking third place, 3:30 off the pace. “This is an incredible feeling, standing here in Paris on the top of the podium. It was an amazing three weeks, an incredible journey,” said Pogacar after the first one-two for one country since Bradley Wiggins finished ahead of fellow Briton Chris Froome in 2012. “I want to thank all those who made it happen. It was three memorable weeks on the French roads, with incredible crowds. I won’t find the
words to express my feelings.” Pogacar also won three stages in one of the most brilliant individual performances in recent Tour history, leaving Roglic’s dominant Jumbo-Visma team wondering what went wrong. “We didn’t see it coming,” said Roglic’s team mate and former Tour runner-up Tom Dumoulin. Bennett became the first Irishman since Sean Kelly in 1989 to win the green jersey for the points classification, ahead of Peter Sagan who was looking to claim it for a recordextending eighth time. Bennett was the strongest at the end of the 122-km ride from Mantes-la Jolie yesterday, beating world champion Mads Pedersen, with Sagan coming home third. Swiss Marc Hirschi, the former Under-23 world champion was voted the most aggressive on the race after notably taking a brilliant win in the longest stage of the 107th edition. Ineos-Grenadiers had a Tour to forget as defending champion Egan Bernal dropped out of contention in the Jura stage to the Grand Colombier, pulling out a few days later with back pains. They recovered some pride later on, however, as Michal Kwiatkowski, their unsung hero for five years,
Sam Bennett won the green jersey along with his second stage of this year’s Tour. (Getty Images) claimed an emotional stage win — although that was certainly not enough for a team who had won seven of the previous eight editions. It was an anti-climatic finale on the Champs-Elysees as only 5,000 fans were allowed on the famous avenue as a precaution against the coronavirus. France reported 13,498 new confirmed COVID-19 cases over the previous 24
hours on Saturday, setting another record in daily additional infections since the start of the epidemic. Reaching the ChampsElysees was, however, a relief for organisers, who had imposed strict sanitary rules to protect the race ‘bubble’. The bubble did not burst as only four team staff members tested positive and were removed from the race, preventing a spread that could
GABF uniform design competition underway
The GABF has launched a uniform design competition in a bid to kick start teams interest in being properly decked out for matches. The prospect of having basketball played competitively may be all but lost but the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) has launched a nationwide basketball uniform competition for clubs and secondary schools teams that is open until October 16. The rules of the competition states that the uniform must have the team’s or school’s logo affixed, numbers at the front and back
with names optional and the winners will be determined by the executive committee of the GABF. All entries must be submitted to the GABF’s facebook page; ‘Guyana Basketball’ and Guyanabasketball.com. It is imperative that both home and away uniforms must be designed. The winners will receive a 15-man home and away uniforms of their winning
designs. GABF boss; Mike Singh shared with this publication that it is the hope of the GABF that teams will use this competition as motivation, even if they don’t win, to be fully kitted-out for whenever competitive basketball is able to resume. As stated in a previous article, Singh has shared with Kaieteur Sport that the Mecca 6 (National Club Championship) will not be
contested in 2020. However, the executive has hinted that since FIBA is embracing the 3X3 version of the game which sees less player interaction as a major part of their return to play plans, the GABF is assessing the option of having a 3x3 competition before the end of the year. And, the final decision will be made by local health authorities who are leading the fight against the deadly COVID-19 disease.
have stopped the Tour. No rider tested positive. Final general classification 1. Tadej Pogacar (Slo/ UAE Team Emirates) 87hrs 20mins 05secs 2. Primoz Roglic (Slo/ Jumbo-Visma) +59secs 3. Richie Porte (Aus/TrekSegafredo) +3mins 30secs 4. Mikel Landa (Spa/ Bahrain McLaren) +5mins 58secs
5. Enric Mas (Spa/ Movistar) +6mins 07secs 6. Miguel Angel Lopez (Col/Astana) +6mins 47secs 7. Tom Dumoulin (Ned/ Jumbo-Visma) +7mins 48secs 8. Rigoberto Uran (Col/EF Pro Cycling) +8mins 02secs 9. Adam Yates (GB/ Mitchelton-Scott) +9mins 25secs 10. Damiano Caruso (Ita/ Bahrain McLaren) +14mins 03secs
DRS to make maiden appearance in a women’s bilateral series when West Indies play in England ESPNcricinfo - The Decision Review System (DRS) will be available in a women’s bilateral series for the first time during West Indies’ T20I tour of England, starting today. The technology was available throughout the last two T20 World Cups, and in the ten televised games in the 50-over World Cup in 2017, but has never previously been used outside of them in women’s international cricket. Last summer, both teams in the women’s Ashes called for DRS to be introduced in bilateral internationals after England batter Fran Wilson was incorrectly given out lbw in the first ODI, with replays showing that the ball had hit her glove rather than her pad. “You always want the best as players, and DRS is the best,” Heather Knight, England’s captain, said. “I’d imagine the reason, as usual in women’s cricket, is money, as to why we don’t have it.
“I think potentially not having it affects the spectacle of the game. Sometimes decisions go your way and it’s obviously the same for both sides but in an ideal world we would have DRS.” Matthew Mott, the Australia coach, said, “I must admit I think if you’ve got the technology there and you’ve got enough cameras, it should come in. It certainly makes sense for me to have it if we can.” U n d e r t h e I C C ’s playing conditions, the use of DRS in women’s internationals is at the discretion of the participating boards, as is t h e c a s e i n m e n ’s internationals. England’s series against West Indies begins today, with all five T20Is being played behind closed doors at Derby. Both sides will have two reviews available per innings, in all five matches.
Kaieteur News
Monday September 21, 2020
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Expansion of women’s participation - FIFA and Concacaf offering more is a priority for the GFF for development programmes By Franklin Wilson The rise of Guyana’s female football team, aka ‘Lady Jags’ over the past few years has been very encouraging to one and all especially young players. The Under-17 and 20 teams have been doing the nation proud at respective Concacaf championships and based on these developments, the female game is headed in the right direction. T h e r e c e n t announcement by the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) that it would be investing 20M dollars (as a start) to develop female facilities at Ann’s Grove on the East Coast of Demerara and Vryman’s Erven, New Amsterdam is even more en co u r ag in g n ew s f o r females and families by extension. Our women have been doing us proud dating back to the CONCACAF Wo m e n ’s Wo r l d C u p qualifying tournament in Cancun, Mexico in 2010 when Guyana played the likes of Canada, Mexico and Tr i n i d a d a n d To b a g o ; however, consistent investment on and off the field of play is required to reap steady positive results. Then {2010}, the majority of the team was made up of overseas based players but fast forward a decade, there are more local based players who are
Fruta Conquerors Lakeisha Pearson (not in photo) scores the fastest goal of the league in the first minute against Lady Panthers. involved and this is a deliberate move the GFF based on its development programme put in place by Technical Director Ian Greenwood under the Presidency of Wayne Forde. Guyana earned its right to the knockout stages of the 2020 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Championship (Covid-19 postponing its continuation) after putting away its opponents in Group D play which was held in Curacao last August. The Guyanese ladies had a perfect record of 3wins – 0draws – 0losses; scoring 11goals whilst conceding 4. Victories were recorded over
the Bahamas, Curacao and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines at the Stadion Ergilio Hato in Willemstad, Curacao. Local based player Jalade Trim ended as the group’s joint top goal scorer (3 goals) in a three-way tie. Contesting the Concacaf Wo m e n ’s U n d e r - 2 0 Championship, the ‘Lady Jags’ defeated Suriname 3-1, Saint Lucia, Antigua & Barbuda and Bermuda by respective 2-0 margins to win Group A Qualifying at the Leonora Track and Field Facility last July on debut at this competition. Moving on to the Group
stage in the Dominican Republic in February this year, Guyana defeated Nicaragua 3-1, Puerto Rico 2-1 and Cayman Islands 2-0 and lost to Mexico and Haiti by similar 0-3 margins. Mexico went on to lose the final to the USA 1-4. These performances have no doubt fueled the GFF to ensure that consistency is the name of the game as it would strengthen the foundation that has already began to take shape in this regard. The GFF’s vision is being further supported by both FIFA and Concacaf which have each stated their continued aim of
Head Coach Ivan Joseph having a quick chat with his charges during a brief break in their last match against Antigua & Barbuda on Monday night last. (Franklin Wilson photo)
advancing the women’s game. Concacaf has noted that their vision is to improve the lives of women by working together with its 41 Member Associations on three main objectives: changing perceptions, building sustainable foundations and growing participation. FIFA on the other end of the pitch has recently informed that, “In line with FIFA’s Women’s Football Strategy, the FIFA Women’s Development Programme aims to provide all 211 member associations with the opportunity to apply for and access additional resources and specialist expertise to develop women’s football at a national level.” President Forde was engaged by this writer to share the Federation’s views on Women’s development, he states the reason (s) for the rise in achievement of the female game. “I think it is important to first put the success of the Women’s programme into context. No doubt we have experienced tremendous success at the international level over the past couple of years at almost every level and this must be celebrated. However, we have thus far been unable to grow the women game locally, in a manner consistent with the vision of the Executive Committee. This is the real challenge, and until we are able to achieve this, the job remains incomplete.
The good performances of our female National Teams are no accident, we have been very deliberate with our strategies and have made the necessary investments to support our goals. We have a very committed Management team that goes above and beyond to ensure that the players are given the best opportunity to perform at their best and they have all risen to the occasion and made all of Guyana proud.” How important is it for the investment in the two facilities, to begin with, to further enhance the female game? “There is a severe lack of quality football infrastructure across Guyana. This has been a challenge for many years but it has had a unique impact of the Women’s game. Less than 1% of all community grounds are without adequate dressing rooms and wash room facilities. This is an immediate deterrent for female players and their parents which have resulted in low participation at the community level. We have to treat our female footballers in a dignified manner by ensuring that they feel safe and comfortable within the football spaces. The GFF plans to improve at least one community ground in each of our Regional Member Associations in the short term, with plans to accelerate this programme in the (Continued on page 19)
rt o p S DRS to make maiden appearance in a women’s bilateral series when West Indies play in England
UAE Team Emirates rider Tadej Pogacar of Slovenia, wearing the overall leader’s yellow jersey, celebrates as he finishes. (Pool via REUTERS/Thibault Camus)
Stunning Pogacar claims maiden Tour title in anti-climatic finale
DRS will be available for the five T20Is between England and West Indies. (Getty Images)
Expansion of women’s participation FIFA and Concacaf offering more is a priority for the GFF - for development programmes
Tiandi Smith, scorer of Guyana’s opening goal captured in combat against her Surinamese rivals on July 21st, 2019 at the Leonora Track and Field Facility in the Concacaf U17 Championships. (Franklin Wilson photo)
Record number of participants at Caribbean Coaches Boxing Seminar Printed and published by National Media & Publishing Company Ltd., 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown, Georgetown. Tel: 225-8458, 225-8465, 225-8491 or Fax: 225-8473/226-8210.