Guyana Times Daily

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DAYS

Nationwide coverage from the best news team in Guyana Issue No. 2863 guyanatimesgy.com

THE BEACON OF TRUTH

May 22, 2016

PRICE

Aviation industry neglected – Travel Span CEO

WHAT'S INSIDE:

Major overhaul recommended for NFMU P7

Page 3

…calls for incentive packages to encourage stability

Security beefed up for jubilee

Page 18

$120 vat included

Calls intensify for more P16 mental health professionals in Guyana

Pardoned criminals

“I am not reckless” – President Page 7

P15 Green initiatives to be introduced by yearend

National Hardware boss new PSC Chairman

P11

P16 Linden students to benefit from Digicel scholarships

Independence energy: The Guyana Amazon Warriors will be hitting the road come Independence Day with a large contingent, revelling along the parade route, in commemoration of Guyana's 50th indendence anniversary. The large band category float will depict the role cricket played in shaping national consciousness and pride in Guyanese during the struggle for independence, into the present and which it will play towards creating a glorious future. Photo displays the decked out headquarters of the Guyana Amazon Warriors

Lands available for miners ... special attention for small scale Page 11

mining – Natural Resources Minister

Guyana in diplomatic dilemma over death … FATF requirement penalty vs UN commitment

Page 9

Region 2 P17 Chairman expresses frustration over slow project implementation … says slow pace affecting development

2 news

SunDAY, may 22, 2016 | guyana-times.com

Police parade thrills crowd at D’Urban Park GTU to discuss teacher to student ratio with A Education Ministry

s the observance of the country’s 50th Jubilee Independence continues, the Guyana Police Force hosted a parade on Saturday at the newly erected Jubilee Stadium in D’Urban Park, Georgetown.

The atmosphere was jubilant and filled with excitement as scores of persons visited the area to view the activities, including the Police and child marching band.

At the event, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan expressed his delight at being a part of the event and prepared the crowd with the list of activities to expect, including a display of skills by the members of the Police Force.

Ramjattan relayed to the audience that the Public Security Ministry was working towards providing every means of resources necessary for members of the Police Force to carry out their duties to their best abilities. He said that implementations will be

The Police marching band

made with the intention of the Force being considered trustworthy to the members of the public since without their trust, it would be very difficult to solve crimes since information is gathered through the knowledge of persons.

“Whatever resources that our Police Force and its members demand, rest assure that the Ministry of Public Security we are going to join every effort to en-

sure the Police get those resources. We will do our best and the best has proven to be good enough because of the crime reduction and we will conduct of a number of activities whereby we would gain the public’s trust in the Police Force. Without the public’s trust, I want to tell you that we would find it hard to solve crimes,” he pointed out.

Meanwhile, the synchronised group of Police

Officers played their instruments and marched around the stadium. With a further intention of entertaining the crowd, officers riding beautiful stallions rode around in harmonised steps ending with a formation of the number 50 while seated on the horses.

At the event, there was a march pass present which included children of all ages and ethnicities representing the different Police divisions as they marched in their uniformed outfits.

The crowd was further entertained by a number of different folk songs, including “Small Days”, and “Jane Engaged,” sang by women clothed in colours of the Golden Arrow Head.

Another activity that earned praises and round of applauds from the crowd was the demonstration of uses of dogs within the Police Force. Persons viewed the various dogs which were able to correctly sniff out illegal items, including explosives, marijuana and fire arms.

T

he Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) is looking to commence discussions with the Education Ministry to have modifications made to the student to teacher ratio for public schools.

This proposal is part of the union’s Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) for 20162020 on bargaining for better terms and conditions of employment for teachers/educators working in public schools.

Recently, the union had reiterated its plea to have the ratio adjusted so that there can be more productive class sessions in the school system, which they believe is hindered due a large batch of students being assigned to one teacher.

As the union is preparing to have its meeting with the ministry on Monday, General Secretary of GTU Coretta McDonald indicated to Guyana Times that this will be one of the topical issues of their agenda.

Over the months, consultations were held on this proposal but the union did not receive an answer from the ministry on whether this proposal will be made law.

According to McDonald, the subject continues to be one of the main concerns of teachers as many believe that both they and students would be at a better position if the ratio is readjusted to that proposed by the union. GTU is hoping the ministry considers the ratio position since it is believed this is one of the major steps to help reform the education system into a more efficient and productive one.

Explaining why the proposal was made, McDonald in a recent interview informed that as it is known, when students enter a class there is a combination of personalities, various levels of learning capabilities ranging from ‘highflyers’ to ‘weak’ and a number of inequities that each possess.

The task of meeting these requirements so that each student is equally and adequately catered for is thus left for teachers to manage which in most instances result in inefficient teaching/learning mechanisms.

Basing on the physical aspect, she noted that most schools in Guyana are not large, so the class sizes are sig-

nificantly small, and with a large amount of students there is inevitable overcrowding which further diminishes the deliverance of education since teachers cannot freely move around to have productive interactions.

A teacher, teaching a grade six class for ten years, related to this newspaper that indeed it is a difficult task when teachers are required to attend to the needs and variation of each student.

She added that students in a classroom have various levels of comprehension where some will learn faster than others, and in most cases this is the stem of the issue.

Being that students adapt to environments differently and respond to teaching in various ways, she said the burden is left on teachers to ensure every child is equally catered for and receives the same attention.

“I believe that the best thing to do is adjust these numbers so that classroom learning becomes a lot easier. With the breakdown of these figures, teaches stand a better chance of having one-on-one interaction with her students which we know would be more effective for classroom teaching.”

She further went on that given she is the teacher of a class that is preparing for the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA), she is aware of the hardships faced by these teachers to ready all the students for the exams.

She suggested that if not applied to every level, the ministry should consider this proposal especially for grades five, six and forms four, five and six.

“If they do this, at least students who are preparing for important exams can be able to get sufficient attention from their teachers. I think this would be the best approach to this, being that the ministry is aiming to improve the country’s pass rates at these exams.” the teacher cited.

The ratio of student to teacher has been agreed and listed in the MoA as 15 students to one teacher for nursery schools; 20 to one for grades one and two; 25 to one for grades three to six; 25 to one for secondary schools and 15 to one for practical instructional centres.

NEWS

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SunDAY, may 22, 2016 | guyana-times.com

BRIDGE OPENINGS

The Demerara Harbour Bridge will be closed to vehicular traffic on: Sunday, May 22 – 05:30h-07:00h and Monday, May 23 – 05:00h-06:30h.

The Berbice River Bridge will be closed to vehicular traffic on: Sunday, May 22 – 16:45h-18:15h and Monday, May 23 – 05:00h-06:30h.

… calls for incentive packages to encourage stability

FERRY SCHEDULE Parika and Supenaam departure times – 05:00h, 11:00h and 16:00h daily.

WEATHER TODAY Thundery to heavy rain showers can be expected in the morning while sunny weather with some cloud cover can be expected in the afternoon. Partly cloudy skies can be expected in the evening. Temperatures are expected to range between 25 degrees Celsius and 30 degrees Celsius.

Winds: Easterly to East North-easterly between 2.68 metres per second and 5.36 metres per second.

High Tide: 04:34h and 16:59h reaching maximum heights of 2.68 metres and 2.58 metres respectively.

Low Tide: 10:33h and 22:45h reaching minimum heights of 0.52 metre and 0.65 metre respectively.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

LOTTERY NUMBERS E 02 05 06 08 12 14 16 Bonus Ball

FREE TICKET

Daily Millions

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Draw De Line 04 05 07 08 11

Aviation industry neglected – Travel Span CEO

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T

he withdrawals of major airlines from the local market over the years have left devastating impacts on the economy, yet the government seems unbothered by the risks and concerns existing in the aviation sector, Chief Executive Officer of Travel Span Nohar Singh indicated.

During an interview with Guyana Times on Saturday, Singh pointed out that though many credible airlines abruptly pulled out from the market after making huge investments, no action has been taken to examine the reasons or circumstances behind those bold decisions, and to determine what preventive or remedial measures could be put in place to address the situation.

“Guyanese have seen airlines come and airlines go. We have lost several really major airlines in this country. North American Airlines was a very reliable service; Delta. We were literally blessed to have Delta in this country. Someone could get on an airplane in India or any part of the Middle East or Africa and check in just once with their bags and then in Guyana. We lost that airline,” he highlighted.

Singh contends that the question that must be asked but not being discussed is, “why are we losing these airlines, why are they coming in and then going out? We need to talk about that, we need to look at the reasons why and understand the airline business in a bigger context,” he urged.

The concerned stakeholder explained that the airline business is not a “one man” show but rather, all players including government must contribute significantly to ensure stability in the sector, especially in light of the fact that the sector contributes tremendously to the economy.

“The benefits from the airlines spreads from so many different areas. We did a study of the 1038 passengers who came into Guyana in 2015, and of every passenger who comes in, they bring in an average of US$1500 into the economy, and for the diaspora market, it’s even greater because they build their homes and they take care of their families,” he noted.

“But just using that figure US$1500, this is a very important part we need to look at… that in itself brings approximately US$172 mil-

lion into the economy, and who benefits? You have that VAT that comes out of that, you have the taxi drivers, you have the hotels, you have the restaurants, you have the stores, everyone benefits,” he explained.

Reinforcing his statements, Singh argued that in real economic sense, for every dollar that is spent in the economy, its impact is usually about six times the initial amount.

“So if you take US$172 million from 1038 passengers and you multiply that by six… so the point I am trying to make is that there are so much benefits that come in from the airline, then why are we not looking at the airline from a different perspective where it is not the airline alone that should take the risk and there is the perception that the airline makes all the money,” he posited.

The Travel Span CEO asserted that the perception is wholly incorrect, simply because if the airlines were pocketing all the profits then they would stay in

Travel Span CEO, Nohar Singh

pany was still listed in budget documents to receive a $400.7 million subsidy from the government.

Commenting on the situation, Singh observed that Guyanese always talk about wanting stability and reliability in airline services however, decision-making stakeholders pay little attention to the circumstances under which the airlines operate to determine how best these demands can be met.

better informed when developing policies and incentive packages to encourage investments.

“Then you will be able to develop a financial formula that works for the government, that works for the private sector, and that works for the airline so that everyone benefits from that same pool of economic activities,” he stated, noting that it is a progressive undertaking.

“It’s not ‘oh you come airline and I’ll give you that and that’. It’s something that you sit down and you work it out based on the size of the market and potential for growth, how are we going to get people here, what’s the product, what are we going to sell; are we going to sell tourism? We have to be able to say look, we are competing with (other countries), what is our product level to Barbados, etc,” he explained, pointing out that stakeholders need to examine the various aspects of the venture and establish a formula that works for everyone.

In this jubilee year and

Passengers disembarking Eastern Airlines at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport

Guyana and continue to operate for greater revenue.

Singh pointed out that the only airline that has been able to stay in Guyana is Caribbean Airlines, because it has the support of its government.

“Every year their government gives them over US$100 million and the government sees it fit to give them the support because their government understands the importance of the airline and they understand the economic benefits of it,” he explained.

According to reports, Caribbean Airlines used to receive hefty fuel subsidies from the government of Trinidad and Tobago, however, it no longer does.

Despite losing its fuel subsidy, the state-owned com-

“We also need to play our part and understand the benefits of the airline whereby the government, tour operators, and all the beneficiaries need to be able to work with the airlines to be able to share and mitigate some of those risks then you will see longevity and then you will see growth,” he stated.

Singh explained that by creating an environment that fosters permanency among airlines, arrivals will eventually increase and so will the money flowing into the economy.

The CEO outlined that the first step is for the key players in the field, particularly the government, to understand the benefits of the airline sector in order to be

looking ahead to the next fifty years, the Travel Span CEO said it is time Guyana looks at aviation in a greater context.

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guyana-times.com

SunDAY, may 22, 2016

Views Editor: Tusika Martin News Hotliine: 231-8063 Editorial: 231-0544 223-7230,223-7231,231-0544, 225-7761 Marketing: 231-8064 Accounts: 225-6707 Mailing address: Queens Atlantic Investment Estate Industrial Site, Ruimveldt, Georgetown Email: news@guyanatimesgy.com, sales@guyanatimesgy.com

Editorial

Development strategies

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s we enter the final week of the commemoration of our Jubilee Independence observation, many citizens have striven to answer the question of what has “independence” actually delivered to the people of Guyana.

It is a rather bleak question since it presupposes that not much has actually been achieved.

At the time of independence in 1966, the goals and expectations were quite clear: to catch up with the developed countries, represented then as Britain and the US in living standards. These countries had been the first to industrialise, followed by European countries such as Germany. They did so under what was to be described by the “capitalist” mode of production in which the motive to increase profits to private owners of “capital” was the dominant driving force.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the resulting USSR provided a new, “socialist” strategy of development in which the State rather than private individuals owned and organised production that was supposed to be shared equitably among the populace. Both the capitalist and socialist paths of development assumed that increased economic production was the paramount criterion and was a component of an underlying “drive towards modernisation”.

In 1960 Harvard based WW Rostow, in the heat of the Cold War between the US and the USSR for world dominance, used the analogy of an aircraft (a “modern” artifact) going into flight to describe the “stages of economic growth” that all countries would have to undergo to move from their “traditional backwardness” to “modern prosperity”. This was situated in the “capitalist” system, now positively renamed as the “free enterprise system” and intended to counter the Soviet model.

There were five stages: the “traditional society” with subsistence farming and limited savings; the “preconditions for take off” when agriculture is mechanised, savings increased; the “take off” in which political and social institutions intensify the economic development spurred by industrialisation; the “drive to maturity” when economic development spreads and integration into international markets develops and finally the “drive to maturity” where mass consumption for the masses is widespread.

In 1962, under “internal self government” the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) invited the English socialist economist Nicolas Kaldor to prepare his budget that was supposed to balance increased agricultural output with industrialisation.

He proposed a tax to prevent the multinationals from siphoning off their profits which left the country in a permanent deficit.

It was never implemented since it became the trigger for CIA sponsored riots to remove the PPP from office.

West Indies Nobel Prize winner in Economics, Sir Arthur Lewis, had proposed an “industrialisation by invitation” model, for “lift off” in which foreign corporations are invited to bring in technology and capital through the inducements of tax holidays and concessions. Jagan had rejected this model explicitly but Lewis was brought in by Burnham, and made architect of the “1966-1972 Development Plan” as a gesture to the US which had ensconced him into office.

There was also the notion of “aid” by the developed countries and the World Bank to fill the “investment gap” between the domestic savings and capital needed to deliver a sufficient growth rate for take off. While the People’s National Congress (PNC) used the US aid to develop highways and other infrastructure, not enough foreign companies responding to the “invitation” to make a difference. In 1974, in its “Declaration of Sophia” the PNC announced Guyana was “in transition from capitalism to socialism” and would complete the task under the “cooperative socialist model”, which was borrowed from the Ujaama Socialist model of Tanzania. The PNC nationalised “the commanding heights of the economy” and ended up with 80 per cent of the economy under its control. By the end of the decade however, Guyana could not service its debt and under IMF sanctions, the economy imploded.

After 1989 with the acceptance of the IMF “conditionalities” to re-negotiate our US$2.1 billion debt, we were inducted into the latest version of “industrialisation by invitation”. (To be continued)

Members of the mounted Police ride beautiful horses in harmonised steps at D'Urban Park, ending with a formation of the number 50 as part of the Guyana Police Force's parade to mark the country’s 50th Jubilee Independence

ECF Airport belongs to the people of Guyana Dear Editor, Just for the public record, I do not have any conflict with Kit Nascimento, neither at a personal nor at a professional level.

I therefore find his words quite sharp and riveting for a man who is supposedly just doing his professional work as a PR consultant for the Correia family.

I however, do Agree with Kit, Mike Correia is a is one of the " Finest CEOs " that is why I had personally agree to support his appointment as the chairman of the private company's OAI board. It is important to note that the EFC Airport Board of directors was never established.

What is unfortunate is that I also thought I could have trusted him to run the affairs of our company OAI while I was busy over the years struggling to build and transform Roraima Airways which was a newly startup Company.

I in fact was too trusting of him which I now know was a massive mistake When I finally discovered and understand what Mike was doing it was too late. He had already outsmarted us by cleverly maneuvering his family and friends into the shareholding of our company , OAI , with the clear objective of taking over our company and cleverly dominating the day to day operations of the airport , thereby creating the most unhealthy and acrimoniously anti-

competitive environment I have ever witness in my 40 years as a professional aviator.

I wish to acknowledge that I was not as smart as mike Correia nor was I as alert as I should have been.

He is probable a better business man than I am , since I lack the basic killer instinct to be shrewd and ruthless.

Kit went on to cast assertions that my own achievements was accomplished by political patronage while the development of ogle was clear of such political favors. Well, I would not even dignify kit Nascimento's slanderous assertions with a reply but only to say the following 1. Once again it leaves me to question his professional conduct.

2. I wish to make it very clear that kit Nassimento was not around the five original investors at the time we were conceptualizing the development strategy for OAI. He therefore is in no position to comment on the lack of"political Patronage" as a contribution to the development of ogle airport.

3. I do not expect him to know the details and the behind the Scenes work that was done.

4. I do not expect him to know that the five of us was given the exclusive privilege of leasing the ogle airport , not because of the Correia's family Wealth , but because of the diversity of who each of us was individually and what we

represented as competitors giving the Government the comfort and assurance that the airport would be operated in a fair and equitable manner, where all of us would have equal say maintaining the balance since we were also fierce competitors.

5. Unfortunately what has evolved and what in fact is obtained today is far removed from the what the expectation was when the airport was leased to us.

6. The European Union tax Government injected 2 million USD in the airport development not for the benefit of one Operator but because they too felt it was for the benefit of Guyana.

As I close this letter, which I hope is the final letter I would need to write on this subject , let me simply established the following facts.

1. EFC Airport is a Government of Guyana facility which is leased to a private company called OAI with strict expectations on the part of Government.

2. OAI was meant to operate the airport in a fair and equitable manner by appointing a management team that was professionally competent and very importantly , totally impartial.

3. The fact that 9 of the 10 local aircraft operators at the airport has expressed unequivocally their lack of confidence in the management of the airport to be fair and impar-

tial speaks for it self.

4. Airports by their very nature are regulatory, therefore, It a totally unacceptable situation to have one competitor regulating his competitors.

The business of a country's international airport is not like any regular company , airports must be managed by impartial managers. The quantum of Shareholding should never give one operator more rights over the other operators who are their competitors.

Aviation related Investors must be assured of the security of their investment but they cannot be allow to run the day to day operations of the airport because of the clear conflict of interest and disadvantage to the other airport aviation operators.

OAI as a private company that no longer has the moral standing of impartiality to continue with the privilege of managing a public asset (EFC International Airport) in the public interest in an equitable and fair manner. ECF Airport belongs to the people of Guyana and we must never forget that fact. Our Government need to establish a national airport authority under which the management of our country's international airports must operate.

Sincerely, Captain Gerry Gouveia CEO, Roraima Airways

NEWS

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SunDAY, may 22, 2016 | guyanatimesGY.com

The architects of Guyana’s independence

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egal luminary and former Chairman of the Alliance For Change (AFC) Nigel Hughes and former leader of the Rise Organise And Rebuild (ROAR) Party Ravi Dev sat down during a panel discussion to reflect upon the architects of Guyana’s independence.

The discussions were conducted during a special edition interview on Television Guyana (TVG) which will be aired today.

Addressing the reason for the shift in thinking in wanting to no longer be ruled by the British, Dev explained that the idea has always been there.

“We were dragged from various continents; Africa, Asia, even Europe and dumped into this land here and that struggle for independence was started. You’re talking about Cuffy, you’re talking about Damon but in terms of this modern drive for independence, I think it began with the struggles on the sugar plantations. Labour had a sense of exploitation and it led to struggles in the 1930s throughout the Caribbean and it led to a British Royal Commission being set up,” he said.

Commissions were very popular with the British

Ravi Dev

whenever there were problems. Dev recollected that when the Commission was sitting in Georgetown in February 1939, there were riots in Leonora, on the West Coast of Demerara, where four persons were shot and several others injured.

This incident, he indicated, prompted the Commission to head back to Britain and made some recommendations which would now mark radical change from how Guyana was governed, placing the seeds that would ineluctably lead to other leaders making this call for total independence.

Sharing his take, Hughes expressed that the entire

movement preceded those series of events.

“You had difficulties in 1905, you had difficulties in 1924. You had what I think is the greatest symbolic unity march, there were East Indians workers who struck in support of the African dockside workers who were already on strike and they were marching all the way down from plantation Ruimveldt and I think there were 12 of them (who) got shot outside the Ruimveldt Police Station and they were marching in solidarity, the sugar workers were coming in support of the dockworkers,” he disclosed.

This movement, Hughes said, exemplified the selfdetermination that existed among Guyanese and from there, Guyana was always on a trend towards self-determination.

The panelists pointed out that there was a strong connection between the struggle for independence and the labour struggles in Guyana.

“If you go back to our modern leaders, Dr Jagan and Burnham, both of them came out of labour, both had a labour base,” Hughes stated.

Weighing in on the topic, Dev noted that when one looks at the nature of the State (fighting against State power), it came back to that

Nigel Hughes

struggle to labour.

“Critchlow in the docks in the 1919; he started the first union… But to continue from Critchlow movement, which focused in the city, that whole movement against the British interest boiled over in the 30s and you had people organising on labour…When we look at our political leaders of those days, I am not putting them down when I say that those leaders were more reformists than looking for fundamental change and (Karl) Marx said that ‘men make their own history, not in circumstances of their own making’, so I want to give those people the benefit of the doubt, people like Jong Mahador Singh of the

BGIA (British Guiana East Indian Association) and the League of Coloured People led

by John Carter and all that, they also were negating for more space in the politics of it but they were seen as reformists,” Dev asserted.

He said it was only when the labour struggle came out and boiled over while the Commission was sitting, Guyana turned over to more radical politics.

Discussing how the struggle changed when Dr Cheddi Jagan came into play, Dev explained that when Dr Jagan returned to Guyana in 1943, he made attempts to work with some of those leaders including BGIA (British Guiana East Indian Association); however they were not radical enough. Then in 1975, Dev explained that there was a movement where a Caribbean political group met in Georgetown and they decided to launch a Caribbean labour congress, and Jagan was exposed again to labour.

“Jagan’s political consciousness was raised in that meeting in 1975,” Dev concluded.

Sharing his views, Hughes posited that one needs to paint an accurate picture of what it was socially and economically in Guyana in the 1940’s in order to truly grasp

how deep the struggle was for independence.

“It was a highly stratified society. Africans had moved to the urban areas, Indians were bound and unbound, I know that for example, on the Berbice, Corentyne corridor, this division that we think came as a result of political differences between Dr Jagan and Mr Burnham existed long before that but perhaps they were the beneficiaries of it.

So, in 1834 and 1838, economically, the Africans felt they were displaced by the British when they brought labour to replace them. And they had no interest in those two communities coming together because of course they would have been threatened and so it was in their interest from the start to ensure and engineer differences between the two communities. So that difference that we think has been there of recent vintage has been there as a result of our historical environment,” Hughes explained.

The panelists continued to explore and discuss various aspects that contributed to the struggle for Guyana’s independence and the roles of key figures in the movement.

To watch the full programme, viewers can tune in on TVG Channel 28 at 20:30h tonight.

A crematorium of standard and beauty located in Berbice T

he decision to have loved ones cremated, as compared to buried, has increased drastically over the years. However, since not many crematoriums of standard are available, residents all over Guyana have opted to use “make-shift” cremation sites, often an inconvenience to persons.

This was the case with the residents of Berbice, and the militating reason behind the genesis of Blairmont Crematorium and Memorial Gardens, located at the Blairmont Estate on West Bank Berbice.

This crematorium was operationalized in June of 2013 and has since become the crown jewel for the residents of Berbice to conduct dignified funerals. The site has become very successful and is popularly described as a place which is “available to people of all races and religions without discrimination, as it reflects on a Guyanese Culture.”

Registered as an official association under the laws of Guyana, this publicly funded development project has been under the management of the Blairmont Crematorium & Memorial Garden Society, currently headed by Nowrang Persaud. Persaud is a retired official of the United Nations, former director of Guyana Sugar Corporation and the Demerara Distillers Limited respectively.

Built on one acre of land cleared, filled, fenced and raised to prevent flooding, the crematorium facilitates a beautiful and flourishing garden atmosphere as it serves as a constant reminder to everyone of the connection between life and death.

With the intention to provide

shade, 40 trees were planted, which have now grown to serve the purpose.

Within the gorgeous scenery sits two funeral pyres situated in front of a pavilion with capacity to seat 200 under shaded accommodation.

Attached to this structure are male and female washrooms, a centre that provides refreshments, a prayer room as well as a memorial hall.

The Memorial Hall within this crematorium brings about not only a sense of modernization but a touch of uniqueness since its features allow persons the freedom to display photographs, or other memorabilia of their deceased loved ones, leaving permanent tokens which can be revisited by family and friends at any time, especially on the anniversaries of the departed and even on special occasions.

The Blairmont Crematorium and Memorial Garden was created with financial contributions from the generosity of Guyanese locally and from the diaspora.

Additional plans consist of the development of a spacious parking area, which would allow the Access Road to the Blairmont Estate to be cleared, as it is usually

blocked in the event of large funerals. With this would come the need to fence the parking area, to keep out roaming animals, along with a better access bridge and gate.

Possible installations of concrete benches/flooring under the trees are in the works, as well as an extended roofing of the pavilion.

With the generous material and financial support

received so far management of the Memorial Garden has succeeded in providing care and comfort for grieving families and friends, including overseas patrons.

The estimated cost to complete the future plans adds up to approximately $1 million.

The publicly funded organisation will accept financial aid from anyone interested in providing a donation towards the completion of this integral project.

After this final round of works are completed the Memorial Garden would be able to operate self-sufficiently from fees collected for use of the facility.

Anyone wishing to visit the site, use the facilities, offer any form of donation can contact the caretaker on site (Amir Baksh at 652-4500) or the Manager (Pamela Harriparshad at 621-5000) or Nowrang Persaud at 6159802 or via e-mail at nowrangp@yahoo.com

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SunDAY, may 22, 2016

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guyana-times.com

Foundation

Burnham and D’Aguiar “more culpable” than Jagan

Feminism and Indian culture T

... in 1960’s racial and political conspiracies – Perry Mars

I

Anu Dev

n my articles over the past month, I offered a background on the arrival of Indians to Guyana and focused on what that meant for indentured women in a strange land. In the last article I mentioned the effort of the community to recreate the institutions of their culture - especially those of their practices of Hinduism and Islam - they had left back in India.

But they had not just been transported in space.

As the name of one of my dad’s favourite books declared, they had also been “conscripted by modernity”. Whatever practices they tried to recreate from the “old land” had to play out in the new environment, which reflexively adjudged them “backward”. For example my great grandmother and most of the Indian women of her generation up to the 1930s worked in the fields,

either of sugar or rice.

By the time her daughter, my grandmother, was married in the midforties and decided to remain at home to raise h e r e children s h e w a s told she was “backward”. And this continues to this day.

Western feminists insist that women who want to take care of a family are reverting to the “oppressive patriarchal order”. Now don’t get me wrong... I know the entire society sees no “value” in “home work” and that’s the problem: this is a western idea, not an Indian one.

The Western culture into which we’ve all been inducted insists that only things that have a price in the market has a value. And so raising a family has no value and women who perform that role also have no value.

We also bought in to nar-

ratives of “equality” that insist it must mean “sameness” and lose sight of not only the value of birthing and motherhood to women but also of the stupendous amount of work and management running a household entails.

T h i s February, the International L a b o u r Organisation (ILO) reported that while the Indian economy grew at an average rate of 7 per cent between 2004 and 2007, female participation in the labour force fell from 35 per cent to 25 per cent.

The NY Times “analysed” this to “show” it was caused by “age old gender norms of a male dominated society”.

That with the improvement of the Indian economy women may now choose to focus on raising a family and select jobs that permit them to do so, evidently escaped them. Women for instance outnumber men as heads of financial firms. In Guyana, girls now routinely outperform boys in schools

and can now select the professions they want to work in or not to do so if they prefer to raise a family which is privileged in Indian culture.

India now routinely graduates more female doctors that males ones but only 1/3 of the females practice full time. That youths in western societies and those that slavishly imitate them are in crisis and this may be connected with absent parenting is airbrushed out.

But the put-down of the Indian focus on family is not unique. In reviewing the literature of western feminism as it applied to Indians, I was struck at how anti-Hindu and anti-Muslim it actually was. They recapitulate the entire gamut of the putdowns the British applied when they colonised India as a whole. At that time there were Indians who bought the British criticisms hook, line and sinker, and became self-haters who aspired for the impossible - to become White.

And this is the danger that modern Indian females like myself face if we do not interrogate our own cultural practices within our own overarching world view rather than that of western culture that is in crisis.

he late Professor Perry Mars, who was tragically murdered only recently in his home land of Guyana, was often attributed by many for his compelling works on articulating the pragmatic and historical antecedents of the peoples in the Caribbean, Africa and America.

His scholarly and academic works have proliferated a wider understanding of the Caribbean culture and dynamic, especially within the context of the Western countries, such the United States of America.

What many may not know is that Mars in addition to focusing on African and Caribbean studies, also by his very academic nature placed importance on Guyana’s history and how it was perceived by other countries. In so doing, the Professor canvassed the whole collective constituency of Guyana’s make-up throughout his academic writings and articulations.

One writing in particular was his review of a popular book Cheddi Jagan and the politics of power (British Guiana’s struggle of independence) written by Professor Colin A Palmer.

Palmer in his book had argued inter alia that Guyana’s political leadership within the period of 1953 to 1964 was ineffective in general and pointed specifically to the leadership of Dr Jagan and his People’s Progressive Party (PPP) – a perception which Professor Mars was not in agreement with, even though he did find Professor Palmers’ work interesting and insightful.

According to Mars, “Palmer characterises the so-called weaknesses of Jagan and the PPP in terms of their supposed “naivety” or “irresponsibility” in clinging to a self-defeating communist or Marxist dogma within British and American spheres of influence and control.

Yet, the British knew that the realisation of Soviet or Cuban communism in Guyana was highly improbable, and that Jagan’s policies were basically nationalist and pragmatic.”

Mars had outlined in his review that “Jagan was castigated for his role in initiating and fomenting racial politics and violence. Historical evidence, however, shows that the racial and ethnic divisions that followed the party split in 1955, and ignited political violence between 1962 and 1964, were mainly instigated by British and American Governments in order to prevent the supposedly communist Jagan from obtaining political power. Jagan’s national political opponents, Forbes Burnham and Peter D’Aguiar, were more directly culpable in this racial and political conspiracy, given their collusion with colonial and American authorities. Admittedly, Jagan eventually resorted to the political expediency of ethnic mobilisation, which has characterised the entire Guyana

The late Professor Perry Mars

political landscape since the early 1960s.”

The late Professor noted that while Palmer in his book came off as being sympathetic towards Jagan’s struggle against British and American “Machiavellianism”, he downplayed “Jagan’s leadership and ability to navigate a process so overwhelmingly stacked against him. This dismissal of Jagan’s strengths no doubt saves Palmer’s main thesis, which emphasises leadership weaknesses in Guyana’s nationalist movements at the time. Similarly, no effort is made to counter the unsubstantiated and seemingly racist insistence of the colonial and American officials that the only real intelligent and capable leadership in the PPP was provided by the white, US-born Mrs Jagan, despite much historical evidence to the contrary.”

Being an authority on Guyana’s history, Professor Mars outlined examples contradicting the assertions made by Palmer as it pertains to the leadership of Jagan. He said that historically “Jagan’s leadership capabilities are shown by his resilience against foreign and domestic forces and his eventual triumph in regaining the presidency and international respectability in 1992.”

Mars posited further that “Palmer’s main conclusions – that the 1954 Robertson Commission inspired and instigated the 1955 PPP split, that the Colonial Office exaggerated the communist bogey to deny independence for Guyana under Jagan, and that Jagan and the PPP, between 1953 and 1964, were merely in office but not in real power – have been identified and exposed by Jagan since the 1950s. Jagan was also a visionary as the earliest and most consistent advocate of coalition politics embracing Guyana’s Africans and East Indians as a necessary means towards political stability and development in the country.”

Mars was a Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Wayne State University where he taught his primary specialty, Caribbean Politics and Culture.

He has also taught several other courses in the Africana Studies department, including Black Social and Political Thought, Race and Racism in America, and Black Social Movements.

news

7

sunDAY, may 22, 2016 | guyana-times.com

Major overhaul recommended for NMFU

Pardoned criminals

“I am not reckless” F – President

F

ollowing confirmed reports that one of the persons, who were pardoned by President David Granger last year was recently charged for a spate of robberies on the Corentyne, concerns have been raised about the initiative adopted by President Granger.

However, the Head of State recently admitted that while government cannot totally prevent a pardoned individual from relapsing, he maintained that he was not reckless in releasing those 40 prisoners.

“It wasn’t reckless, I’m not a reckless person… I

Pardoned criminal and robbery suspect Kelvin Bates

am advised that it’s not a reckless plan, there are criteria concerning their age and the possibilities of that person rejoining society and there is a scheme they can do some form of rehabilitative training or education but in the final analysis, it is impossible for the State to guarantee there will be no relapse into that criminal behaviour,” Granger asserted in response to a questioned posed by Guyana Times on the weekly televised programme – The Public Interest.

The president further pointed out that the initiative cannot be judge based on one individual, highlighting the success of the other 39. He went on to say that the criteria used to select the pardon beneficiaries are strict hence only

President David Granger

11 of the 20 females were released in December and only 40 of 60 in May last year. This, he explained, supports the fact that tight rules are applied when selecting the pardon beneficiaries.

Nevertheless, the Head of State said his focus will continue to be on mothers and young persons who are not involved in violent crimes and cocaine trafficking.

“So anybody involved in manslaughter or murder is not going to receive a pardon from President Granger… One of the things I said is that people should be in school, in colleges and not in jail,” Granger stated.

The President is expected to pardon another set of criminals on Independence Day. When the initiative was announced last year, it had caused great uneasiness among Guyanese, especially business owners, since the country’s crime rates were high at the time.

Persons were also calling for the identities of these convicts to be publicised but government explained that this would have hindered the reintegration process of these people into society.

However, Kelvin Bates, 19, one of the pardon beneficiaries, appeared in Court three weeks ago facing several charges of robbery under arms, larceny from persons and possession of illegal firearms and ammunition that occurred earlier this month.

According to court doc-

uments, he was reportedly on bail for another armed robbery when he committed these offences.

In light of this revelation, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan recently told this newspaper he will consider releasing the names of this new set of prisoners.

“Of course if asked, we will released the names of all those who will be pardoned. It is an obligation in the name transparency that the Minister released all the names of those who are on parole and pardoned,” he pointed out.

Ramjattan had conceded that government erred in selecting Bates as a candidate to be pardoned but noted that they were given the opinion that he was of very good character whilst in the prison hence he was released. He added too that the teenager only had four more months of his sentence to serve and this was taken into consideration was well.

“It is not exclusively the President that makes these releases. He has to get some advice from the Director of Prisons, the Prison Officers who would have dealt with him directly and also after I would have sort the record out,” the minister explained.

“I had a role to play because the fellow just had a short term more left and he was of good character in the prison. We have to release our young people, jail is not necessarily for young people but if we make a mistake even like that by virtue of the fact that he started stealing again, what do you do?” the minister questioned, while adding: “You simply now have to ensure that when he gets back in there (prison) that he will never again get pardoned.”

Nevertheless, the Public Security Minister went on to say that his administration is looking at strengthening the rehabilitation programme that the pardoned criminals undergo as part of their reintegration to the society.

ollowing a forensic audit conducted at the National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU), it was recommended that a series of revamp measures be undertaken to enhance the functioning of the Unit.

Among the recommendations put forward by independent auditing firm, Ram and McRae Consulting, were revamping of the organisational structure, enhance the technical capabilities, ensure that current organisational objectives are met and prepare for the passage and operationalising of the Telecommunications Act. The report, which was released on Friday by the Finance Ministry, said in addition to appointing a Board of Directors, the NFMU needs to establish a proper reporting line with the subject Minister; that is, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo.

“It is therefore recommended that pending the passing of the Telecommunications Act, the Prime Minister and the appointed Board should establish clear lines of authority, communications and reporting with and within the Unit,” the auditor stated.

On the issue of the Telecommunications Act, Ram and McRae urged that the Unit prepare for the passage and operationalising of the new legislation since when enacted, the NFMU will be absorbed in the new Agency and subject to that authority.

This will require new regulations and orders to ensure that the functions are performed and to maximise revenue collection, the report stated. In addition, it outlined that as the telecoms sector is on the verge of being liberalised and modernised, next generation mobile networks will need more spectrum, which would result in increased revenue. On this note, the Unit is advised to reduce and regularise the number of unlicensed spectrum users.

This now brings the issue of outstanding debts and debt management. Ram and McRae said during the review, it was revealed that a

Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo number of issues were unearthed primarily in the areas of managing revenue and receivables, and illegally meeting expenditures of other agencies and projects.

The accounting department should implement standard procedures for the invoicing of users and the following up and collection of receivables. These procedures should include the specific timeframes for letters, telephone calls and suspension of licences for hard-core defaulters.

Furthermore, it was observed that the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of the NFMU’s Accounts Department saw invoices being prepared a minimum of six weeks prior to the anniversary data. However, a number of licences were not invoiced in accordance with the SOPs. Also, with regard to payment tracking, the SOPs highlights that accounting staff should execute phone calls to the licensee two weeks before the anniversary date, on the anniversary date and two week after the anniversary date to ensure payments are received but these responsibilities were not properly conducted, the auditors posited.

According to the accounting firm, in the case of a corporation sole, which the NFMU falls under, responsibility for ensuring the existence and operation of an adequate system of controls rests with the Managing Director.

This represents a significant weakness on the management and oversight of the NFMU since it can facilitate the overriding of controls by the Managing Director.

Christopher Ram

Moreover, Ram and McRae went on to talk about the “close connection” between the NFMU, which is charged with the responsibility for allocating frequencies, and the Guyana Broadcasting Authority (GBA), the agency responsible for issuing radio, television and cable licences.

The report went on to detail that during the years 2012 to 2015, the NFMU met payments on behalf of the GNBA amounting to $28,877,267. These payments included directors fees, employees salaries, and fees for the GNBA’s Monitoring Committee and other operating expenses. In December 2014, the GNBA reimbursed the NFMU for the entire sum advanced as such no further action was required.

However, Ram and McRae outlined that while the head of the NFMU is a member of the GBA, given the corporate sole status of the NFMU the GBA has no formal role in that body.

“Ram & McRae also strongly disagrees with the current status as a Corporation Sole,” the auditor remarked.

Additionally, the auditing firm recommended that the NFMU establish relationships with institutions or authorities outside of Guyana in the area of radio frequency spectrum management and develop technical standards and engineering support facilities necessary or appropriate in relation to the functions.

“Implementation of the recommendations contained in this report should enhance the functioning of the Unit,” the firm stated.

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news

SunDAY, may 22, 2016 | guyanatimesGY.com

“Brains” wanted for attempted murder T

Keon Hayles, also known as “Brains”

he police on Saturday issued a wanted bulletin for Keon Hayles also called “Brains” of Mocha Arcadia, East Bank Demerara for questioning in the attempted murder of Michelle Drennol.

According to reports the waned man inflected grievous bodily harm on the victim on April 20, 2016.

Anyone with information that may lead to the arrest of Hyles called “Brains” is asked to contact the Police on telephone: 225-6411, 225-2227, 2258196, 227-1149, 226-7065, 911 or the nearest Police station.

The Police said all information will be treated with strict confidence.

Housewife on bail for assaulting minor

A

vurel Roberts, 37, of Riverstown Village, Essequibo Coast, Region Two (Pomeroon/ Supenaam), was on Friday granted bail when she appeared before Magistrate Sunil Scarce at the Suddie Magistrate’s Court.

After the charge was read she pleaded not

guilty.

It is alleged that on May 12, 2016, she unlawfully hit the minor in her head.

The injured child’s mother was present in court and a medical report showed that the child received a blunt blow to her ears. Prosecutor Haimraj

Ramsewack had no objections to bail and it was set at $10,000.

However the unrepresented housewife told the magistrate she does not have the money to post bail and as such it was reduced to $5000.

The case will continue on June 3.

Aurora farmer slapped with burglary charge

D

o o d n a u t h Mohanlall, 22, of Aurora Village, Essequibo Coast, was slapped with a burglary charge and appeared before Magistrate Sunil Scarce at the Suddie Magistrate’s Court.

The man pleaded not guilty to the charge which stated that on the night of May 18, 2016 he broke and entered the dwelling place of Arjun Bisnauth and stole two wristwatches valued $30,000 and $3000.

He pleaded not guilty to the charge and told the court he did not steal the items. He also told the court he lives at Aurora Estate with his mother and brother and gave his profession as farmer.

There were no objections to bail by Police Prosecutor Haimraj Ramsewack and as such it was set at $30,000.

The case will continue on June 2.

Eyew tness Where’s the plan...

O

...for the economy

ver in the States a couple of decades ago, a new burger chain - Wendy’s - wanted to come out of the shadow of Mc Donald’s, which billed itself “Home of the Big Bun”. Wendy’s had a group of mild, old ladies under the Golden Arches examining a burger with an exaggerated bun and a puny beef patty. With growing disappointment, one of the old dears finally exclaimed in outrage, “WHERE’S THE BEEF????!!”

Not that your Eyewitness is saying the Private Sector Commission (PSC) is a group of old biddies, but he was reminded of the burger ad when, after bemoaning the stuttering economy, they finally burst out at the APNU/ AFC Minister of Business sitting in their midst: “WHERE’S THE PLAN??!”

And that’s the question most ordinary citizens are asking as they keep on hearing about the big, fluffy “bun” of promises to “retool” the economy; spending on “education and health”; have the foreign service hock our products; “buy local”; blah, blah, blah. Every official function simply becomes the opportunity for the particular Minister to say whatever comes to mind about the economic slump. Like the drop in drug shipments caused the said slump!

WHERE’S THE PLAN TO JUMP START THE ECONOMY? Your Eyewitness has dedicated countless column inches to this question over the last year. Not because he’s any economics wonk... but he’s scared sh*tless he might be “retrenched” any moment. And he, his wife and kids have developed this terrible habit of expecting to eat every day. He was reading the financials of one of the largest conglomerates in Guyana (with its own bank, to boot!) which admitted in the fine print that its subsidiaries had lost $3 billion in value in the last year!

Now if some of the best managed companies FROM ONE GROUP could shrink like this, what about the much less capitalised and professionally managed ones? So this Eyewitness lifts up his outstretched hands to the hands and shouts, “WHERE’S THE PLAN??” But lest he be accused of just being a wailing Jeremiah, let him regurgitate the threshold suggestion he’s proffered before.

Get off the Neanderthal notion that we can generate economic growth with businessmen NOT getting rich.

Profits are what make the economy grow best, baby!

And those profits come quickest when they end up in somebody’s pockets rather than the state. Maybe the poor will inherit the earth... but they sure won’t bequeath a vibrant economy. Apart from our “cooperative” experiment failing to generate growth without rich businessmen, Cuba tried and failed with more orthodox socialist methods.

But look where China ended up when they were allowed to create more billionaires than the US of A!

...on accurate reporting

Now don’t get your Eyewitness wrong. Not being one of the super rich who jets off to Aspen for skiing (or even to Baracara for boating!) he’s just as concerned as any member of John Public about his share of the pie along with all those businessmen whose pockets will be stuffed to get our economy to “lift off”. He’s under no illusion they’ll share their gains out of the goodness of their hearts. Not after looking at what’s going on over at Ogle International Airport (OIA) among even their own crowd.

Here it is some businessmen were offered the opportunity to develop OIA - owned by the government.

They used grants and soft loans that only came through government (meaning all of us ordinary slobs paying their taxes) involvement. One of them, however - the Correias elbows out everyone else and pays no taxes.

The solution? Regulation, baby!! Regulation to make sure some of the profits get into the treasury for the rest of us.

...on media reporting

The PSC complained they never said there was a “decade-long decline in economy’ as reported by the Stabber. What they said was there was a “DECLINE in the GROWTH RATE” since 2007.

Slower growth is still growth, nuh?

Readers are invited to send their comments by email to eye@guyanatimesgy.com

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9

SunDAY, may 22, 2016 | guyana-times.com

Guyana in diplomatic dilemma EgyptAir: Images over death penalty released of debris

… FATF requirement vs UN commitment

G

uyana has found itself in a diplomatic dilemma as although it committed to join worldwide efforts to abolish the death penalty, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) regime mandates the capital punishment to be enshrined in the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) legislation.

Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Basil Williams during a recent news conference alluded to the apparent conflict as he was fielding questions from the media on the possible reinforcement of the death penalty to deter criminal activities locally.

Williams justified the inclusion of the death penalty in the AML/CFT Act on the basis that it dissuades individuals from launching terrorist activities here.

Asked if the same rationale could be aptly applied in relation to other horrendous crimes, the Attorney General provided an ambiguous response.

Foremost, he explained that the Cabinet has not discussed the issue and therefore he does not want to make any pronouncements on the matter.

“I don’t want to speculate… As a Cabinet, my government has not discussed this matter and I don’t want to prejudice any discussions,” he stated.

However when further prompted, the AG indicated that it may not be correct to claim that the government wants to abolish the death penalty.

“I’m not sure you can probably say that ‘we’ don’t want the death penalty,” he opined.

He reaffirmed that FATF is imposing the requirement to have the dissuasive legislation “so that terrorists would think twice in seeing Guyana as a soft target to launch terrorist activities” and if government does not comply, the country could face the risk of being blacklisted.

However, he pointed out that Cabinet has not discussed the issues surrounding the abolition of the death penalty.

During the press conference he did not indicate whether or not Cabinet will be discussing the matter anytime in the near future.

Objections

Last year during the debate on the AML/CFT Bill in the National Assembly, the Parliamentary Opposition

Attorney General Basil Williams

raised concerns about several draconian provisions in the legislation, including the inclusion of the death penalty for 14 offences.

At the time, Williams acknowledged that the Chief Parliamentary Counsel had questioned why the FATF would want to include a provision for a fine if a man is going to be sentenced to death.

“But the fact of the matter is we have been instructed by the unit that was left behind by the last former AttorneyGeneral… that if you don’t stick as close to possible to the wording of the recommendations, the 40+9 recommendations especially those nine that deal with terrorists, the terrorism, they tend to reject you, they are very strict,” he said.

“As a result of that Mr Speaker, we have the situation that we have some outrageous provisions but if we don’t adhere, if we don’t implement them we are not going to be out of the process,” said Williams.

He said he does not know the Bill is invasive as charged by the Opposition but also raised the matter of balance in the fight against terrorists and human rights. He also argued that the death penalty was dissuasive.

Former Attorney General Anil Nandlall had argued that the Bill is highly penal and draconian.

EU pledges cash

According to the state media, the European Union

which has been the leading institutional actor and largest donor to fight against the death penalty is willing to give political and financial support to any country that abolishes capital punishment, including Guyana.

Two years ago, Guyana committed to the United Nations to join the worldwide efforts to abolish capital punishment, which is deemed inhumane and completely ineffective in deterring crime.

The fact that Guyana made this commitment means that it is mandated to review its laws and abolish the death penalty.

Guyana’s laws in its present form states that an individual convicted of a capital offence “shall be liable to suffer death as a felon”.

Under Article 19 of the Criminal (Offences) Law, courts may not substitute punishments not specifically stated for death-eligible offences, so courts appear to have no discretion in sentencing. Article 164 of the Criminal (Procedure) Law provides that when a person is convicted of an offence punishable by death, “the Court shall thereupon pronounce [the] sentence of death”.

Guyana has not abolished the death penalty, but there is a moratorium on its use, despite the fact that criminals are still being sentenced to death. Guyana last executed a death row prisoner in 1997.

Statistics

Last year at the Caribbean Regional Conference on the abolition of the death penalty at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre, then Governance Minister Raphael Trotman, who was Governance Minister at the time, had recommitted Guyana towards the abolishment of the death penalty.

Trotman highlighted that Guyana already took steps towards the abolishing of the death penalty by not practising this inhumane form of criminal punishment.

According to statistics by Amnesty International, 140 countries abolished the death

penalty in 2014, by law or practice. This is significant given that when the organisation started its campaign against the death penalty in 1997, only 16 countries had abolished this punishment for all crimes. Seven countries that carried out executions in 2013 did not do so in 2014 – Bangladesh, Botswana, Indonesia, India, Kuwait, Nigeria and South Sudan.

Despite this remarkable progress, there was a recorded 28 per cent increase in the number of executions in 2014 when compared to the figures in 2013. There were 2466 death sentences in 55 countries in 2014, with a total of 607 executions. This figure excludes China, which executed more persons than the rest of the world combined. The top five countries which still execute prisoners on death row are China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the USA. Additionally, seven other countries resumed executions – Belarus, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Jordan, Pakistan, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

found in plane search

T

he Egyptian military has released images of items found during the search in the Mediterranean Sea for missing Egypt Air flight MS804.

They include life vests, parts of seats and objects clearly marked EgyptAir. The Airbus A320 was en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 people aboard when it vanished from radar early on Thursday.

Investigators have confirmed smoke was detected in various parts of the cabin three minutes before it disappeared, but say the cause is still not known. Speaking on Saturday after meeting relatives of victims, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said "all theories are

being examined and none is favoured".

Images posted on the Facebook page of the spokesman for the Egyptian Armed Forces showed life vests and other items with the EgyptAir logo. The search has also reportedly found body parts and luggage.

The main body of the plane and the two "black boxes" which show flight data and cockpit transmissions have not yet been located. While no bodies have been recovered, memorials have been taking place for the victims.

A service was held in a Cairo church on Saturday for Air Hostess Yara Hani, who was aboard the doomed plane. (Excerpt from BBC News)

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sunDAY, may 22, 2016

guyana-times.com

News

Wales Estate closure

GAWU injunction to come up in court this week – GuySuCo reiterates being bound by judges’ orders

A

s the end of sugar production at the Wales Estate draws closer, the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) is maintaining its position that it is restrained from paying some 106 workers their desired severance packages due to a High Court interim injunction granted in favour of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) and the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE).

GuySuCo in its response to concerns over the non-payment of severance packages issued a statement noting that the case is due to be heard on Tuesday.

The Sugar Corporation highlighted the order, which noted that the injunction granted by Justices William Ramlall and Diane Insanally, stated that the Respondent (Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc), their servants and/or their agents are restrained from “proceeding to implement their decision contained in a letter dated 22nd March, 2016, addressed to the first named Applicant/

GAWU President Komal Chand

Plaintiff (Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) to sever the employment of workers of the Wales Estate, Wales, West Bank Demerara and rendering them redundant unless and until they hold consultations with the Applicants/Plaintiffs”.

While the Sugar Corporation remains resolute in its stance, the Union has expressed that “nothing in the injunction” bars the GuySuCo from giving workers severance payments.

GAWU President Komal Chand told Guyana Times

on Wednesday that sugar workers received letters from GuySuCo stating that they would in fact receive their severance payment.

“We are saying that in no way the court order restricts GuySuCo to settle with those workers who they have indicated that they will receive their severance… there was an agreement between the workers and GuySuCo and that agreement was reached before the injunction was [granted]… Workers are hoping that GuySuCo will see the wisdom in keeping with its written commitment to them,” the GAWU President had noted.

In late March, 106 workers attached to the Wales estate gave GuySuCo their one month’s notice of their intention to receive severance and there were promised that they would be paid

by May 6. However, as the injunction was filed, the Sugar Corporation opted not to pay the severance packages. This on-going situation has added burdens to the lives of the workers and their families as GuySuCo has reportedly disallowed the 106 workers from

being employed for over three weeks.

While other sugar workers and their families have been protesting the closure of the entity, Government announced last Wednesday that the Wales Sugar Estate is to be converted into a factory that will process dairy products and fruit juices among other products.

“We can see the land being used for dairy production, and we can see some land being made available to people in the area so that they could farm and provide milk, provide fruit juices, provide things of that nature, and we would want to see that replicated in other estates,” the Government Information Agency quoted Agriculture Minister Noel Holder as saying.

He also pointed out that reorganisation of Wales will “create opportunities for local farmers”. He further explained that since the lands will no longer be used for sugar cane cultivation, it will be allocated for cattle rearing and cultivation of myriad of crops to sustain the operations of the juice plant. “[This decision presents] an opportunity to convert the estate into a model for other areas within the sugar industry’s diversification,” the Agriculture Minister noted.

Sugar operations at Wales will cease by yearend.

The Garden City: Reloaded

S

atiricus’ heart swelled with pride with the opening of the spanking new “Independence Arch” at Agricola. 50 years after the first one to the southern approaches had been installed at Ruimveldt, as Pressie intoned, there was so much symbolised by the new structure at the new spot.

The first arch had been a gift from DEMBA, the old bauxite company at Linden. They had converted our own bauxite into aluminium (in Canada - but that’s another story) from which they crafted the triple arch. “Imagine our red mud becoming shiny aluminium!” marvelled Satiricus.

The three strands of the arch had signified the three counties of Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice, Now we have a triple steel arch made by a Surinamese company. Satiricus was proud that even though our 10 regions now had their own flags, we were now being signalled we’re still “three” united into “One Guyana”. And steel is stronger than aluminium.

On the move from aluminium to steel, Satiricus figured out Guyana was ready to explore and exploit its iron ore to make steel. Bauxite was now old hat - steel was the thing. And Satiricus was sure using the Surinamese company to create the arch, was meant to show how much of a good neighbour we were to Suriname. Even though they still claimed the 6000 square miles of the New River Triangle.

But what pleased Satiricus most of all was moving the arch to Agricola. This showed that since Independence, Georgetown had grown to include more “garden space”. As Satiricus thought about Agricola, Georgetown, and its recent history, the soaring words of Pressie flowed through his mind.

“Citizens should not have to shut themselves in their homes on weekends afraid to venture forth because of unlit streets.

Georgetown must become a walking city where people, in the evening, can stroll with their family to enjoy the outdoors, can jog, or simply hang out with friends in our numerous watering holes. Safety and security are essential to enjoying the good life.”

Satiricus could just see himself “hanging out with his friends at the Agricola watering holes”. Especially since over the years at his old Back Street Bar “watering hole” in his village, he had probably paid for the construction of the arch with all the beers he’d consumed from the Beer Company that funded the Surinamese company.

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sunDAY, may 22, 2016 | guyanatimesGY.com

Are we celebrating National Hardware boss new PSC Chairman failure?

T

T

here is nothing to celebrate about the upcoming Golden Jubilee unless it is the skulduggery, violence and corruptions that ushered in our independence from British colonial rule.

We are more deeply divided than ever. There has been no healing, no progress, and no development. As a country, we have failed to harness our potential to create a good life for all.

The grandest irony of the Jubilee spectacle is the many who have returned “home” for the celebrations even as no one asks why they left and why they will never return.

Other nations, like the United States and France, Ryhaan Shah were born out of civil war and revolution from which they emerged to craft the constitutional framework and harness the political will to move forward. Not so in Guyana.

Here, the infighting and conspiracies that birthed this nation are still with us today. We nurture them and they keep their stranglehold on every aspect of our lives.

The unity that marked the early fight against colonial rule was shattered when personal ambition trumped any idea of working together for the national good. Whereas the two iconic leaders, Dr Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham, cooperated for years within the PPP, this unity came apart in 1953 when Burnham issued his ultimatum for party leadership; it was “leader or nothing”.

That fallout resulted in the encampment of the two major race blocs – Indians and Africans – in the PPP and PNC respectively and there has been no move over the past 50 years to heal that divide. Actually, both parties appear quite comfortable with the status quo.

The British colonials profited from and even fostered the race division and they willingly colluded in the US’ Cold War strategy to remove the Communist Jagan from government and place their chosen candidate Burnham into power.

From 1961 to 1964, the period of Jagan’s premiership, the CIA funded riots and disturbances throughout the country.

Justification for strikes and demonstrations were scant. On February 16, 1962, remembered as Black Friday, over four blocks of the city, Regent and Water Streets stretching to Stabroek Market, went up in flames.

The following year there was an 80-day general strike and in 1964 the most brutal attacks occurred at Wismar on May 24. The entire Indian population was uprooted and their properties burned. For two days there was arson, assaults, looting, rape and murder. Remembered as the Wismar Massacre, it left 1800 Indians homeless. They had to flee. This remains Guyana’s one act of ethnic cleansing.

Six weeks later, on July 6, the Son Chapman launch was blown up in the Demerara River, killing 43 Africans. African Guyanese view this as an act of retaliation for the Wismar Massacre though this has never been proven.

This violence and discord was the stage on which independence was granted. We had done well. Our fellow Guyanese were loyal activists in the pay of Britain and America for the grand prize of political power, and the final manoeuvre in the conspiracy was the institution of proportional representation as the electoral system for the 1964 general elections.

This allowed Burnham to form a Coalition Government with Fred D’Aguiar’s United Force party, a coalition that lasted two years. From there on the PNC ruled as a dictatorship until 1992 when, with the end of the Cold War, democracy was restored with the first free and fair elections in almost three decades. Jagan won comfortably.

A few of the actors from that time are still around. One such is Sydney King, now Eusi Kwayana, who started his political career with the PPP then switched his allegiance to the PNC. However he resigned from that party when Burnham said he would support Jagan on the independence issue if Jagan won the 1964 elections. King said: “I am sure that Burnham’s statement is dangerous to the African people – I cannot be any part of Burnham’s plans.”

Independence under a Jagan government was unacceptable to him, and Indian fears of independence under Burnham did become fully realised.

This race-based partisanship, so clearly stated by King/ Kwayana, still underlies our politics today and is the main contributor to our nation’s many failures.

As many get ready to “celebrate”, we should also reflect on Jagan’s objection to the May 26 date. In his seminal work “The West on Trial” he writes that the date could only have been chosen as a mark of “contempt for the Guyanese people and a grim reminder of the unfortunate events at Wismar”.

For 50 years, we have carried all this rancorous baggage along with us and have failed as a nation to overcome, heal or solve anything. Are we, then, celebrating failure?

Readers are invited to send their comments by email to shah@guyanatimesgy.com

New PSC Chairman Eddie Boyer

he Private Sector Commission (PSC) on Friday elected a new Chairman and executive team to serve a term in office during its 24th Annual General Meeting.

The PSC on Saturday announced that the election saw Chief Executive Officer of the National Hardware Group of Companies, Eddie Boyer, being appointed Chairman.

Boyer, who replaces re-

tired Major General Norman McLean, has served two terms as Vice Chairman of the PSC. In addition the Commission also elected a new executive; Desmond Sears as Vice Chairman and Ramesh Dookhoo, a former President of the organisation, was returned as its Secretary.

Meanwhile, the members voted for Fitroy McLeod

to continue to serve as Treasurer. He began his stint in that capacity back in June of 2015. The new head and executive will now serve for two years before another election is held.

The new heads will be taking up the task of deliberating key policy positions and ideas that could boost the overall unity and commercial performance of the country’s Private Sector.

Lands available for miners ... special attention for small-scale mining – Natural Resources Minister

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fter numerous consultations with stakeholders and civil society, Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman has announced that lands are available for mining in Guyana. As such, according to Trotman, applications for permits are now being accepted by the Ministry.

The Minister made the announcement at a recent press conference where he noted that it was agreed by the Closed Area Committee that it is ready to process applications for considerations of perspective permits to mining lands. It was further agreed that first priority will be given to small mining operations.

The size of the allocated lands is approximated 422 acres, which constitutes one mining block as per the legal requirements. The Natural Resources Minister however pointed out that considerations would be made for some miners to be allocated “up to three blocks” which is equivalent to 1266 acres of land.

Trotman however cautioned that this consideration would be based on a miner’s competency and upon the availability of technical and financial resources.

“Many people want to mine but know little about mining or don’t have the equipment to mine and we want to ensure that persons can handle what it is that they are after,” the Minister told the media.

“The [Guyana Geology and Mines Commission] GGMC will receive applications and will provide applications for the Closed Area Committee to allow the Committee to make informed recommendations to the Minister for approval,” observed Trotman.

It was also explained that the lands will be given out in six mining districts, namely Upper Berbice, Region Six (East BerbiceCorentyne); Potaro, Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni); Mazaruni and Cuyuni, Region Seven (CuyuniMazaruni); North West, Region One (BarimaWaini); and Rupununi, Region Nine (Upper Takatu-Upper Essequibo).

The details for the process of making the applications and the criteria to be applied would be published in the newspapers and on the

Ministry’s website.

In April, a consensus agreement was signed with a group of small-scale miners in Marudi, Region Nine which was aimed at settling the conflict with large-scale mining company Romanex Guyana.

Last November, miners in Marudi Mountain, Region Nine had staged a protest highlighting the threat of being evicted by Romanex Guyana. At that time, over 300 small miners had called on the Government to have their operations regularised so that their livelihood would not be affected.

Mining in Marudi, Region Nine

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15 Green initiatives to be introduced by yearend T news

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By: Lorraine Ince-Carvalhal

Prevention is always better than cure!

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efore we can explore ways to prevent juvenile crime we have to find some of the underlying reasons young people become involved in criminal activity. There are three factors which influence criminal activity; social, psychological and behavioural.

From the broad perspective of the social influence, the part of the world we live in has major impact on criminal activity. Guyana has a significantly higher incidence of violent crime (World Health Organisation) than many other countries, likely due to it experiencing rapid social and economic change.

The negative consequences this brings are particularly in the form of economic crisis and the weakening of major institutions, for example the family.

Socio-economic factors such as unemployment and low incomes increase the likelihood of unlawful activity. The opportunities, or lack of them, with regards to access to a good education and employment prospects, narrows the possibilities of young people ever legally achieving the lifestyles the media has exposed them to. In an effort to experience these affluent lifestyles, some turn to alternative, criminal measures.

The unrealistic portrayal in movies of the physical consequences of violent acts offers a skewed perspective of the real dangers and effects violence can have.

Studies have shown that the way violence is popularised can have a negative effect on some children and young people. Children who watch violence and play violent video games are more likely to be aggressive and develop behavioural issues, in turn making them high-risk regarding offending.

This is not to say that all young people watching violence will be violent. Here the guidance and interaction of family and parents comes into play to enforce the reality and danger of violent acts.

Further studies show children who receive adequate parental supervision are less likely to engage in criminal activity. Dysfunctional family settings are linked highly with delinquency.

The presence of violence and abuse at home can normalise the behaviour and cause the continuation of a cycle of unhealthy living patterns. Another consideration is that criminal family members expose children to behaviours that increase risks of involvement and access to illegal means. Homeless young people often have very little in the way of support networks and are the most vulnerable members of society and at high risk of criminal involvement.

Prevention strategies are often the most difficult to put in place but understanding where to focus energies gives a better chance of success. A three tiered approach looking at Individual, group and organisational efforts to keep young people from breaking the law is required.

There are many areas to concentrate on. Firstly, parents have to provide stable environments and be healthy role models. Homeless children need support from schemes to have physical, developmental and social needs.

Access to a decent standard of education needs to be available on a national level, and within the school system there must be a significant effort to educate pupils about emotional wellbeing. Work on anger management and conflict resolution should be undertaken by professionals at an early stage of school life and should be incorporated into a curriculum.

Increased economic opportunity for young people is essential and they need to have real access to information about setting up businesses and entrepreneurship, Recreational activities can offer alternative ways of spending spare time and can also be used to build community spirit, promote projects and engage in youth work.

This can often be achieved through the arts and sports.

Youths should be encouraged to sit on boards and become involved in their community working alongside adults making decisions and contributing to positive change. This offers a channel not only for them to be heard but also to foster responsibility and build on their strengths.

Yes all of these strategies are already in existence in some form or other but they are more often than not inaccessible to the very people who need it most.

The drive must be to reach more of our population and work hard to develop a strong culture of crime prevention.

owards the end of the year, green technologies will be introduced and implemented in several regions across the country, with plans for the new municipality of Bartica to become the flagship model of a green economy.

Time and again, the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) government promoted the idea of Guyana becoming a green country, chiefly dependent on renewable energy sources and being heavily engaged in sustainable management practices.

During an interview on his weekly podcast ‘The Public Interest’, President David Granger repeated this vision, noting that some progress will definitely be made by the end of 2016: “I reckon towards the end of this year we will see many government buildings actually powered by solar energy and we will see the establishment of wind farms, in a small way and I am thinking over the next three years it will gather momentum.”

Of course, the President reiterated that Bartica, located in Region Seven (Cuyuni/ Mazaruni), will become the model town whereby people from other parts of the country can look on and see how

the green technologies are working.

“Bartica is important... it has a sufficient population…

What I see happening there is an adaption of solid waste plan so we can get rid of that horrible garbage dump… The adaption of technology for generating energy, particularly solar technology for the Bartica Hospital and schools and police stations… We see recycling of waste, plastics and bottles…,” Granger explained.

The President noted too that Mazaruni Prison, situated across the river from Bartica, will soon rely on wind and solar power.

According to him, citizens should also start using electric cars and vehicles and if all goes as planned, some of these initiatives will be taking shape by October.

On the matter of funding for these projects, Granger made it clear that his government will not put its faith in funds from international organisations.

“As a Head of Government, I am not going to put my faith in foreign funds, I am going to put my faith in Guyanese entrepreneurship,” he firmly stated.

In this regard, Granger urged those in the diaspora to return to Guyana and invest in renewable energy:

President David Granger

“Now what I see happening, is that Guyanese in the diaspora can come back and set up his own wind farm, or his own solar farm and I would like to feel that Guyanese entrepreneurs will be given the facilities to go into that form of development.”

Addressing concerns of the possible contradiction in Guyana becoming an oil producer while simultaneously pushing for a green economy, President Granger pointed out that the two agendas will not cause any conflict.

“The two things exist side by side… We need the investment in our petroleum industry, it will produce natural gas, it will provide employment, and it will help us to produce a commodity which will be sold in the international market. At the

same time we will be generating more sustainable energy which will make us less dependent on fossil fuel… it’s a win/win situation for Guyana,” he opined.

Previously, Granger committed to placing another two million hectares under conservation in an effort to protect the country’s rich flora and fauna so that “our grandchildren can see the good things we inherited from our grandparents”.

Also, he had announced intentions to reduce the tariffs on the importation of key materials and all equipment used to generate renewable energy.

In addition, the President had pronounced that the Norway Funds will now be utilised for “more strategic projects” such as reforestation in mined-out areas, generation of energy apart from hydropower, coastal zone management and tackling the impacts of El Niño.

Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, on the other hand, had expressed concerns of the government’s “talk” about a green economy being sheer rhetoric given its initial stance on the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project.

When in Opposition, both the APNU and AFC parties wholly objected to the initiative.

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SunDAY, may 22, 2016 | guyana-times.com

Calls intensify for more mental Younge’s Take health professionals in Guyana What Ministers Jordan and Gaskin said T he scarcity of mental health professionals in Guyana impedes access to those very services for many people, particularly the vulnerable groups, the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) has said.

Recently, SASOD hosted a “Lunch Talk” on mental health and well-being for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Guyanese, where panellists heightened calls for more mental health professionals locally.

Vice Chair of Blue CAPS, Dr Melissa Varswyk made a call for vulnerable communities to form groups for policy, advocacy and community support, like SASOD, which she said can be very influential in offering support for persons suffering with mental health conditions.

Dr Varswyk highlighted that there is a significant lack of trained mental health professionals in Guyana and on the policy side of things; Guyana needs to focus heavily on investing in more skilled professionals such as psychiatrists and psychologists.

According to the medical professional, a lot of students show interest in mental health and psychiatric specialisations, but Guyana does not have the human resources and necessary specialised training to fulfil the needs for these fields of study.

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A section of the gathering at SASOD’s ‘Lunch Talk’ discussions

Self-esteem important to mental health and well-being Psychologist and retired University of Guyana Lecturer, Dr Janice Jackson, one of the panellists, noted that in light of the self-stigma and internalised homophobia some members of the LGBT community suffer due to ingrained societal prejudices, it is important to know and find oneself, which is often times a struggle in anyone’s adolescent years.

“Define for yourself who you are, know yourself both internally and externally,” he advised.

She explained that an internal definition of oneself is “what we know we feel, how we know we will respond and how we feel about ourselves”; exter-

nal definition, she said, is “what others know from how we behave, what we express, how we are as a result of external factors moulding us throughout our lives.”

Dr Jackson said that many people are raised hearing words like “Children must be seen and not heard”, and “Boys should not cry”, which may cause damaging effects, due to those negative external influences.

“We are raised in a society where people are afraid to speak; they may internalise their feelings and then lash out and are often hushed from expressing themselves,” she noted, adding that “finding oneself and being comfortable in one’s own skin are some strategies and coping

mechanisms for anyone, especially LGBT people, to build their own self-esteem and improve their mental health and wellbeing.” continued on page 17

Linden students to benefit from Digicel scholarships

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Digicel PRO, Vidya Sanichara

everal students of Linden pursuing higher education in Computer Science will soon benefit from Digicel offered scholarships to attend the University of Guyana (UG).

The company’s public relations officer Vidya Sanichara said the full scholarships are being offered as part of the Jubilee and Linden Town Week celebrations this year. She noted that students who have applied to UG and have been accepted are invited to write to the company stating why they should be granted the scholarship, following which the company will make a selection and interview the successful applicants.

Sanichara said a total of four applicants will be chosen for the scholarship.

“We’re really looking for people who we can reach out to. Who we can help, who have a desire to study and especially in the field of Technology and Computer Science, because Digicel is Telecommunications and we want to see young people develop in that area,” Sanichara stated.

ast week, two senior Government Ministers and two executives of the Guyana Private Sector Commission (PSC) were quoted extensively in the media as they offered their positions on the recent economic downturn and decline affecting the local economy and retarding growth of new, emerging and existing sectors.

They all agreed in principle that the economy was not performing as it should, business was slow or sluggish, the lives of Guyanese had not improved significantly over the past two years and there was marked decline in business trade coupled with a decrease in both domestic and foreign direct Michael Younge investment.

But what was astonishing were the reasons proffered by the two Ministers as to why the new Government had not managed to improve the economic fortunes of the country even though it had been in office for over a year.

Also lacking in their explanations was the presentation of a clearly defined marco- or even microeconomic blueprint that explains just how their Government plans on restoring the health of the economy, inspiring investors’ confidence, and denting the levels of economic haplessness, unemployment, rising crime and violence and decreasing standard of living of the populace.

Firstly, Business Minister Dominic Gaskin argued at a PSC function that the former People’s Progressive Party/Civic Government was still responsible for the state of the economic even though they demitted office since May 2015.

He told business executives at the Marriott Hotel that the decline did not start when the new Government took over even though he appeared to be accepting the popular argumentation that the new office bearers need to stop playing the blame game and get on with the economy.

Gaskin was reported as promising another wave of platitudes and providing the business community with what appeared to be textbook solutions to their real world problems while also offering them an antiquated outlook on business and finance that is rooted in political undertones and promises.

But even his presentation appeared credible when compared to the argumentation put forward by his learned colleague Finance Minister Winston Jordan who no doubt insulted young and old academics with his reasoning as why the economy is not picking up and performing so poorly in comparison to its regional counterparts.

To my surprise, the Minister said the significant decrease in what he referred to as “free spending” was occasioned as a result of “a decrease in illegal activities, including narco trafficking, which had created a parallel economy here”.

He does not stop there but goes on to argue that as they continue to fight this parallel economy, things might get worse and the economy will have to adjust as he assured that Government was putting things in place to cushion the effect of its successes in denting the underground economy.

Surely, Minister Jordan does not expect Guyanese to believe that during the APNU/AFC Government’s 1st year in office they have managed to dent the underground economy or the parallel economy which he had argued like economist Clive Thomas was not entrenched to the legitimate economy.

And he certainly does not expect us to accept his promise that things are being put in place to boost the economy by definitively saying that things he is speaking about. Also he does not expect us to accept the platitudes of the Business Minister and their collective idealistic outlook that we must trust them to deliver a better economy and a good life in the long-term even as they have proven themselves wholly incompetent to do so in the short-term.

The truth is, the new Government has done nothing to dent the underground economy, save jobs, inspire growth in the Private Sector or innovation in the Public Sector over the last year.

As a matter of fact, since former President Ramotar took office they did everything to cripple the economy from jeopardising his Government’s legislative and developmental agenda to legitimising excesses against the Executive which many times ended in violence and bloodshed.

Also, the Government’s own posture is telling businesspeople and investors that they are not open for business but rather are opened to do business with certain people for certain gains.

That aside, the witch-hunts, audits, politically motivated and Ministry of the Presidency-directed smear campaigns have only increased since the last elections and businesspeople continue to adapt a wait and see approach. The series of regressive and repressive tax changes recently implemented by Government along with its state-sponsored attacks on people’s private property and businesses continue reaching unimaginable heights.

Unless Government is serious about helping GuySuCo, reversing the closure of Wales and LBI estates, finding markets for rice farmers, revising the 2:00am curfew permanently, removing the spate of bans and repressive taxes, increasing the public servants’ salaries in a meaningful way and dealing with crime by DOING more… most Guyanese will assume that they are busy with the jubilee anniversary and everything else can wait including the health and socioeconomic wellbeing of their citizenry who are crying out for justice as they have endured twelve months of hardship and economic neglect.

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Anna’s

What Allicock should have said at the UNPFII

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uring his statement at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) on May 18, 2016, Minister of Indigenous Affairs, Sydney Allicock, issued a statement which did little to deflect from the rhetoric of speeches delivered in the past.

Some of the points he Anna Correia raised resurface at each Forum as matters of prime importance to Amerindians, despite the level of progress achieved over the years. For instance, the issue of accessibility to quality health care continues to stand out as an area in which the Government has failed miserably to provide for indigenous peoples.

The Minister is quoted as stating: “There also needs to be improvement in the provision of health care services, personnel and facilities for indigenous peoples, in particular indigenous women and girls. Provision must also be made for emergency and medical services for all remote communities”.

Ironically, the Ministry that Allicock heads cannot even take proper care of the sick it houses at the Amerindian Hostel in Georgetown.

The Amerindian Hostel has stood out like a sore in the management of the Ministry—and for years now. It was common knowledge in the past to hear of the lack of maintenance of the Hostel, or rather, of the incompetence of the staff stationed there who failed at maintaining the comfort of the patients it accommodated.

Reports of mattresses without pillows and bed sheets, mattresses on the floor, unhygienic sanitary facilities and mismanagement of resources by Hostel staff were common.

The measures implemented in the past were insufficient in countering the challenges faced at the Hostel.

However, with the advent of a new administration which won the May 2015 election based on a manifesto tanked up on promises of betterment for Amerindians, one would have thought that Minister Allicock and his gang of advisors would have, more than a year later, been capable of providing quality services for Amerindians staying in Georgetown.

Unsurprisingly, as anyone can imagine, the situation has deteriorated further into one of shame for the Government’s inaptitude.

It is unfortunate that no one mentioned at the UNPFII that now, there are two patients per mattress at the Georgetown Amerindian Hostel, and that the Ministry remains uncooperative when it comes to funding travel expenses for patients to return home. Instead, it prefers to house in the most uncomfortable of situations, patients who want nothing more than to return to their abodes in the interior.

It is now easier to understand why the Regional Executive Officer (REO) of Region 9, Carl Parker, has officially signed the interruption of fuel reimbursements for patients and school children in the Rupununi, when the very Minister of Indigenous Peoples Affairs is reluctant and subsequently incapable of providing for his own people.

Allicock has his priorities mixed up and would rather disregard his manifesto promises, as he expends hundreds of thousands to eat, drink and sleep in Lethem for the Ministry staff during the big Rupununi Rodeo sport, while patients are being forced to sleep on the floor and share mattresses. But the Georgetown Hostel is not an isolated case.

In terms of primary health care, there are communities which, because they are not eligible for title under the Amerindian Act no. 6 – 2006, or do not identify as Amerindian villages, do not benefit from a Health Centre. Many of these communities are located on the coastal strip, but fall under the governance of Neighbourhood Democratic Councils and not Village Councils. Yet, they are populated predominantly

by Amerindians, in particular Arawaks, Caribs and Warrous.

Strangely however, the presence of the Indigenous Affairs Ministry, and initiatives aimed at promoting Amerindian development are absent. For the Ministry, these communities are irrelevant.

Consequently, it is baffling that the Minister can sit at the UNPFII and speak of the need to achieve better health care for Amerindians in Guyana, when he has fallen short of respecting his contractual obligations as the first leader of the First Peoples of Guyana.

This is just another display of how hallow the words of Allicock remain, deprived of will and effort to fight for the advancement of Guyana’s indigenous peoples.

Send questions & comments to sundayarrow@gmail.com

Region 2 Chairman expresses frustration over slow project implementation

… says slow pace affecting development

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egion Two Chairman Devanand Ramdatt has expressed dissatisfaction and concern over the slow implementation of projects and poor management of the region’s budget which, he decried is creating extra challenges in Health, Education and other sectors.

According to Ramdatt the negative effects are felt everywhere as the region’s economy is slumping. He said a careful analysis reveals that as of May 16, 2016 only 11 per cent of capital and 23 per cent of current expenditures were utilised.

Region Two received $2,958,836,000 for Current and $474,000,000 for Capital, a total of $3,432,836,000 in this year’s allocation.

Slow processing

Further explaining the challenges, the chairman said school dormitories may be forced to close due to the delay in processing of payment vouchers for students.

Chairman Devanand Ramdatt

In addition he explained schools are suffering from poor maintenance of buildings, compounds and toilets.

There is also an inadequate amount of drugs and medical supplies at hospitals and health facilities across the region, he said.

According to him, the drainage system is also affected since sluices and pumps are not repaired and

serviced in a timely manner due to unavailable spares and materials, even though adequate funds were released by the Ministry of Finance. Several areas especially in the Richmond, Henrietta and Pomeroon areas were inundated with water.

The chairman also explained that the Pomeroon breach cannot be sealed

Calls intensify for more mental...

LGBT people are not a disease Additionally, the National Coordinating Coalition Inc (NCC) Policy and Advocacy Officer, Leroy Adolphus noted that civil society has a leading role to play in advocating for national awareness on mental health.

“Civil society needs to develop and implement community-based approaches which promote positive mental health and well-being for vulnerable groups, especially for LGBT Guyanese,” he stated.

Adolphus explained that homosexuality and transgenderism are viewed by many religious fundamentalists and con-

servatives as a disease, without understanding human rights principles.

“Stigma and discrimination are abuses that affect the good mental health of LGBT persons; depression and anxiety are some of the negative

since several machine and equipment are currently down due to minor repairs.

According to figures only $860,971 of the released sum of $6,609,603 was spent to date on vehicle spares and service.

Additionally he said that over 125 vouchers are sitting on the desk of the REO for some time now awaiting his signature. Increasingly complaints are made regarding the awards of contracts of which the REO is the Chairman of the Regional Tender Board.

Ramdatt said the RDC will soon take this concern to Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan.

He commented that Regional Democratic Council is concerned over the delay in the implementation of the capital and current budget for 2016.

In 2015 over $70 million was returned, denying residents of meaningful projects that could have positively impacted on the lives of the residents of Region Two.

from page 16

impacts developed from such bigoted attitudes,” he stated, adding that there needs to be more conversations and dialogues on the need for mental health services generally.

“This is not just about LGBT rights. These are critical human rights is-

sues and we need to approach this as a national crisis. Empowerment is also important to marginalised communities. This is critical for good self-esteem, mental health and well-being,” Adolphus stated.

18 news Security beefed GFW Fashion and Beauty Expo opens up for jubilee A SunDAY, may 22, 2016 | guyana-times.com

s Guyana prepares to celebrate its 50th independence anniversary, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan has reassured tourists and Guyanese that security has been beefed up, noting that “this Golden jubilee celebration will definitely be secure and stable.”

Ramjattan when prompted about Guyana 50th Independence security strategies, said, “There are lots of other things we can do that require resources but we are going to get resources... only recently the Canadians and the British indicated that they are coming to our assistance relating to those matters, the Americans have always been close to us and it will definitely be a secure stable jubilee celebrations and thereafter.”

The Minister further

added that the process of professionalising the Guyana Police Force (GPF) has commenced and over the past months, the GPF has been strengthening its capacity by conducting a series of training sessions, both locally and internationally.

“Only two days ago we got almost 20 vehicles and that will enhance patrols in and around of Georgetown,” he said urging that ranks take care the vehicles since it makes no sense that the State is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase vehicles that have to end up in workshops due to the carelessness of Police Officers.

Ramjattan is urging celebrants to be positive since he is positive the Government is on track. “I want you to be positive because I am positive we are going to get it right.”

products showcased was the students and teachers of the David Rose Special School.

They were able to showcase

During the book launch, Guyana’s Fashion Icon Sonia Noel noted that she was excited that the book was launched

Guyanese Fashion Icon, Sonia Noel and Guyanese-born actress, CCH Pounder

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uyana’s Jubilee celebration continues with the launch of Guyana Fashion Week featuring over 20 designers showcasing their talent and creative skills.

In addition, the event also saw the opening of a two-day Beauty and Fashion Exposition where the public will have a chance to view and purchase hundreds of designers’ pieces in honour of Guyana’s 50th Independence Celebrations.

Apart from the spectacu-

lar pieces, there was a wide variety of hair and makeup products including CHI, Loreal, Mac and other top quality brands. Also, the most recently launched Rupununi Essence was part of the line of products on display.

While at the event, patrons can also benefit from free makeup and hair designing. Gracing the event was a number of overseasbased Guyanese including Guyanese-born actress, CCH Pounder.

From all indications, the visitors were impressed with the level of crafted items on display and have all expressed their amusement of Guyanese talent.

One group that worked extremely hard to have their

Selwyn Collins signing one of his books for a patron

50 pieces of designed fabrics which are available for sale.

The proceeds will go towards that school.

Also at the launch of the GFW and the Fashion Exposition, author Selwyn Collins launched his book titled “The eartHeart Knows”.

The author was available to autograph books purchased.

in Guyana since she believes it will be an inspiration to many hence she encourages everyone to get a copy.

Meanwhile the fashion expo, being hosted at Pegasus Hotel, Kingston, will continue today commencing at 10:00h and runs up to 18:00h.

Admission is absolutely free.

Guyana should explore spatial technology – Engineer

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s Guyana embarks on the path of sustainable economic development, calls have been made for the country to explore the use of spatial technology to boost the process.

Spatial data are data which identifies the geographic location and characteristics of natural or constructed features and boundaries on the earth. Spatial data are derived from satellite imagery, mapping, and surveying technologies. Hence, spatial data is all about location with many applications and new uses emerging every day.

According to Manager of the Geospatial Information Management Unit (GIMU) of the Natural Resources Ministry, Haimwant Persaud, such data can be used to understand where an event occurred, measure the distance away from your current location, identify what is in that vicinity of the event, show the path to the location, and identify the mode or modes of transportation.

However, he pointed out that in order to attain full potential, a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) at local, regional, national, and transnational levels is required.

“To exploit the enormous potential of spatial technologies the Government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana should initiate the creation of a National Spatial Data Infrastructure that will facilitate spatial technology, information, and services to be used in addressing some of the major priorities of our nation, while adding value to productivity, reducing costs and enabling GDP growth in

the process,” he stated.

SDIs, the engineer explained, are essentially means of assembling spatial data for discovery, evaluation, and application. This infrastructure includes three components: the materials, the technology and the people to acquire, process, and distribute the information to meet different needs in both public and private sectors of a country.

Persaud went on to say that since its conceptualisation in 1991, nearly all countries have embarked on some form of SDI initiative, with the pioneers in this field include Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States of America.

He noted that the primary objectives of such initiatives are to promote economic development, stimulate improved Government functioning, and foster environmental sustainability.

“The use of SDI in improved Government functions can be accomplished in several ways. SDI can improve strategic planning and resource development as in the case of Malaysia. SDI can enhance the state of readiness to deal with emergencies brought about by natural disasters as in the case of Japan. SDI can modernise central, regional, and local administration as in the case of Portugal,” he stated.

Bring the idea within local territories, the Head of the GIMU outlined that a SDI in Guyana will bring enormous economic, social, and environmental benefits. The most important benefit of SDI in Guyana, he highlighted, will be the promotion of economic

growth as a result of expanding markets for spatial information products and services locally, regionally, and internationally.

Persaud referred to compiled analysis of the economic value of geospatial data done by Managing Editor of Geospatial World, Arup Dasgupta, in 2013. He said that the data used in the compilation were taken from an economic benefit analysis conducted by several countries.

“It is widely known that data can be treated as a commodity in the limited sense of acquisition and sale but the (analysis) highlights the economic potential of spatial data to their GDP and industries once managed properly,” he pointed out.

Furthermore, the GIMU head stressed that there are many other economic benefits from such technology such as increased efficiency in both public and Private Sector organisations, new opportunities for spatial information business application and services, and improved transport and infrastructure systems.

“The social benefits for Guyana are, improved national and local governance, increased opportunities to engage the democratic process, more improved national security, and opportunities to target groups and areas with special needs. The environmental benefits of a SDI would include promoting sustainable development, enhanced natural resources monitoring and management, and improved coastal-zone monitoring,” he outlined.

SunDAY, may 15, 2016

19

England v Sri lanka, 1st test, headingley, 3rd day

Artful Anderson paints a Headingley masterpiece at last

T

revor Bayliss is not, by nature, a demonstrative man. But when, after a two-and-a-half hour rain delay on the third afternoon at Headingley, England’s coach chose to address the team huddle before the resumption of their afternoon’s work, it was clear from his animated expression that his charges’ standards hadn’t reached the levels he expects in this new full-throttle era.

“He was only doing it for the publicity,” quipped Alastair Cook, England’s captain, during the postmatch presentation - a gag that didn’t entirely survive his dead-pan delivery. But whatever it was that Bayliss said, it had the same effect

as his last most telling address, at Johannesburg back in January.

Aftering capturing two more Sri Lankan wickets in a slightly off-coloured morning’s work, England rampaged to victory by an innings and 88 runs in the afternoon - the coup de grace coming in a flurry of eight for 40 in 16 overs, including three in the space of nine deliveries in the blink of an eye after tea.

James Anderson, inevitably, was at the heart of the carnage. His newly discovered passion for Headingley’s seam and swing delivered him secondinnings figures of 5 for 29 in 12.3 overs. It was the third ten-wicket haul of his 114-

SCOREBOARD England 1st innings AN Cook*c †Chandimal b Shanaka 16 AD Halesc Chameera b Herath86 NRD Comptonc Thirimanne b Shanaka 0 JE Rootc Mendis b Shanaka 0 JM Vincec Mendis b Eranga 9 BA Stokesc Mathews b Pradeep 12 JM Bairstow† c Pradeep b Chameera 140 MM Alic Mendis b Chameera 0 SCJ Broadb Chameera 2 ST Finnst †Chandimal b Herath 17 JM Andersonnot out 1 Extras:(lb-8, w-4, nb-3)15 Total:(all out; 90.3 overs)298 Fall of wickets: 1-49 (Cook, 20.1 ov), 2-49 (Compton, 20.4 ov), 3-51 (Root, 22.2 ov), 4-70 (Vince, 30.2 ov), 5-83 (Stokes, 31.6 ov), 6-224 (Hales, 72.3 ov), 7-231 (Ali, 75.2 ov), 8-233 (Broad, 75.6 ov), 9-289 (Bairstow, 89.3 ov), 10-298 (Finn, 90.3 ov) Bowling: RMS Eranga 19-468-1 (nb-2, w-1), N Pradeep 19-7-56-1 (w-1), AD Mathews 11-2-31-0 (nb-1), PVD Chameera 17-0-64-3 (w-1), MD Shanaka 13-3-46-3 (w-1), HMRKB Herath 11.3-1-25-2 Sri Lanka 1st innings FDM Karunaratne c †Bairstow b Broad 0 JK Silvac †Bairstow 11 b Anderson BKG Mendisc †Bairstow b Broad0LD Chandimal† c Vince b Stokes 15 AD Mathews* lbw b Anderson 34 HDRL Thirimanne c Finn b Broad 2MD Shanaka c †Bairstow b Anderson 0HMRKB Herath c Stokes b Anderson1 PVD Chameera c Finn b Bro ad 2 RMS Eranga c †Bairstow b Anderson 1

N Pradeepnot out 0 Extras:(nb-5)5 Total:(all out; 36.4 overs)91 Fall of wickets: 1-10 (Karunaratne, 3.6 ov), 2-12 (Silva, 4.4 ov), 3-12 (Mendis, 5.2 ov), 4-43 (Chandimal, 16.1 ov), 5-77 (Mathews, 26.6 ov), 6-81 (Shanaka, 28.1 ov), 7-83 (Herath, 30.4 ov), 8-90 (Chameera, 33.6 ov), 9-91 (Thirimanne, 35.5 ov), 10-91 (Eranga, 36.4 ov) Bowling: JM Anderson 11.46-16-5, SCJ Broad 10-1-214 (nb-2), BA Stokes 7-2-251 (nb-1), JM Vince 1-0-10-0, ST Finn 7-0-19-0 (nb-2) Sri Lanka 2nd innings (following on) FDM Karunaratne c †Bairstow b Anderson 7 JK Silva c †Bairstow b Anderson 14 BKG Mendis b 53 Anderson LD Chandimal† b Ali8AD Mathews* c †Bairstow b Broad 5 HDRL Thirimanne c Root b Fin n 16 MD Shanaka c †Bairstow b Anderson 4 HMRKB Herath c Broad b Fi nn 4 PVD Chameera c Compton b Finn0 S Eranganot out 2 N Pradeepb Anderson0 Extras:(lb-5, nb-1)6 Total:(all out; 35.3 overs)119 Fall of wickets: 1-10 (Karunaratne, 2.2 ov), 2-35 (Silva, 10.6 ov), 3-79 (Chandimal, 19.4 ov), 4-93 (Mathews, 23.2 ov), 5-93 (Mendis, 24.2 ov), 6-101 (Shanaka, 28.3 ov), 7-111 (Herath, 32.6 ov), 8-117 (Chameera, 34.2 ov), 9-118 (Thirimanne, 34.4 ov), 10-119 (Pradeep, 35.3 ov)Bowling: JM Anderson 13.3-5-29-5, SCJ Broad 13-0-57-1, ST Finn 8-0-263 (nb-1), MM Ali 1-0-2-1

Test career, and his first outside of Trent Bridge, as he sealed match figures of 10 for 45 by plucking out Nuwan Pradeep’s middle stump for a duck. Six of those scalps had come ball-in-glove with Jonny Bairstow, who capped his Man-of-the-Match century with nine catches behind the stumps - equalling the record for the most in a Test in England.

Sri Lanka’s frailties in the cold, damp conditions were writ large across an anxious, outclassed performance, and though Kusal Mendis, with a maiden halfcentury at the age of 21, hinted at better things to come, it is hard to see life getting any easier for them any time soon. Next week they will be heading ever further into the frozen north, to Chester-le-Street for the second Test, another fortress for English seamers, as Graham Onions and Chris Rushworth would happily attest.

The biggest worry for Sri Lanka is that, although they clearly have room for improvement, so too do their hosts. Anderson’s mastery of lateral movement may have proved too much for both of their openers in the course of today’s morning session, but aside from those moments, England’s bowling was off the boil. Steven Finn later revived his happy knack for wicket-taking by cleaning up the tail, but he appeared low on rhythm on a ground whose slope has often caused issues for fast bowlers, while Ben Stokes was forced to leave the field following his knee injury on the second day and has emerged as a doubt for the second Test after playing no further part in the game.

In addition, England let their fielding standards drop, and their catches too.

The major beneficiary was Mendis, who was reprieved

by Bairstow on 29 - low to his right, a soliitary blemish in a brilliant performance - and then again on 47 by James Vince at third slip, from what turned out to be the final ball before the heavens opened.

The hiatus played entirely into England’s hands, however, for as soon as the rain relented, Sri Lanka’s innings began to gurgle down the drain. Moeen Ali, barely involved in the contest since his duck on the second morning, was thrown the ball for his first over of the series - ostensibly to allow Anderson and Stuart Broad to switch ends - but responded with the bonus extraction of Dinesh Chandimal for 8, a horrible cramped cut that he chopped onto his own stumps after four balls of the resumption.

It was an irresponsible dismissal from one of Sri Lanka’s senior men (not to mention the second time in as many days that he had been removed from the fray in the first over after lunch) and it left too much riding on the shoulders of Mendis and Angelo Mathews, whose brilliant series-seizing 160 in his last appearance at Headingley two years ago couldn’t have felt much further from the agenda.

Sure enough, Mathews had no heroics up his sleeve this time out. With 5 from 13 balls to his name, including an edged four through gully, he was suckered by Broad’s trademark angle, into the off stump from wide on the crease, and grazed an edge through to Bairstow that he’ll know he could have left well alone.

Mendis, by now, had brought up his maiden Test fifty with his eighth and final boundary, a spanking full-faced drill through midwicket as Anderson overpitched on middle stump.

It was an innings of skill

nings.

Rangana Herath showed no great desire to hang around. His solitary scoring shot was a squirt for four through the cordon, and he soon became Finn’s first victim of the match - caught at

James Anderson finished with a match haul of 10 for 45, England v Sri Lanka, 1st Test, Headingley

and application from a player held in high esteem by Kumar Sangakkara, among other fine judges of the game, and - his let-offs aside - had showcased the talent that could yet augur well for a brittle Sri Lanka line-up in desperate need of a new generation of heroes.

But on 53, Mendis’ luck finally ran out, as Anderson extracted some extra lift outside off stump, and the batsman chopped onto his own stumps as he failed to ride the bounce.

Dasun Shanaka avoided his king pair, and even got off the mark in Test cricket with a stab through point in Anderson’s next over. But with Jimmy’s outswinger now purring out of his hand, he was soon trapped on the back foot with nowhere for the ball to go but straight into Bairstow’s gloves for the ninth time in the in-

short cover by Broad, one delivery after being clanged a painful blow on the elbow.

By tea, Lahiru Thirimanne was still loitering on 15 not out, with Dushmantha Chameera yet to score, but the end was very much nigh. Chameera fell for a golden duck on the resumption, caught at short leg off Finn, who then added Thirimanne two balls later, via a sharp edge to Joe Root at second slip. Five balls later, Anderson had sealed the deal to gift his side an extra two days of R&R before the trip to Durham.

They travel there, incidentally, with four points in the bag towards the newly introduced Super Series, after a match that lasted a shade over 160 overs - or little more than one-and-a-half ODIs. (ESPN Cricinfo)

Junior Pan American Championships

Guyana beaten 7-1 again, this time by Mexico

G

uyana’s Junior Pan American Championships campaign continued on a losing note as they suffered another 7 -1 defeat, losing to Mexico on Saturday May 21. The men from the land of may waters who also suffered a 7 -1 whipping at the hands of Chile on Friday, made a better showing of themselves in the opening half by offering greater resistance to their Central

American counterparts.

Arroydy Brandford was once again on target opening the scoring in the 10th minute for the representatives of the Golden Arrow Head by netting his second goal in as many matches.

Guyana’s only lead of the tournament was short lived as Raymunda Lemus leveled the score by netting in the 17th minute and Yamil Mendez securing the lead in the 23rd for the Mexicans.

Heading to the break

trailing by just a goal down the Guyanese under-23 men would squandered their hard work from as early as the opening minute of the second half, conceding a goal to Irvin Chavez who would also double his tally in the 55th minute. The score line would soon be 5-1 in favour of the Mexicans following Daniel Rangel’s goal in the 59th minute.

Luis Villigas and Ivan Arballo goals in the 67th and 70th minute would fur-

ther emphasize the dominance of the 12th largest country in the world.

Guyana’s final game of the Junior Pan American Championships is against second seed and host nation Canada on Monday at 17:30 hrs. Local fans can continue to stream the matches live on the www.panamhockey. org website.

Photo: Panam Hockey Caption: Action in yesterday’s match between Guyana and Mexico

20

guyana-times.com

sundAY, may 22, 2016

Smith, Raina seal top-two spot for Lions G

ujarat Lions guaranteed themselves a top-two finish on the IPL league table, and earned themselves two shots at a place in the final, after a 96-run partnership between Brendon McCullum and Suresh Raina set them up for a six-wicket win over Mumbai Indians. Lions ended the league stage on 18 points while Mumbai finished on 14. To make the playoffs, Mumbai will need Kolkata Knight Riders and

dip below Mumbai’s -0.146.

Rohit Sharma noted, after Raina chose to bowl, that the Green Park pitch wasn’t as green as it had been on Thursday when Lions had restricted Knight Riders to 124. It wasn’t just less green.

It was even-paced, with the ball coming nicely on to the bat, and Mumbai’s total of 172 proved well short of challenging as Lions, given a strong platform by Raina and McCullum, and a sure finish by Dwayne Smith -

SCORE BOARD Mumbai Indians innings (20 overs maximum) RG Sharma*c Jakati b Kulkarni 30 MJ Guptillc Bravo b Smith 7 N Rana c Kulkarni b Bravo 70 KH Pandyac Finch b Smith 4 JC Buttler†c & b Bravo 33 KA Pollardc Smith b Kulkarni 9 HH Pandyac Jadeja b Kumar 7 Harbhajan Singhc Raina b Kumar 3 not out1 R Vinay Kumar Extras:(lb-3, w-4, nb-1)8 Total:(8 wickets; 20 overs)172 Fall of wickets: 1-33 (Sharma, 3.5 ov), 2-41 (Guptill, 4.3 ov), 3-45 (KH Pandya, 4.6 ov), 4-120 (Buttler, 13.5 ov), 5-153 (Rana, 16.6 ov), 6-160 (Pollard, 17.5 ov), 7-166 (Harbhajan Singh, 19.2 ov), 8-172 (HH Pandya, 19.6 ov) Bowling: P Kumar 4-0-24-2, DS Kulkarni 4-0-41-2, DR Smith

Delhi Daredevils - who also have 14 points each - to lose their matches on Sunday, and lose by big enough margins for their net run rates to

4-0-37-2 (nb-1, w-2), SB Jakati 3-0-30-0, DJ Bravo 4-0-222 (w-2), RA Jadeja 1-0-15-0 Gujarat Lions innings (target: 173 runs from 20 overs) AJ Finchlbw b Vinay Kumar 0 BB McCullumb Harbhajan Sin gh 48 SK Raina*c †Buttler b Bumrah 58 KD Karthik†c †Buttler b Vinay Kumar 3 DR Smithnot out 37 RA Jadejanot out 21 Extras:(lb-2, w-4)6 Total:(4 wickets; 17.5 overs)173 Fall of wickets: 1-0 (Finch, 0.2 ov), 2-96 (McCullum, 9.2 ov), 3-111 (Karthik, 10.6 ov), 4-122 (Raina, 12.2 ov) Bowling: R Vinay Kumar 3-117-2, JJ Bumrah 4-0-42-1 (w-3), MJ McClenaghan 3.50-38-0, KH Pandya 2-0-280, Harbhajan Singh 4-0-361, HH Pandya 1-0-10-0

who swapped places in the batting order with Aaron Finch - cruised home with 13 balls remaining.

Mumbai got off to an ex-

cellent start with the bat, with Rohit enjoying the batting-friendly conditions to move to 30 off 16 balls, with four fours and two sixes, before pulling Dhawal Kulkarni straight to deep square leg in the fourth over. Nitish Rana walked in and pulled his first ball for four.

Dwayne Smith had picked up four wickets on Thursday, and Raina tossed him the ball at the start of the fifth over even though the conditions were rather different this time. Martin Guptill, invisible till then, glanced his second ball for four, and should have put away his third one as well.

It was shortish, and offered plenty of swinging room for Guptill to flat-bat it anywhere he pleased; he ended up dragging it to mid-on.

With Smith’s deceptively quick bouncer consuming Krunal Pandya in the same over, Mumbai were forced into rebuilding mode. Rana and Jos Buttler only scored 27 runs in the first 30 balls of their partnership, and Mumbai were 72 for 3 at the halfway stage.

Fifteen came off the 11th, as Rana slogged Ravindra Jadeja over long-on and Buttler chopped him to the backward point boundary.

Rana began the 12th over with a four and a six off Smith, and Mumbai were back on track.

Rana favoured the pull and the slog-sweep, and those strengths, and his lefthandedness, was probably the reason Raina only used Jadeja for one over. Rana hit Shadab Jakati, Lions’

Dwayne Smith comes up with an unusual celebration after picking up a wicket

other left-arm spinner, for a six in the 13th over, and three fours - two in the midwicket region - in the 15th.

Fourteen came off that over, and with Rana past the half-century mark, Mumbai were nicely placed going into the last five. They had lost Buttler to a reflex caught-and-bowled from Dwayne Bravo, but at the crease was Kieron Pollard, in the kind of situation he enjoys batting in.

Rana clubbed another leg-side six off Dhawal Kulkarni in the 16th, going deep in his crease to shorten the length of the ball, but he miscued to deep square leg when he tried the same shot off Bravo in the next over.

Pollard cleared long-on with a top-edge in the 18th before swatting a full-toss from Kulkarni straight down long-off’s throat. Suddenly, Mumbai had two new batsmen at the crease with only two overs to go.

They would only get 12

from the last two, as Bravo and Praveen Kumar, both going around the wicket, either speared it too full for Hardik Pandya and Harbhajan Singh to get under, or dangled it too slow to line up perfectly. Both batsmen fell in the final over as Mumbai finished on 172 for 8. They had only scored 27 in the last four overs.

Finch fell in the first over of Lions’ innings, victim to his tendency to get stuck on the crease early in his innings, but McCullum and Raina quickly got the chase into gear. Bowlers tend to attack Raina’s rib cage early on, but Mitchell McClenaghan overused the short ball in the third over, and the batsman pulled, slapped and uppercut three fours, having already picked up a boundary when Hardik let a drive slip between his legs at cover point.

McCullum hit Krunal for two fours and a pulled six in the fifth over, and Lions were

already past 50. With the field still in, Raina’s chancy slogs off Jasprit Bumrah’s slower balls proved quite productive in the sixth over - one went to the third man boundary off the top edge, and the other, not quite middled, sailed over deep midwicket. Rattled, Bumrah fed McCullum on his pads and then gave him width; 19 came off that over and Lions’ required rate dipped to 7.35.

With the spinners, Krunal and Harbhajan Singh, routinely dropping short, Lions were racing home. This being the IPL, there was a small wobble, as McCullum, Dinesh Karthik and Raina fell in the space of 19 balls to leave 51 needed from 46. Smith, though, conveyed cold authority right from the time he flatbatted the second ball he faced back over Bumrah’s head, and he steered Lions home with a calm, unbeaten 37 off 23. (ESPN Cricinfo)

Man Utd beta Crystal Palace to win FA Cup M

anchester United came from behind and survived Chris Smalling’s sendingoff to beat Crystal Palace and win the FA Cup at Wembley through Jesse Lingard’s extra-time strike.

As Wembley was awash with growing speculation this this would be Louis van Gaal’s final match as United manager - with BBC Sport understanding he will be replaced

by Jose Mourinho next week - he was able to add English football’s most glamorous cup to his honours list.

United looked on course to end the season empty-handed as well as missing out on Champions League football when substitute Jason Puncheon’s powerful farpost finish put Palace ahead with 12 minutes left.

It was harsh on United, who had hit the woodwork through Marouane Fellaini and Antony Martial, but they responded within four minutes with a brilliant run from Wayne Rooney that ended with Juan Mata scoring from close range.

United lost Smalling to a second yellow card for hauling back Yannick Bolasie in extra time but Lingard took the trophy to Old Trafford when he lashed home a first-time strike from Damien Delaney’s half-clearance after 110 minutes.

Van Gaal’s winning farewell?

All the messages in and around Wembley before and during this

FA Cup final pointed to this Wembley showpiece marking the end of Van Gaal’s largely undistinguished two-year spell in charge.

When his expected replacement

come their FA Cup template this season, driving on through periods of adversity to eventually come out of the other side victorious, something for which Van Gaal deserves

It was a victory that clearly meant so much to Van Gaal as the normally impassive manager raced from his seat in the technical area to celebrate Lingard’s winner.

Wayne Rooney celebrates winning the FA Cup for the first time in his career

with Mourinho is confirmed, the 64-year-old Dutchman can at least take pleasure and credit for returning United to trophy-winning ways for the first time since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013.

And this was another performance in a manner that has be-

praise.

They won at West Ham in a quarter-final replay then survived a comeback from a resurgent Everton to win the semi-final with Antony Martial’s late winner.

And here they shrugged off Smalling’s red card to show real resilience and character.

In what appears to be his last act as manager, it was one that illustrates he will leave on a high.

FA Cup woe continues for Pardew This was another day of FA Cup heartbreak for Crystal Palace manager Alan Pardew, whose day will be remembered as much for

his rather eccentric dance moves when Puncheon put his side ahead as well as a third final defeat.

Pardew was a member of the Palace side that lost in a replay to United at Wembley in 1990 and was in charge of West Ham when they were hit by Steven Gerrard’s famous late equaliser in Cardiff that set the stage for Liverpool to beat the Hammers on penalties after a 3-3 draw.

For four minutes here he must have thought the tide had turned but it was not to be - and the music stopped for the dancing Pardew when Lingard’s crisp finish flew past helpless Palace keeper Wayne Hennessey.

Rooney leads from the front Rooney led Manchester United up the Wembley steps to collect the FA Cup and add a missing medal to his collection - a richly deserved accolade.

The England international may not have been at his best but it was his intervention when United had their backs to the wall and trailed that dragged them back into a cup final they were in danger of losing.

He drifted past four Palace players and took on two more before crossing to the far post, where Fellaini touched on for Mata to score. It was a momentum-shifting moment.

Rooney may have his critics but he proved once again he retains the ability to influence the big games.

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Cozier’s final innings

TO let

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21

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SPORTs

est Indies cricket’s media titan Tony Cozier was laid to rest in Barbados following a service at the Coral Ridge Memorial Gardens that was attended by several dignitaries and influential members of the regional cricket community.

Barbados legend Sir Garry Sobers topped the list of mourners along with former Chief Justice David Simmons, noted Caribbean jurist Richard Cheltenham, the West Indies batting great Sir Everton Weekes and outstanding former fast bowler Sir Wes Hall, who conducted the ceremony.

Several former West Indies players were also in attendance including legendary captain and current chairman of selectors, Clive Lloyd; legendary fast bowler and current Barbados Cricket Association president, Joel Garner; current West Indies head coach Phil Simmons and former West Indies vice-captain, Trinidadian Deryck Murray.

Barbados sports minister Stephen Lashley and Opposition leader Mia Mottley were among the mourners.

Known as the ‘voice of the West Indies cricket’, Cozier chronicled the fortunes of the team for nearly six decades, in an illustrious career which saw him rise to the summit of the industry.

Cozier was eulogised by son Craig who described him as an outstanding family man, a true professional and a pioneer in the field of cricket journalism.

“I was lucky to have him as my mentor and teacher as I too charted a path in jour-

nalism and cricket, learning as much from his vast professional know-how as his human qualities,” said Craig on Friday, an international television cricket producer.

“For a long time the sole Caribbean presence on overseas campaigns, Dad paved the way for others to follow and he was delighted to be joined by likeminded Caribbean men such as fellow commentator Reds Pereira, Jamaican journalist Tony Becca and photographer Gordon Brooks, to share his experiences with, as well as Michael Holding, Fazeer Mohammed and Ian Bishop in more recent times.”

He added: “Dad always had time for people and especially loved his family time.”

Cozier’s skills spanned radio, television and print, and he worked for nearly every major international media entity including the BBC, Channel Nine and Sky. Despite his health challenges, he remained a major media presence and was in the commentary box when West Indies secured a shock 1-1 draw when England toured the Caribbean last year for a three-Test series.

Cozier was the editor of the West Indies Cricket Annual and was also a senior editor of leading local newspaper, the Nation, with whom he remained closely affiliated at the time of his death.

In 2007, cricket authorities here renamed the upgraded media centre at the redeveloped Kensington Oval the Coppin, Cozier and Short Media Centre, in honour of his contribution to the sport.

(CMC)

Jones gifts rugby team over $1M after win

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Director of Sport Christopher Jones handed over a cheque worth $1.3 million dollars to the “Green Machine” after they defeated Jamaica on Saturday in the National Park. The funds are expected to go towards the future programmes of the Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU). Receiving the cheque was GRFU President Peter Green who was extremely grateful for the donation as it will help offset future expenses. Jones also presented special 50th Anniversary memorabilia to the captains of both teams.

22

guyana-times.com

sundAY, may 22 , 2016

Rugby Americas North (RAN) 15s’ Championship...

“Green Machine” topples Jamaica 23-5

BY AKEEM GREENE

A

spirited second half display by Guyana’s National Rugby team, the “Green Machine” geared them to a 23-5 victory over Jamaican in the Rugby Americas North (RAN) 15s’ Championship South Zone Division, as part of the 2019 World Cup qualifiers.

Playing in soggy conditions at the National Park Rugby field on Sunday, the local ruggers were not as fluent as their previous match against Barbados, since from the scrum-off Jamaica kept driving forward and putting the pressure on Guyana.

The Jamaicans eventually broke the back of the Guyanese resistance when left flanker Steve Miller scored a try in just the third minute of the match to put his side up, five points.

The visitors continued to play close to the scrum but

Ryan Gonsalves during his stride as he takes a successful kick to score a conversion for Guyana (Marceano Narine Photo)

as the first half got more intense, they began to give away penalties to Guyana, one of which gave the home

side their first three points after Ryan Gonsalves made the conversion with a classical kick in the 33rd min-

ute with the score reading Guyana 3, Jamaica 5.

Guyana usually plays the expansive game by get-

ting ball out from the back but seem to find it difficult to adapt to the close play by the Jamaicans as most offensive plays were shut down by some strong tackles.

However, the containment did not last for long as the combination of Ronald Mayers and Lancelot Adonis saw Adonis scoring in the 39th minute to give the Green Machine a valuable five points and put them in the lead at half time 8-3.

Upon the resumption of the second half, the dynamic Avery Corbin had to leave the field because of a presumed injury just as he was looking a serious threat with his speed and strength.

The Islanders would be ruing not being able to capitalise on the scoring opportunities in the first half, as great wet field rugby play saw Mayers scoring a try from a run on the outside.

The momentum now seemed to be in the locals

favour as the cheeky combination of Claudius Butts and Patrick King, saw King diving to score a try in the 42nd.

The duo again were in the thick of the action as they provided the last highlight of the match, as King ran about 20 meters then swung it back to Butts who then made a dashing run to complete the try which soon afterwards signalled the end of taxing encounter.

The loss essentially knocks Jamaica out the championships after losing to Guyana’s next opponent, Trinidad and Tobago, in their opening match.

The Green Machine, now with two convincing wins from their two matches thus far, will now shift their focus to their final match of the Championships against the Calypso Ruggers on July 23 in the twin island Republic. (akeemg@guyanatimesgy. com)

Short Range RHTYSC and ‘B’ Division Police WIFBSC Team Championship... pay courtesy calls on Ministers Guyana reign

T

he Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club, MS Guyana’s leading youth and sports organisation and its partner, the Guyana Police Force ‘B’ Division Community Relations Department on Wednesday last paid courtesy calls on Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin and Junior Minister of Health Dr Karen Cummings.

The joint delegation included the RHTYSC, M.S Club Secretary/CEO Hilbert Foster, Club Executive Mark Papannah and Asst. Supt of Police Keith Williams.

The Club and the Community Relations Department of ‘B’ Division over the last four years has worked together in a massive Say No to Crime, Drugs, Suicide and Yes to

supreme

– Braithwaite takes Wogart Trophy

F

Minister of Business Gaskin with Hilbert Foster (left) and Asst Supt. of Police Keith Williams

with the Business Minister the hosting of a Youth Career and Business Fair.

The main objectives of this event would be to assist youths to make a decision

Minister within the Ministry of Health Dr Karen Cummings poses with RHTYSC, MS Secretary/CEO Hilbert Foster and Keith Williams

Education, Life and Sports campaign directed towards 60,000 youths in Berbice.

The delegation discussed

on their future careers, to educate youths about jobs available in the country, to showcase businesses in Guyana, to showcase local

products, to inspire youths to establish their own business and to promote the Club’s highly successful Say No and Yes campaign. The proposed date of the Youth and Business fair is Thursday 22nd of September and the organisers would be working to attract over 100 booths.

Minister Gaskin invited the delegation to submit a working document to his Ministry for possible sponsorship and congratulated the RHTYSC, MS for its record of service to Guyana.

He described that events of this nature could be organised in each region in Guyana if the first one is successful an achieved its objectives. Foster updated the attentive Business Minister with a comprehensive report of the RHTYSC, MS history of achievements and plans for the future.

Secretary/CEO would be established to plan for the historic event, which would also form part of Guyana’s 50th Independence anniversary.

The meeting with Minister Cummings centred on using sports to promote social ills affecting youths and the hosting of a massive medical outreach programme for a less fortunate community in the ancient county.

Proposal for hosting of a football and basketball tournament would soon be submitted to the Junior Minister of Health. The organisers would use the two sporting tournaments to promote the danger of drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, suicide and other social ills affecting youths including gender violence. Teams for both tournaments would be drawn from “Hot Spots” areas identified by the Police Force.

Foster stated that the RHTYSC, MS is on course to surpassing its 2016 target of 300 programmes/activities and is confident that these upcoming joint events with the Police Force would have a huge impact on the lives of youths in the ancient county.

ollowing a not so hot start to the West Indies Fullbore Short Range Championships hosted by Antigua and Barbuda under the auspices of the West Indies Fullbore Shooting Council (WIFBSC) at the Crabb Rifle Range Saturday, defending champions Guyana stormed back to retain the title in grand style, a victory which the shooters have dedicated to Guyana for its 50th Independence Anniversary.

It was described as the great escape by the shooters from the Land of Many Waters. They had given up the early advantage to Jamaica which tallied 372.24 and Barbados (371.12) to their 368.22 after the 300 yards was contested but the hungry Guyanese regrouped after the 300 range to fire back in style.

Head Wind Coach ACP Paul Slowe and Fullbore Captain Mahendra Persaud gave a motivational talk to the team which resulted in all the shooters stepping up at the 500 range which the Guyanese won to edge ahead at the point.

At 500, Guyana tallied 378.21 well ahead of Jamaica (367.17) and Barbados (365.23) and further consolidated this position by scoring 374.27 at the final range (600) to wrap up victory with an overall total of 1120.70 to second placed

Jamaica which had a 600 range total of 357.9 for an overall score of 1096.50.

The Guyanese got the perfect start to the final range when Captain Mahendra Persaud and winner of the Wogart trophy as the best Individual Shot in this Team Match Lennox Braithwaite both gave their country scores of 49.6 and 49.5 respectively.

Braithwaite also captured the Bermuda Shield which is for the shooter with the highest score in the Team Match and Individual combined.

The hold on the top spot was further cemented when two more shooters, Peter Persaud and Ransford Goodluck also delivered scores of 49.1 and 49.5, the other team members also hitting the target for scores of over 40 which saw the marksmen from Guyana holding on to the Short Range Championship for yet another year.

This trophy is the most coveted in the Caribbean and Guyana has been showing that it is the best at both the Short and Long Range in the Caribbean.

Antigua bounced back to overtake Barbados for third place.

Captain Mahendra Persaud and Head Wind coach ACP Slowe were high in praise for the fight, resilience and determination shown by their changes under pressure.

guyana-times.com

sundAY, may 22 , 2016

23

Anthony Defends Crown at 7th Annual Powerade meet

E

volution cyclist Michael Anthony stamped his authority on Powerade cycling by retaining his crown at the annual Hassan Mohamed organized 11 race cycling programme held at the inner circuit of the national park on Saturday.

The event which commenced under beautiful sunny conditions concluded with the feature 35 laps race experiencing the effects of the May/June rainy weather.

Fresh from a second place finish at the Independence 3-stage cycle meet, the young and inform cyclist muscled his way to the finish line ahead of Berbician and Trojan Cycle Club (TCC) rider Jabron Crawford and team Alanis cyclist Paul DeNogrega in a close sprint finish.

The event sponsored by beverage giant, Banks DIH under their Powerade brand for the 7th year running also saw some exciting BMX races with Whitney

National Cycling coach Hassan Mohamed (centre) and Powerade representative Errol Nelson(…) with winners of the 7th Annual Powerade Cycle Meet

Poyer claiming the 3 laps boys and girls 12-14 race in a time of 9 minutes 44 seconds.

After watching his young son John Niles win the Boys 6-9 race, Team Coco’s Junior Niles continued on his dominance of the

GCB/HIH Inter-county U-19 50 Overs Tournament...

Berbice crush Essequibo to set up final against Demerara

I

n the rescheduled third round clash between Berbice and Essequibo in the Guyana Cricket Board/Hand-n-Hand Group of Companies Inter-county Under-19 tournament 2016, Berbice found form when it mattered the most to beat Essequibo 79 runs via the Duckworth/Lewis Method on Saturday at Providence.

It was a cat and mouse situation with rain interrupting the game at various points during the day but with the magnificence of the fast drying outfield at the Guyana National Stadium, a result was possible.

Berbice, who were playing inconsistently in this year’s tournament took first strike and were reduced to 146 for 9 from their allotment of 46 overs.

Siddiq Mohamed bowled impressively and took four wickets for 34 runs from 9 overs with great support from West Indies U-19 vicecaptain and Essequibo skipper Keemo Paul with 3 for 28.

Matthew Hardial held the Berbice innings together with a responsible knock of 56 with four boundaries.

Brandon Prashad made 20 and Alex Algo chipped in with 17.

When the boys from the Cinderella county began their reply they were asked to make 156 from 46 overs under the Duckworth/Lewis

Method but when they were at 39/1 after 7 overs a sharp shower sent the players off the field.

The target was then revised based on time lost and Essequibo were now looking for 146 from 40 overs with the dark clouds still hovering.

However, Berbice bowlers just needed 19 overs for the demolition job.

Essequibo hardly put up any resistance and were bowled out for 67 to win handsomely by 79 runs under the Duckworth/Lewis Method to advance to today’s final also at Providence.

The carnage was served up by Joel Seitaram who ended with 4-24 from eight stingy overs, pacer Sylus Tyndall with 3 for 10 and left-arm spinner Asif Ally who captured 3-12.

Mark Williams played a lone hand with 24 (5x4) with only Siddiq Mohamed (12) getting to double figures while six Essequibo batsmen failed to get off the mark.

Joel Seitaram with figures of 8-2-24-4 was adjudged Player of the match and he received a trophy compliments of the tournament’s sponsor, Hand-inHand Group of Companies.

Today is the grand final showdown and it puts together home team, Demerara and their traditional nemesis, Berbice from 9:30 Hrs.

Veterans under-50 category by winning first prize for the fifth successive year.

The Juveniles 10 laps was won by (TCC) rider Romello Crawford with a time of 26 minutes and 15 seonds while Shane Bourne

was victorious in the 5 laps Mountain bike race.

The Boys 9-12 was won by Jeremiah Harrison while A. Hodge prevailed in the boys 12-14.

Bochel Samaroo and Monty Parris claimed the

veterans over 50 and over 60 races respectively.

At the presentation of the cash and trophies Banks DIH Powerade representative Errol Nelson thanked the cyclists, supporters and national cy-

cling Coach Mohamed for a well-organized and incident free event. He also hinted that the public should look forward to the Banks Malta cycling event scheduled for June 7.

SUNDAY, MAY 22, 2016

Sports is no longer our game, it’s our business

guyana-times.com

Rugby Americas North (RAN) 15s’ Championship...

Guyana’s Godfrey Brooms attempts a diving tackle on his Jamaican opponent during the match (Marceano Narine Photo)

“Green Machine” topples Jamaica 23-5

Page 22

WIFBSC Short Range Team Championship

Guyana reign supreme Page 23

– Braithwaite takes Wogart Trophy

Page 22

Champions again! Team Guyana are champions of the Fullbore Short Range shooting in the Caribbean

Anthony Defends Crown at 7th Annual Powerade meet Michael Anthony proudly displays his Powerade sports drink and winning trophy

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