Guyana Times - Wednesday, October 26, 2022

reform

Dam

Barber, farmer charged, released on

of

murder

a good

with

President Dr Irfaan Ali overseeing the signing of an agreement for the establishment of a partnership between the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport on Tuesday. The agreement was signed by Guyana’s Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister, Hugh Todd and the President of the bank, Professor Benedict Oramah. Prime Minister of the Republic of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley and Guyana’s Senior Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh also witnessed the signing of the agreement

Berbice stray catchers continue to operate despite unit being disbanded

NDC officials accused of condoning illegal practice

gone with some goat on the back dam because rice finish harvest ing in the whole Number Naught Village so we graze our goat there. My husband called me about 2 o’clock and tell me something is not right,” the woman related.

She said she went just beyond the residential area where the an imals are normally taken to graze and saw some of her goats sitting under a tree but as she continued to walk, she heard the sound of a mo torcycle approaching.

“When me watch, me see they get like about four pound man and each one of them get cutlass and my husband was not there and I was very scared.”

Stray

catchers on the Corentyne, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) contin ue to operate despite the unit being disbanded.

Farmers in the 52-74 Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) community continue to have their animals picked up by a group of young men and taken to various pounds which are under the control of that NDC.

Some farmers have been able to strike deals with the men and sometimes an NDC official before the animals are taken to the pound to have them released for a cost lesser than the stipulated fee of $7000 and $8000 for adult animals.

Receipts are not issued when those deals are made, this newspa per has been told by farmers.

On Monday, the 52-74 NDC of ficials took a number of animals to the pound.

Only recently Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had to inter vene after the 52-74 NDC illegal ly impounded cattle belonging to a Corentyne farmer after stray catch ers had reportedly picked up the animals from a dam.

However, on Monday stray catchers were caught on camera picking up animals that were under a tree and taking them to a pound which is under the control of the NDC.

According to Budmattie Boodram, she was alerted by her husband of the incident.

“Yesterday [Monday] when my husband went to the backdam like about 1:30 we lose our goat and he

One of the four men waited with the animals which were under the tree.

Video recordings seen by this publication support Boodram’s claim.

“Me see when he take out dem other goat from the Number Naught side where no rice was not there – everything cut out; me even video am how they take out the goat and walk and drive an carry them straight to the jamoon tree and collect the other set and gone with them,” the woman revealed.

22 heads of goat were taken to the Number 63 Village pound and the family was told they would have to pay $7000 each to have them re leased.

Meanwhile, according to one cattle farmer, if they pay $5000 each to these illegal stray catchers,

the animals are released and if not, they are taken to the NDC’s pound.

Sometimes the money is paid to an NDC official but no receipts are issued.

Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn had revoked all of the stray catchers’ licences as Government had put a hold on the impounding of animals by NDCs and municipal ities.

Some of those persons have been hired by the NDC under Government’s part-time employ ment.

Boodram said they did not have the money to pay for the release of the animals and contacted a politi cal activist in the region to get as sistance.

The political activist told this newspaper that he contacted a se

nior Government official, who in tervened and the animals were re leased.

According to the activist, the 5274 NDC should pay more attention on addressing the concerns of res idents, which includes the deplor able streets and garbage collection.

“Not to be engaged in the pound ing of animals. It is a simple pro cess, if your animal destroys some one’s crop you get the Police and a Rural Constable (RC) and you press for damages; that’s the way to go,” the activist explained.

It was only recently that anoth er farmer had an issue where his cattle were illegally impounded. Following the intervention of Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo those an imals were released. (G4)

The NDC’s register book for impounded animals on Tuesday

The goats being taken to the pound on Monday

BRIDGE OPENINGS

The Demerara Harbour Bridge will be closed to vehicular traffic on: Wednesday, Oct 26 – No closure and Thursday, Oct 27 – No closure.

The Berbice Bridge will be closed to vehicular traffic on:

Wednesday, Oct 26 – 16:50h – 18:20h and Thursday, Oct 27 – 05:15h – 06:45h.

FERRY SCHEDULE

Parika and Supenaam departure times – 05:00h, 10:00h-12:00h, 16:00h, 18:30h daily

WEATHER TODAY

There will be light rain showers and light cloud during the day. Expect thundery showers and partly cloudy skies at night. Temperatures should range between 23 degrees Celsius and 30 degrees Celsius.

Winds: North-Easterly to South South-Westerly between 1.34 metres and 3.12 metres.

High Tide: 17:02h reaching a maximum height of 2.89 metres.

Low Tide: 10:38h and 23:01h reaching minimum heights of 0.46 metre and 0.3 metre.

Electoral reform RoPA amendments will not give any political party electoral advantage – AG …as national consultations get underway

Proposed amendments to the Representation of the People Act (RoPA) that are currently the subject of national stake holder consultations, are in no way, shape or form in tended to give any political party an advantage at the polls.

This is according to Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC, when he led presentations during nation al consultations on elector al reforms that began at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC) On Tuesday.

Nandlall stressed that these reforms are not intend ed to give any political party an electoral advantage. On the contrary, he pointed out that these reforms are much needed changes to the sys tem and are good for democ racy.

“The important thing that I want to emphasise here, is that there is not a single proposal on these piec es of paper that are intended to create an electoral advan tage for any political par ty. And I want to stress and emphasise that 100 times,” Nandlall said.

“I’ve said also that if there is any person who can point to me or to us as a col lective, a particular provi sion that creates an elector al advantage for any political party, we are prepared to en gage and engage publicly too. The point I’m making is that these reforms are good for the system. They are good for the process. They are good for the country. They are good for democracy.”

The AG went on to give an example of one of the pro posed amendments to the Representation of the People Act, which would not favour one party over another. For instance, Section 6 (11) of the RoPA (Amendment) Bill 2022 caps the number of electors that can be assigned to a particular polling sta tion.

“So, there’s a limit. No more than 400 electors are to be assigned to a polling sta tion. No more. You can have less. So right away, you put a cap. So, we don’t have elec tors lining up in the hot sun. I want you to interrogate this and tell me if it creates any political advantage for any political party.”

“The sun only shines in PPP areas? Or the rain doesn’t fall in certain areas?

It’s right across the board. It’s to make electors comfort able, to make voting easy, to give greater accessibility to polling places and polling stations,” Nandlall also said.

Among the issues raised by the attendees was the subdivision of regions. According to Section 6 (A) of the Bill, the polling districts of Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), Region Four (DemeraraMahaica) and Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne Region) will be divided.

Opposition nominat ed Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Commissioner Vincent Alexander argued that this should only be the case in the hinterland, where for the sake of efficiency the dis tricts could be broken up.

“I will argue that if one is speaking about efficiency, then that subdivisions are more pertinent in the hinter land regions (because) these regions have subdistricts that cannot move results overnight,” he said.

However, Nandlall re minded him of the calami tous events that took place in the Region Four polling dis

trict during the 2020 General and Regional Election and reminded him that efficien cy is not the only consider ation. Nandlall noted that this proposed change is to prevent one electoral officer from having too much power over the most populous elec toral districts.

The consultation being undertaken has been de scribed as an integral ele ment of the Government of Guyana’s commitment to im plement a consultative, in clusive, and participatory process regarding electoral reform.

The Ministry had said in a previous statement that the stakeholder consulta tion formed part of a contin uous consultative process, which began on November 6, 2021, when the Ministry published the draft RoPA (Amendment) Bill on its so cial media pages.

As such, the public was invited to peruse the draft documents and submit feed back to the Ministry with in six weeks; however, af ter requests for extensions, the Ministry accommodated submissions of feedback well into 2022.

Recommendations were received from a variety of stakeholders including civ il society actors, the Guyana Elections Commission, some political parties, and inter ested individuals and organ isations. These recommen dations were consolidated and provided to the Attorney General, who in May 2022, facilitated in-person meet ings with the respondents.

Updated versions of the RoPA Bill and Regulations have been made available once again, and the new draft amendments to the National Registration Act have also been made ac cessible for public perusal via a link published on the Ministry’s Facebook pages. To this end, 157 organisa tions were invited to the con sultation on October 25.

These organisations rep resent a broad cross-sec tion of society including political parties; constitu tional bodies; civil society or ganisations in the labour movement; private sector, faith-based, youth, wom en, LGBTQ, ethnic/cultural, health and rehabilitation or ganisations; and other civil society actors.

Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC

The consultations in the ACCC dome

Editor: Tusika Martin News Hotline: 231-8063 Editorial: 231-0544, 223-7230, 223-7231, 225-7761 Marketing: 231-8064 Accounts: 225-6707

Mailing address: Queens Atlantic Investment Estate Industrial Site, Ruimveldt, Georgetown Email: news@guyanatimesgy.com, marketing@guyanatimesgy.com

Eco-friendly environment

Theissue of have a clean environment is a major concern for both the general public and the economy. Scientific research has suggested that due to lifestyle patterns of citizens, the earth’s natural resources are being depleted too quickly to sustain a healthy balance. The earth’s natural resources are being consumed at a rate that reinforces the idea that we are living for today, and future generations will be paying for the consequences that result from our lifestyle choices.

For years now, calls for citizens here to dispose of their waste in a responsible manner have fallen on deaf ears, and the build-up of garbage in and around the city continues to be repeated.

Governments and businesses all over the world are realising how serious the problem is, and are taking steps towards putting policy mechanisms in place to ensure that the environment is protected from various forms of pollution. Recycling, along with reducing consumption, has proven to be an effective way to counter the damage we have been doing to the earth for centuries.

A major part of recycling relates to how best we can recycle much of what we use, instead of turning it into unusable waste. For the sake of emphasis, recycling is important as a means of reducing poisonous emissions into the atmosphere, and also to postpone depletion of our natural resources.

Guyana has indeed taken some time to get “on board”, while many companies and individuals in other parts of the world are improving their recycling habits by coming up with more ways to reduce and reuse what they use. In essence, while there has been much talk about the need to recycle certain products to save our environment from further damage, in a practical sense, the concept has not as yet taken much root here. Only a handful of companies have shown that they are really serious about moving in this direction. For example, in a bid to support the efforts to sustain and maintain a clean and healthy environment through the provision of proper disposal mechanisms and technology, one local company had launched a line of bio-degradable products called Eco Pak. The Eco Pak products consist of biodegradable table wares, including bowls, boxes and cups, which are all environmentally-friendly products because of the materials and the process utilised to manufacture them.

If we are serious about maintaining a healthy and clean environment, consumers must demand that businesses engage in practices that are more eco-friendly. For example, consumers must be encouraged to purchase from companies that manufacture more eco-friendly products.

As part of efforts to spread the message of recycling, a comprehensive education and public awareness campaign would need to be carried out, using every available means. Following this, the authorities should explore setting up recycling centres across the country, since it makes no sense preaching about recycling if the necessary infrastructural support system is not present.

In addition to its positive impacts on the environment, recycling brings in a lot of money for many countries. Companies make huge sums from basically utilising the materials that would otherwise have been thrown away.

We believe there is need for lifestyle changes among our citizens, and it would be very helpful if the schools, religious organisations and local Neighbourhood Democratic Councils and municipalities in every region start the conversation with citizens about recycling. This should be done with direct involvement of the decision-makers. Certainly, everyone prefers products that are manufactured in an ecofriendly manner, and wants a better, cleaner, and healthier environment.

President Ali has taken Guyana to new heights

Dear Editor, Since taking office in August 2020, President Ali and his administration have taken Guyana to new heights never reached before with his numerous visits to the ten regions and to almost every village and district in the country to meet with the people. In all his visits, he has not only outlined his development strategies for the country, but he has tak en the time to meet with the residents and address their problems, which have lift ed the spirits of the citizens. Many felt that President Ali is genuine when he said that everyone has a meaningful and vital role to play in the development of the country and that no one will be left behind, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or party af filiation. He has told the na tion that the time has come for us not to see one anoth er as Indo-Guyanese, AfroGuyanese or Amerindian but as Guyanese with one desti ny and a country to build.

His recent announcement alongside the British High Commissioner to Guyana that Guyanese will no lon ger need a visa to travel to

Britain speaks volumes in that it settled a long-stand ing issue between Guyana and Britain. It is my un derstanding that it was President Ali who initiat ed the negotiation with the British Government. It was the belief that as a former British colony, Guyanese should be allowed to trav el to London without visas. This has been the case of Canada, New Zealand and Australia—all former colo nies of Great Britain whose citizens were not required to obtain visas to travel to London. Guyana has joined the other CARICOM states of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahamas and Grenada whose residents do not require visas to travel to Britain.

With oil revenue at over one billion dollars, President Ali has publicly stated that the money will be used wise ly and prudently to benefit all Guyanese by moderniz ing the infrastructure, invest in education, health care, se curity, the judiciary and so cial services, among oth ers. In addition, President Ali should be given cred it for his vision to establish

the 1000-men programme which will bring together men from across the coun try to address the challeng es faced by them, especially youths who make up more than 60 percent of the coun try’s population. Headed by the President, the 1000-men programme will encourage adults and youths to turn away from crimes and vio lence and become responsi ble, good, decent and produc tive citizens and take their rightful place in society.

The 1000-men program will address domestic vio lence, hunger and poverty, education or the lack thereof and the indulgence and sale of illegal drugs. It is a posi tive approach to help men and youths accept their re sponsibility and become leaders in society. Many are of the opinion that the 1000men programme initiated by President Ali fits well with his “one Guyana” initiative which is aimed at healing the racial divide, unite the races and for us as Guyanese to become “our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper. The phrase is a reference to the Biblical story of Cain and Abel from the book of Genesis. It is gen

erally understood to mean being responsible for the welfare of a brother or other sibling or, by extension, for other human beings in gen eral.

The President has said many times that while each of us is responsible for our own actions we are also re sponsible for the well-being of our neighbors. He enunci ated that too frequently we focus on ourselves while for getting that God has created us to live together and that our own well-being is bound forever to the well-being of everyone. He knows that while everyone needs prop er education, secure hous ing, adequate nutrition, and reliable healthcare, they are not luxuries. They are what is due to those who have worked hard and to those who cannot care for them selves. President Ali “One Guyana” initiative is a bold plan that will inspire every one to live in peace and har mony, support each other and be involved in the devel opment and prosperity of the country.

Sincerely, Dr Asquith Rose

Changing face of UK and global politics

Dear Editor, Rishi Sunak’s arrival as Britain’s Prime Minister is a groundbreaking mile stone, as the UK’s first Prime Minister of colour and the youngest in mod ern political history shows

that the world has rapidly evolved from a few decades ago.

Sunak, the youngest British PM in over 200 years, is the son of Indian immigrants and heritage, and is now running a coun

try that once colonised his forefathers. But if his vic tory swept away anoth er barrier in British poli tics — putting Mr. Sunak in the same pathbreak ing category as Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first fe

male Prime Minister, and Benjamin Disraeli, its only Prime Minister of Jewish heritage — it also thrust him into power at a singu larly difficult moment.

First Lady Arya Ali lighting a diya at State House on Monday evening as the Hindu community celebrated Diwali – The Festival of Lights (Office of the First Lady photo)

Does Guyana need a different formula to appoint CJ, Chancellor of the Judiciary?

Dear Editor,

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Hon Anil Nandlall, SC, ex presses his disenchantment over the country’s inability to confirm appointments to the positions of Chief Justice and Chancellor of the Judiciary of Guyana. He cited the examples of Justice Ian Chang, who served as act ing Chief Justice for 15 years (2000-2015), and Justice Carl Singh, who acted as Chancellor of the Judiciary for 12 years (2005-2017).

The current incumbents, Madam Roxane George SC, and Madam Yonette Cummings-Edwards, SC, have been acting in the po sition of Chief Justice and Chancellor of the Judiciary respectively for five years. Mr. Nandlall states that the Guyana Constitution (Article 127 (1)) requires the appoint ment to both positions to be made by the President with the agreement of the Leader of the Opposition. And this process has not worked for the past 15 years. There has not been any agreement be tween the two leaders on

these two appointments.

University of the West Indies Law Professor Tracy Robinson, while advocating the need for ‘executive re straint’ in the selection pro cess of Judges, also advises that Guyana should not wait until constitutional reform takes place to appoint perma nently the Chief Justice and Chancellor of the Judiciary, but should strive to make those appointments urgently.

A related issue is tenure for Judges. The esteemed panel ists believe that Judges’ ten ure of office should extend un til they reach 70-75 years of age. However, granting ten ure and expanding it to 75 years must be balanced with the need for accountability. How to achieve this balance is still problematic.

One solution put forward by Mr. Nandlall is to expand the Guyana Court of Appeal (CoA) with a complement of 5 to 9 Judges, a position con sistent with Article 124 of the Guyana Constitution.

On a constitutional ques tion regarding the appoint ment of the Commissioner of Police on March 30, 2022,

Mr. Nandlall told the panel of distinguished legal schol ars that the Guyana High Court ruled that the appoint ment of Police Commissioner Mr. Clifton Hicken by the President was proper. The constitutional requirement of ‘consultation’ with the Leader of the Opposition did not happen as there was no Opposition Leader at the time to consult. Given the ur gency of the Commissioner’s appointment, the President had to act in his own deliber ate judgment in the nation al interest and make the ap pointment. It was not a case of ‘necessity;’ there was no Opposition Leader to consult. The framers of the constitu tion never intended to handi cap the President in the exer cise of his duty if there is no Opposition Leader.

Mr. Nandlall drew the at tention of viewers that the Judiciary under the PNC (1968-1992) functioned as an arm of the Party, which entrenched party para mountcy into the political system in 1974, and which was integral to the Sophia Declaration. The armed forc

Changing face of UK...

This reminds me of President Dr Irfaan Ali’s commitment to his ‘One Guyana’ vision, promot ing greater inclusion at the legislative, political and so cial levels, thus creating av enues for all to prevail. It represents a social contract of inclusion, since no indi vidual, Government or so ciety has all the answers. Nevertheless, Guyana has become the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) larg est trading partner in the Caribbean, after trade be tween the two nations in 2021 amounted to 516 mil lion pounds, and account ed for 21.6 per cent of all the UK’s trade with the Caribbean.

With the recent an nouncement of visa-free travel to the UK, the trade will expand further, as Guyana is ripe for devel opment and transforma tion into a brighter future

for all Guyanese. The UK visa waiver is not isolated to strengthening relation ships and building out op portunities, but is also an essential pillar in develop ing people-to-people contact as Guyana aims to take its place as a global leader in a number of areas, including ecological services, environ mental services and climate change.

It is with great opti mism that, under the ten ure of PM Sunak, greater bi lateral opportunities evolve to benefit both countries in the future. Mr. Sunak, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, is expected to pull Britain back to more mainstream policies, after Ms. Truss’s failed experi ment in trickle-down eco nomics, which rattled fi nancial markets and badly damaged Britain’s fiscal rep utation.

He is also likely to offer

FROM PAGE 4

a stark contrast to the flam boyant style and erratic be haviour of Boris Johnson, his former boss, and Ms. Truss’s discredited prede cessor.

Regards, Halim Khan Region Three Private Sector Inc (R3PSi) Head

es were required to swear al legiance to the PNC leader, and not to the country. The classic constitutional doc trine of separation of pow ers never existed; the PNC party controlled the legis lative body, the Judiciary, as well as the command ing heights of the economy. One year prior to the Sophia Declaration (1973), the PNC Government removed the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the Court of last resort and replaced it with the Guyana Court of Appeal (CoA), and justified that action by contending the Privy Council was a relic of colonialism and a symbol of oppression. Ever since 1973, critics have viewed the CoA as compromised by political alignment.

Mr. Nandlall says that the PPP Government ini tiated about 200 constitu tional amendments in 19992000 to curb, among other things, some of the powers of the executive, and to trans fer much of those powers to Parliament. One amendment allows for the President to appoint the Chief Justice and Chancellor of the Judiciary with the agreement of the Leader of the Opposition.

Another major constitutional amendment was to make the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) Guyana’s Court of last resort.

Fresh on the minds of the PPP about perceptions, if not realities, of political in terference, especially during the Burnham rule, in a de termined effort to minimize biases, the PPP moved in 2005 under Bharrat Jagdeo’s

Presidency to make CCJ, the Guyana court of last resort.

That move vindicated, for example, the PPP’s res ervations, as the CCJ’s rul ings overturned all the elec tion related CoA judgments, saved democracy in Guyana. Had it not been for that, de mocracy would have been crushed in Guyana (post March 2, 2020, election elec toral heist attempts attest to this), with the country be coming a pariah state, and despite the prospects of oil wealth, the country would have plunged into economic and social turmoil.

The Belize Judge Hon Godfrey Smith, QC, said that he was satisfied with the se lection process of Judges there, indicating that the process was transparent, accountable, and fair. He mentioned five cases that the Court ruled against the Government as proof of his position. But it was pointed out that those Judges were from other territories, and therefore not influenced by local political situation to ar rive at their rulings.

Mr. Douglas Mendez, SC, revealed that he was tapped as a Judge in Belize; he did not apply for the po sition, which was neither ad vertised, and yet he was ap pointed a Judge in Belize. The panel indicates that the selection process must in clude public advertisement, specify the selection criteria, and state the process of se lection of Judges.

The panelists agreed that “Time Management” of cas es is important, and that there should be training for

Judges. Professor Robinson said that she was not comfort able with the Chief Justice or the Chancellor sitting as a member of the Judicial Service Commission. That is potentially a conflict-of-in terest situation. When asked if a Judge who retires and still has judgments pending, whether he/she could return to decide on such matters, Mr. Nandlall cites a case his tory of Guyana and then said “no.” However, the Barbados Senator Gregory Nicholls says that Barbados allows a retired Judge to return to re solve those pending cases.

Mr. Mendez, while recog nizing that civil society, in cluding the Bar Association, should be represented in the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), states that it is also equally important that a member of the executive sits on the JSC. His reason ing is that it is the executive which is ultimately account able for public funds and ac countable to the public for the administration of justice.

Mr. Mendez also states that for misconduct, the sanction against Judges is restricted only to removal from office; he suggests that other sanc tions be applied, such as sus pension.

It is refreshing to know that the Judiciary is coming under the public’s focus. All institutions of the state, in cluding the Judiciary, must be held accountable for the decisions they make. The Judiciary is not impervious to criticism.

Sincerely, Dr Tara Singh

You can send your letters with pictures to: Guyana Times, Queens Atlantic Investment Estate Industrial Site, Ruimveldt, Georgetown, Guyana or letters@guyanatimesgy.com

IN A MINUTE

Sets

What is a set? Well, simply put, it's a collection.

First, we specify a common property among "things" and then we gather up all the "things" that have this common property.

Set of clothes: For example, the items you wear: hat, shirt, jacket, pants, and so on.

I'm sure you could come up with at least a hundred.

This is known as a set.

Or another example is types of fingers.

This set includes index, middle, ring, and pinky.

So it is just things grouped together with a certain property in common.

Notation

There is a fairly simple notation for sets. We simply list each element (or "member") separated by a comma, and then put some curly brackets around the whole thing:

The curly brackets { } are sometimes called "set brackets" or "braces".

This is the notation for the two previous examples: {socks, shoes, watches, shirts, ...} {index, middle, ring, pinky}

Notice how the first example has the "..." (three dots together).

The three dots ... are called an ellipsis, and mean "continue on".

So that means the first example continues on ... for infinity. (Just imagine there were an infinite variety of things you could wear)

So: The first set {socks, shoes, watches, shirts, ...} we call an infinite set; the second set {index, middle, ring, pinky} we call a finite set.

But sometimes the "..." can be used in the middle to save writing long lists: Example: the set of letters: {a, b, c, ..., x, y, z}

In this case it is a finite set (there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, right?) (mathsisfun.com)

Under a rock or log

TO TRY

Constitutional reform process to begin early next year – Governance Minister

The constitutional re form process, which will be spearheaded by the Constitutional Reform Commission once it is set up, will begin early next year and will allow stake holders to make suggestions on much-needed areas of re form in the Constitution.

Making this revelation was Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Minister Gail Teixeira, during the start of national consulta tions on amendments to the Representation of the People Act (RoPA).

At the consultation which took place on Tuesday at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC), Teixeira took care to stress that the consultations on RoPA are separate from constitution al reform consultations that will begin early in 2023.

“This process that we’re going through today, which is dealing with electoral laws and amendments to statutes, is distinctly sepa rate from the constitution al reform process which will commence in early 2023.”

“That Bill, for the com

mission for constitutional reform, which will be made up equally of members of po litical parties and civil soci ety, is already on the order paper,” Teixeira further ex plained.

One of the attend ees at Tuesday’s con sultations, Oppositionnominated Commissioner on the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Vincent Alexander had questioned whether elector

al amendments would not clash with the constitutional reform process that will be embarked on next year.

However, Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC, had noted that statutory electoral reform cannot wait on constitutional reforms, which is a lengthy process that requires a two-thirds majority to effect changes.

“We can’t stop the legis lative agenda of the coun try because constitutional

reform is impending. That would be a horrible thing to do… Mr Alexander is expe rienced enough to know the complexities associated with constitutional reform. The political complexities flow therefrom and the conse quential time that would be consumed by that process to arrive at consensus.”

Constitutional reform of any significant aspect in our constitutional matrix, requires two thirds majori

ty, on any provision of sub stance… are we to stall our statutory agenda and await that? The country would grind to a halt,” Nandlall ex plained.

Back in August of this year, the Government had presented the Constitution Reform Commission Bill 2022 in the National Assembly, which seeks the establishment of a Constitution Reform Commission to review the country’s supreme laws.

According to the provi sions of the Bill, the com mission will review the Constitution to provide for the current and fu ture rights, duties, liabili ties, and obligations of the Guyanese people. It is man dated for that purpose to receive, consider and eval uate submissions for the al teration of the Constitution, and report its recommenda tions to the standing com mittee for transmission to the National Assembly.

In conducting the re view, the commission will also consider the full pro tection of the fundamen

tal rights of and freedom of Guyanese under law, the rights of Indigenous peo ple of Guyana, the rights of children, eliminating dis crimination in all forms, and improving ethnic relations while promoting ethnic se curity and equal opportuni ty.

According to the explana tory memorandum of the Bill, the proposed Constitutional Reform Commission will consist of 20 members who will be drawn from the gov erning People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), the Opposition A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) and one member from politi cal party A New and United Guyana (ANUG).

One member each will also be drawn from the Guyana Bar Association, the Labour Movement, the National Toshaos Council, the private sector, repre sentatives of women organ isations, youth organisa tions, Christian, Hindu and Muslim organisations, as well as a nominee represent ing farmers. (G3)

Access to finance, opportunities in oil & non-oil sectors to be addressed at upcoming business forum …to feature 500 delegates

board as the main event part ner.

The Business Development Forum (BDF) was conceptualised in 2018 as an annual two-day busi ness forum to provide a plat form for the wider business community to have conversa tions and network, regardless of the size of their business es. (G3)

The Business Development Forum will be making its re turn next month, with the two-day event organised by the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) scheduled to be held from November 11 to 12 at the Pegasus Corporate Centre.

This was explained at a press conference hosted by GCCI President Timothy Tucker on Tuesday. The fo rum, first held in 2018, was halted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This will therefore be the first time it is being held in two years.

“This event has always been created and continued based on the demand and re sponse of the business com munity. This event was creat ed within the Chamber. And it was a direct response to the need of its members. Unlike other events, we’re not just doing this as a talk shop,” Tucker said.

“We’re interacting, bring ing different levels of insti tutions. We’re talking about

role models. And we’re also surveying and dealing with what is needed by the com munity. The feedback that we’ve gotten, there are many persons who have benefitted tremendously and gotten re sults from the two previous business development fo rums.”

Finance/opportunities

Meanwhile, GCCI Executive Director Richard Rambarran explained that the forum will be split into five thematic areas, each of which will have a special ist make presentations. The themes that will be explored are access to finance; oppor tunities for businesses in the Guyana’s oil and non-oil sec tors; improving standards and quality; doing business in Guyana and marketing fundamentals.

“What the business de velopment forum is intend ed to achieve, however, is to bridge the gaps as it relates to information, as it relates to knowledge and as it relates to the capacity of private sec

tor firms. We’ve realised that there was no single platform in which an enterprise could go and obtain the informa tion that would help them to bridge capacity gaps in their business.”

“We’ve crafted an agen da that essentially addresses, based on our research, the is sues that plague the private sector and the internal dy namics of the firms. There are five thematic areas that will be explored at the forum. The structure of it is that each of the five thematic ar eas will have a keynote ad dress being done by a leader in the field,” Rambarran said.

Among those who have been invited to make presen tations at the forum are the Bankers Association and in dividual banks. In addition to the 500 delegates expected to attend, GCCI is also cater ing for approximately 1000 visitors to the joint exhibi tion. Oil giant ExxonMobil, through its subsidiary Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) has meanwhile come on

Constitutional reform is a process that requires a 2/3rd parliamentary majority to change the Constitution

From left: GCCI Executive Director Richard Rambarran, GCCI President Timothy Tucker and GCCI Membership and Marketing Officer Ambika Ramraj

“Satan” acquitted of teen girl’s murder

Thirty-seven-year-old Alvin Reid, also called “Satan”, who had been on trial for the murder of 14-year-old Malika Hamilton of Two Sisters Village, East Coast Demerara (ECD), has been acquitted of the charge after a jury returned a not guilty verdict on Tuesday.

Reid had initially denied murdering Hamilton be tween August 8 and 9, 2016.

Attorneys-at-Law Simran Gajraj, Muntaz Ali and Taneisha Saygon prose cuted the matter.

After calling several wit nesses, they closed their case against Reid last week Monday.

Reid’s lawyers, Konyo Sandiford-Holder, and Iyanna Butts, had thereaf ter made a no-case submis sion, but it was overruled by Demerara High Court Judge Simone Morris-Ramlall.

Reid had been called

upon to lead a defence, af ter which closing addresses were made by both sides and the matter was adjourned for the Judge to sum up the evidence.

Following deliberations

Coghlan Dam robbery

on Tuesday, the jury re turned a unanimous not guilty verdict.

Reid, of Nimrod Street, Ann’s Grove, East Coast Demerara (ECD), had been committed to stand trial for the murder of the teen girl in 2018. However, in 2019, he was mistakenly released from prison while awaiting trial, and was recaptured only on September 21, 2022.

It has been reported that Hamilton and Reid, who had been known to each other, had gone for a swim in the Hope Canal on the ECD on August 8, 2016.

She was never again seen alive, and her body was sub sequently found by residents of the community floating in the canal several miles away from the Hope Canal Bridge.

Hamilton had left home following an argument with her father over the tele phone, and had never re

turned home.

Reid, who had managed to evade the Police after be ing identified as a suspect in her murder, was eventually found hiding in a barrel in the Ann’s Grove cemetery a few days later. (G1)

Barber, farmer charged, released on $500,000 bail each

Kasho Hardeo, a 20-year-old barber/ construction worker of Track A Coldingen, East Coast Demerara, and Hansraj Madhu, a 46-year-old con struction worker and farm er of Track A Coldingen, were arrested by Police and charged on Tuesday for the offence of break and enter and larceny.

It is alleged that the two broke into the dwelling house of Yaynauth Ramkissoon, a 34-year-old businessman of Coghlan Dam, West Bank Demerara, on October 20.

Hardeo and Madhu ap peared on Tuesday before Magistrate Faith McGusty at the Vreed-en-Hoop court where the charges were read to them.

They both denied the of fence and were each placed on $500,000 bail.

The duo was among five persons following the daring daylight robbery at Coghlan Dam.

Their arrests led to the discovery of over $7 million

and several pieces of gold jewellery which were taken during the robbery.

Police stated that the men escaped with $10.2 million and a quantity of gold jewel

lery valued at $680,000 be longing to a businessman along with another $2.8 mil lion and a quantity of gold jewellery valued at $980,000 belonging to his wife.

Reports are that the busi nessman’s wife secured the home and went to the doctor’s office at Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara (WCD), to take her son, who was unwell.

When the woman re turned home, she discovered the top half of the back access door to the house wrenched off.

Upon seeing this, she im mediately made checks in the house during which she saw her bedroom ransacked. The cash that was kept in a bag in the wardrobe along with sev eral pieces of jewellery that were on the vanity were miss ing.

The matter was reported to the Police, the scene was processed and several per sons in the area were ques tioned.

As investigations inten sified, Hardeo, Madhu, and three others were arrested. During interrogation, the suspects took detectives to their residences where one of them pointed out two areas in his yard where he had buried the loot.

The area was dug up and a total of $1,160,000 was found in one hole and another $1,495,000 was found in an other along with a quantity of jewellery.

The suspect’s mother, a cleaner who also resides at Coldingen, ECD, handed over another $1,225,000.

The farmer, on the other hand, took the investigators to an area on his farm but noth ing was found. Nevertheless, his wife – a 47-year-old ven dor – handed over $1,495,000 and a quantity of gold jew ellery to the Police. In addi tion, her 38-year-old adopted brother of Non Pareil, ECD, also handed over $1,660,000 which they both claimed was given to them by the farmer.

The case will continue on December 12. (G9)

New beginnings...

…In Britain

Well, the day finally arrived – Indian-origin Rishi Sunak is now officially the Prime Minister of Britain, after being bestowed with that title by King Charles III! Your Eyewitness can’t decide whether the words “Prime Minister Sunak” or “King Charles III” will be more difficult to get used to!! After all, for his entire life he’s been calling that duffer “Prince Charles”!! But the person who represents Britain in the minds of most people across the globe – Winston Churchill - must be turning in his grave, muttering all sorts of imprecations on the new PM of Old Blighty!! Churchill detested Indians in general, and one Indian, Gandhi, in particular with a passion. His personal secretary reported that he "hated Indians", and considered them "a beastly people with a beastly religion". He saw the latter as a “malignant subversive fanatic” and “a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceregal palace.”

And here’s a fella of Indian refugee descent – via Africa, where his grandparents had gone as indentured labourers – now running Britain, the country that ruled India as a colony and shipped its people as commodities like rice and sugar to any country that asked!! Like to the French (Martinique and Guadeloupe), the Dutch (Suriname) and the Danes – (St Croix, etc). Well, the Empire has struck back for real with a son at the helm of the Imperial Power!! It’s like seeing Luke Skywalker succeed the Emperor Palpatine also known by his Sith name Darth Sidious!!

But Sunak got into 10 Downing Street by the hair on his chinny chin chin!! Liz Truss had defeated him for the Tory leadership, to succeed Boris Johnson by members’ votes rather than the MPs and other leaders who preferred him. In a word, Truss had trumped Sunak only because she was white!! It took only 45 days as the British economy imploded like that Death Star from Truss’s ministrations –for her to chuck it in!! With the Conservative leadership having to choose her successor, and all other contestants dropping out – including the shameless Boris – it was Sunak by default!! Your Eyewitness is willing to bet that if the choice were up to the Tory membership, it wouldn’t have been Sunak even if the Boris’s (white) Butler opposed him!!

Anyhow, your Eyewitness just saw Sunak’s first speech as Prime Minister – where he cut to the quick and said he basically gotta fix Liz Truss’s mistakes!! But in reality, it goes waaaaay beyond that, doesn’t it??

Can he get the 10% who own 53% of Britain’s wealth - to stop making money from money, and rebuild the real economy, employing real people??

…for Guyanese

Your Eyewitness is sure that most Guyanese wish we could start all over in this conflicted country of ours. While a nation’s life is full of forks in the road of history, it’s just as certain that most think the 1955 fork, when the PPP split - occasioned by the US and made possible by the blind ambitions of Forbes Burnham – was the pivotal one!!

But is Burnham to take all the blame?? What about other leaders? And what about we, the people?? The bottom line is that by the time democratic elections rolled into our country, we still were looking at each other through the prism of the “six races” that made up our society. And as to who’d “take over” from the British, the coloured elite - which had occupied the rungs of status were convinced they’d now inherit the power to lord it over others!

Our new beginning will be launched when we accept that any combo of Guyanese can run our country!!

…in Cricket

Phil Simmons, CWI coach, has resigned – à la Liz Truss – after the team’s ejection from the T-20 World Cup. Sadly like in British politics the problems go much deeper. They need a root-and-branch makeover!!

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

The views expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Guyana Times’ editorial policy and stance

Freed: Alvin Reid, called “Satan”

Dead: Malika Hamilton

Charged: Kasho Hardeo

“It’s a good gesture” – pensioner on $28,000 cash grant …senior citizens urged to keep abreast of cash distribution dates

Human Services and Social Security Minister, Dr Vindhya Persaud has en couraged pensioners across the country to stay abreast with news and social media, so that they can keep track of the dates and locations to uplift the $28,000 one-off cash grant for pensioners across Guyana.

She was speaking on the side lines of one of the distribution exer cises at the Jagan Heritage Home on Tuesday. The Minister stated that in her interactions with pen sioners she received a number of suggestions for improving the deliv ery of service to senior citizens.

“What I have been doing on-site is interfacing with them, to look at how we can better serve, how we can have more efficiency, and how we can see what are some of the things they want to see happen, and I’ve gotten some very good suggestions which I will be putting into place,” the Minister said.

These suggestions included hav ing pension forms for ease of pick up at post offices and other locations where the elderly frequent.

The Minister also encouraged persons to employ the bank pay

ment system to receive their pension payments. She also reminded per sons to be considerate of the elderly.

“The elderly would have asked me for this, and I’m asking the wider public, wherever you see elders and maybe they cannot walk, or they have some level of disability, serve them first.”

Pensioners in receipt of the cash grant lauded the initiative and ex pressed that the additional cash would assist them in purchasing ne cessities.

During an interview with the Department of Public Information (DPI), Zahid Rahat, a 71-year-old pensioner, expressed that the grant would go a long way.

“I’m very grateful for it because I suffer from arthritis pain. All over my body… in my knees, my joints. I’m not working now.”

While he stated that he had pre viously received stipends from rela tives abroad, both of those persons

have passed on, leaving him with no source of income aside from his pen sion.

“So, I going and buy some milk and different things, thing to build up myself…. So, I am very grate ful and thankful,” he said. Another pensioner, Gloria Veronica La Rose, described the cash grant as “gener ous”, and thanked the Government for the initiative.

“It will help immensely with ev erything. So, it’s a good gesture,” she stated.

Carol Richards, another pension er, echoed similar sentiments and expressed her joy at receiving the cash grant.

“I feel happy. I feel so thankful because we didn’t have to get it, but we get it, we are grateful, and we are hoping this can go a far way in [meeting] whatever needs have to be met…. So, we do appreciate this ini tiative, and it is welcome.”

The $28,000 cash grant is an inte

Human Services and Social Security Minister, Dr Vindhya Persaud

gral part of the PPP/C Government’s mandate to create an improved quality of life for senior citizens.

The one-off grant, which will see some 65,000 Guyanese benefitting, will provide an additional $1.8 bil lion in disposable income to the na tion’s pensioners.

Pensioner Gloria Veronica La Rose

3 nabbed with illegal guns, ammo

Meanwhile, on Monday at around 23:15, a 32-year-old mechanic of Nurney Village, Berbice, was arrested in con nection with an unlicenced firearm and ammunition.

At the time of the discov ery, Police ranks in Berbice were responding to a report of threatening behaviour, and recovered a .32 Pistol and seven live rounds of am munition.

Police said when they ar rived on the scene, they ob

Police arrested two men and a woman on Monday after they were found with guns and ammunition during separate raids in Berbice, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), and in Georgetown.

In the first discovery, two persons, a male and a female were arrested by the Police after they were found to be in possession of an unlicenced firearm.

The woman is a 33-year-old vendor of Stevedore Housing Scheme, Georgetown, and the 45-year-old man is also a vendor of Queen Street, South Cummingsburg, Georgetown.

They were both arrested in a taxi.

It was reported that the taxi was flagged down by Police ranks on Mandela Avenue, Georgetown, and

the duo along with the driv er, were asked to exit the ve hicle. The vehicle was then searched but nothing of evi dential value was found.

A search was then con ducted on the occupants of the motor car and in a grey one-strap shoulder bag that the woman had in her pos session, was a silver and black handgun suspected to be a .32 Taurus pistol.

A magazine contain ing fifteen .32 live matching rounds was also found in the handbag.

“A female rank asked (name given) if she is a li cenced firearm holder and she said no. She claimed that she took the gun from (name given) and put it in her bag,” the Police report stated.

The duo was told of the offence committed, arrested, and then escorted to the East La Penitence Police Station.

served the 32-year-old man sitting aback a house on a dam.

The man was approached by the ranks who told him of the reason for their presence. During a search conducted on the man, the ranks found the gun and ammunition.

The suspect was arrest ed and escorted to the Whim Police Station along with the firearm and ammunition.

Further investigations are ongoing. (G9)

The gun and ammo that were found in Berbice

The gun and ammo that were found on Mandela Avenue, Georgetown

Management of health sector being changed – Dr Ramsammy

The management of the health sec tor in Guyana is be ing transformed. This is ac cording to Advisor to the Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy.

Ramsammy, who has served as Health Minister, was at the time speaking at the launch of a nine-month pharmacy assistant training programme in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) on Saturday. He said that in addition to changes being made to the way the health sector is managed, the way persons are trained and edu cated is also being changed.

“Not changing it by hav ing more people, not chang ing it by introducing new courses but our educators and trainers are adopting new habits and new ways of training. No longer will we depend on having a class

room and people coming into a classroom to attend class es. We are introducing on line training. For the first time the New Amsterdam Nursing School might de liver training to nurses in Region One online. We are removing the barrios to training,” he explained.

Speaking of training, the former Health Minister said the approach to training in the health sector has been by finding ways to limit peo ple’s ambition and desire, “For too long in our training programme our approach was to tell people that they cannot be part of the pro gramme.”

He noted that thousands of young persons would have applied to become nursing assistants, registered nurs es, pharmacy assistants and because of the eligibility re quirement, many of them

could not be part of training programmes despite their ambitions.

He pointed out that the Government of Guyana is taking a different approach as it relates to training.

“That approach is that we will make it possible for those who have the passion and desire and the ambition. No longer must we look at people and say, ‘you can’t be a part of this programme’.”

So far for the year, 9000 persons have been afforded the opportunity to be a part of the GOAL Scholarship programme.

Dr Ramsammy also not ed that this year the School of Medicine of the University of Guyana (UG) had set a limit to the number of candi dates they were going to ac cept into their medical pro gramme to forty.

“They said that is all that

they can accommodate. We told them to make it seven ty. So, for the first time the UG freshman class for med icine will be seventy-six. What it means is that we are not limiting the potential of

this sector,” Dr Ramsammy said.

In one year’s time, some three hundred persons are expected to graduate as pharmacy assistants in Guyana, Ramsammy noted, while adding that this year will see the largest num ber of persons joining the nursing assistant class in Guyana. The same will be for the registered nursing programme.

“For the first time in this country’s history, we launched a Masters the hos pital and health sector lead ership programme with York University last week. In nine months’ time, twen ty-five young Guyanese pro fessionals will graduate with their Master’s degree in hos pital administration from one of the leading hospital administration training uni versities in the world.”

Next week Dr Ramsammy said there will be another first in Guyana’s history in that the bi-med ical technician course will commence.

He noted that on many occasions X-ray machines are down for weeks and sur geries are postponed be cause the anaesthetic ma chine is down.

“We don’t have anybody in-house to repair our med ical equipment; we have to wait weeks and months for someone to come to our country.”

The bi-medical techni cians, he said, would be ca pable of fixing such equip ment.

“So that our hospitals would have in-house capaci ty for real-time maintenance of equipment and repair of equipment,” Ramsammy ex plained. (G4)

Advisor to the Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy

Public Service Credit Union cancels Special General Meeting over lack of quorum

Alack of quorum led to the dissolution of Monday’s Special General Meeting (SGM) of the Guyana Public Service Cooperative Credit Union (GPSCCU), which could have seen the election of a new executive. In a September 30 ruling, High Court Judge Navindra Singh had ordered the cred it union’s Committee of Management (CoM) chaired by Karen VansluytmanCorbin to hold the SGM no later than Monday, October 24. A notice for the SGM that was recently pub lished in a newspaper stat ed: “Pursuant to the Cooperatives Societies Act, Cap 88:01, Regulation 16, Notice is hereby given that a Special General Meeting of Members of the Guyana Public Service Co-operative Credit Union Ltd… will be held on Monday, October 24, 2022, in the auditori um of the new Central High School, Princes Street, Georgetown, Guyana at 8:00h.”

But with the majority of the credit union’s 23,000plus members absent for in-person and online atten dance via Zoom, the SGM was declared dissolved by Vansluytman-Corbin for lack of quorum at 09:10h in accordance with the Cooperative Societies Act.

A specific section of the Act stipulates that where a registered society con sists of more than 40 mem bers, one-fourth of the to tal number of the members shall form a quorum for the purposes of the Annual or a Special General Meeting.

“Madam Chair, today, we are at the Special General Meeting. According to our annual report for 2020, the [GPSCCU] has 23,033 members; one-fourth be ing 5758 members. At this time, Madam Chair, our on line registration amounts to 96... our in-person registra tion amounts to 53. The to tal registration is 149. Our

number for a quorum is 5758. So, Madam Chair, at this point, we do not have a quorum,” the credit union’s Secretary Gillian Pollard informed its chairperson at the New Central High School.

What’s next?

Following the dissolution of the SGM, VansluytmanCorbin told the media that “me and my directors will now engage the members informally. The formal part of the meeting has been dissolved. We will engage them informally so that we can bring them up to date on what has developed.”

Asked about the chanc es of another SGM being held, she said, “Whoever wishes to bring that, will have to deal with that. We have complied with an or der issued by the court and [nothing] was not stopping us from going ahead with this meeting.” The chair person assured that the in terest of the credit union’s members is of paramount importance. It was three of the GPSCCU’s mem bers—Mehalai McAlmont, Keith Marks and Natasha Durant-Clements—who had petitioned the court for the SGM to be held. But with these same members boycotting the meeting, and encouraging others to do the

same, Vansluytman-Corbin expressed, “I’m surprised that they are now asking members not to attend the meeting they demanded.” She maintained that all the procedures for the meeting, as directed by the court, have been followed.

Boycott

Last Sunday at a press conference, a 12-member team of candidates led by Trevor Benn announced that they would be boycot ting the SGM and urged other members and their supporters to follow suit be cause plans for the meeting, as they were, violated the court’s order. Even though

they were confident of a vic tory, “Team Trevor Benn” made it clear that they would not partake in the meeting because systems were not in place to guar antee a free, fair, and trans parent election. Attorneyat-Law Christopher Thompson, a candidate on the team, said that Justice Singh ordered that prepa ration for this year’s SGM mirror that of last year’s.

According to him, the following measures were in place for 2021’s meeting: a notice of the SGM was published in five newspa pers of national circulation and contained the objective and agenda of the meeting, nomination day for poten tial holders was advertised and members were allowed to nominate candidates of their choice, polling stations were established in each administrative region, sys tems for online voting and live streaming of the meet ing was done by a reputable company from Trinidad and Tobago, ROSE IT Services and voters’ education ma terials were also circulat ed. None of these, however, were in place for Monday’s meeting, he added.

“I want to encourage all the members and support ers of Team Benn to be pa tient, to avoid any confron tation, and stay away from

the meeting. We have been advised by our lawyers that it is in our best inter est not to participate in this process. We will be mak ing contact with you about the way forward. We will want the Judge’s instruc tions to be followed. As it is, what they are about to embark on, does not comply with the Judge’s order so even if they call it a Special General Meeting, even if they went ahead and do what they have to do, it will not meet the requirements of the Judge and we are con fident that Judge is not go ing to allow that to stand— whatever they do tomorrow [Monday],” Benn, who is running for Chairman, said on Sunday.

How is the CoM flouting the court order?

“The notice of the SGM was published in a single newspaper. The object and the agenda of that meeting were not included in the no tice. No nomination day for the potential office bearers was advertised or held and therefore members are go ing into a Special General Meeting without having a clue about who is vying for office,” Thompson explained at Sunday’s press confer ence.

GPSCCU’s CoM Chairperson, Karen Vansluytman-Corbin

Trevor Benn

crash BoI report

Suspend pilot for 24 months, implement Int’l Collision Regulations/Convention

ABoard of Inquiry (BoI) into the October 8 al lision (nautical term for the running of one ship upon another ship/object that is stationary) of a vessel into the Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB) which ren dered the ageing structure inoperable for several days and resulted in billions of dollars in damages, has rec ommended, among other things, that the vessel’s pilot be suspended for 24 months and the implementation of International Collision Regulations/Conventions to which Guyana is a signato ry.

“Pilot Kenneth Cort must be suspended for a period of not less than 24 months and only be allowed to return to

duty after a process of re certification, assessment of his competency to oper ate as a pilot by MARAD [Maritime Administration Department],” the BoI chaired by Captain Joseph Lewis outlined in its report.

A report on the Preliminary Inquiry into the allision which was con ducted from October 10-13, containing 21 recommenda tions, was released by the Government on Tuesday.

After the allision, Cort, who was immediately sus pended, was tested for drugs and alcohol use but those tests returned negative. He has over two decades of ex perience.

At the time, the ves sel was under the control

and command of Captain Freddy Mendoza, advised by Cort. Reports indicate that at around 2:00h on the day in question a Panamaregistered fuel vessel –MT Tradewind Passion–which transports fuel for the Guyana Oil Company (GuyOil), while heading south, crashed into the DHB, despite desperate calls to ‘drop anchor’ from the Shift Supervisor Andy Duke.

Duke, who was in one of the lookout towers, tried desperately to communicate with the pilot without suc cess. He eventually had to jump from the booth in an effort to save his own life. He fractured his leg in the pro cess and was hospitalised.

The other men who were

working at the bottom of the bridge, including Mechanical Maintenance Engineer Ahmad Khan, had to run for their lives. The final cost of damages to the DHB is esti mated at US$5 million and continuing, the report noted.

Given the psychological impact the allision has had on DHB’s staff who were on duty at the time, with some of them still feeling heavi ly traumatised, the BoI said that clinical interventions may become necessary.

The allision caused ex tensive damage to critical components of the bridge which left it inoperable, re sulting in thousands of pas sengers and tons of agricul tural produce stranded on both sides of the river.

While repairs were be ing carried out on the bridge which was reopened on October 10, water taxis which normally operated for 12 hours, were allowed to op

erate for 24 hours.

Findings

According to the BoI, the probable cause of the allision of the vessel with the DHB were as a result of the bridge teams’ exclusive reliance on the contract pilot’s incorrect navigational direction, and their total reliance on look ing at the bridge and disre garding alarms of the elec tronic system on the vessel as it approached the bridge.

The BoI found that the captain failed to assume command of the vessel in a timely manner and manoeu vre it safely into the channel and through the transit, that the passage plan provid ed adequate information for safe navigation of the bridge zone but was not properly ex ecuted and monitored, that at the time of the allision MARAD had no oversight of river pilots; hence the safety of vessel’s operations beyond

the southern limits were not guaranteed, that there was no clear path of communi cation on the vessel’s bridge as the inquiry found sever al persons were giving com mands at the same time, thereby contributing to cha os on the bridge and that the vessel was not equipped with a bow thruster which could have enhanced its ma noeuvrability, thereby steer ing it away from the DHB or alternatively reducing the impact of the allision.

The seven-member BoI further found that the con tract pilot was known to have an arrogant disposition and was oftentimes very dif ficult to communicate with.

“This is similarly reported as being the general disposition of the Master of Tradewind Passion, yet no reports nor warnings, disciplinary ac tions were taken against ei ther party.”

File photos: Damage to the Demerara Harbour Bridge and the vessel following the October 8 allision

TURN TO PAGE 24

Niece stumbles upon decomposing body of 75-year-old uncle

Thebody of a 75-yearold businessman of Toucan Drive, Mackenzie, Linden, was found in a decomposed state, Police said on Tuesday.

Dead is Vincent Harry.

Reports are that the man’s niece, Patsy Roberts, went to his residence on Monday at about 11:15h, and on arrival there, the woman said that she ob served Harry’s body lying motionlessly on his bed, in an advanced state of decom position.

Upon making the discov ery, the Police were sum moned to the scene, and the body was examined by the ranks.

The body is presently at the mortuary awaiting a post-mortem examination.

This is the second pen sioner’s body that has been found within a matter of two days.

On Saturday, the decom posing body of a pensioner was found in his Glasgow Housing Scheme, East Bank Berbice home.

That pensioner was iden tified as Henry Lewis, also 75.

Reports are that neigh bours, after not seeing Lewis around as usual and smell ing a foul scent emanating from his house, had decid

ed to summon the Police on Saturday.

When the cops arrived and checked the house, Lewis’s body was found on his bed in an advanced state of decomposition.

The body is presently at Bailey’s Funeral Parlour awaiting a post-mortem ex amination, and an investi gation has been launched. (G9)

PM visits Moco Moco Hydropower Plant

Public Service Credit Union...

“We have not heard of and there has not been es tablished any polling sta tions for voting outside of Region Four. Members in the other regions who are in terested in voting will have to make the trek all the way down to Georgetown in order to cast their vote in person. More important ly, 20,000-plus members of the credit union are being given a maximum of two hours to register to vote on

line virtually…from 07:00h to 09:00h… the credible IT service provider will not be conducting the online voting and live streaming,” added the attorney-at-law.

Besides the foregoing, Benn said that members were unaware of who is the Returning Officer, and who will be counting their votes. It is understood that the current CoM has applied for a variation of the court or der for the hiring of another

IT provider to which “Team Trevor Benn” has objected. That matter comes up for a hearing on November 7 be fore Justice Singh. Further, Benn informed that mem bers had no confidence in the online service provid er contracted by the CoM “since we have no track re cord of that company”. In light of this, the lawyer not ed, “There is total disobey ing of the court order”. Since none of these systems are

FROM

in place, the team believed that the SGM could not have been held on Monday and not until all the Judge’s or ders are complied with.

Contempt of court

During a press confer ence last week, Thompson said he “rather suspects” this is the first time the court has sanctioned an SGM, add ing, “I would want to believe that the current Committee of Management may be un aware of their liability for contempt of court proceed ings if this court order is not followed to the letter…”

According to him, this is not a regular members’ sanc

tioned meeting but rather a direct order of the court that has to be complied with. Non-compliance with the order of a court, he pointed out, will result in contempt of court proceedings against the CoM.

In the days leading up

to the SGM, the GPSCCU, via its Facebook page, post ed among other things, sev eral notices detailing the procedure for online/in-per son registration, participa tion and voting, as well as the Zoom link for the meet ing. (G1)

Prime Minister, Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips visited the Lethem Power Company Inc and the Moco Moco Hydropower Plant on Sunday, during the last day of his three-day visit to Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo)

Farmer remanded over $489M ganja bust

A37-year-old farmer, who was busted with $489 million worth of mar ijuana at DeVeldt Savannah in the Berbice River, was on Tuesday remanded to prison.

Richard “Richie” Burnett of Wiruni Village, Upper Berbice River, appeared before Magistrate Renita Singh at the New Amsterdam Magistrate’s Court. He denied the charge and was remanded to prison.

It was reported that a Joint Services operation on Friday last along the Berbice River in Region Six, resulted in the dis covery of the multimillion-dol lar ganja find, along with two shotguns at DeVeldt Savannah.

The narcotics eradica tion exercise was conducted by officers and ranks from the Guyana Police Force’s Marine Section and Narcotics Branch, along with ranks from the Guyana Defence Force’s Coast Guard.

During the exercise, one marijuana farm, two camps, and two drying areas were lo

Charged: Richard “Richie” Burnett

cated.

The farm measured about four acres, with about 20,000 cannabis plants measuring from six inches to two feet high.

Burnette, who is from Stewartville, West Coast Demerara, and Wiruni, Berbice

River, was found on the farm attending to the cannabis plants, and he was arrested.

When the ranks conduct ed a search on the first camp, a 12-gauge shotgun, loaded with three live cartridges, one Guyana passport, one identifi cation card, and one birth cer tificate in favour of the farmer who was arrested, were found.

Searches were also conduct ed on the second camp where another 12-gauge shotgun along with four live twelvegauge cartridges were found.

The ranks also searched the two drying areas and a quan tity of dry cannabis was found with an estimated weight of about 800 pounds.

The estimated weight of the cannabis plants is 400 pounds.

A gasoline plough, several farming tools, and a spray can were also found in the camp. The plants, camps and drying areas, farming tools, and spray cans were all destroyed by fire.

The case will continue on December 6. (G9)

T wo men were charged sepa rately for the offences of break and enter and larceny, and burglary.

Stephon Howard, 22, of Freeman Street East La Penitence was arrested on October 8 by Police. He was charged un der Section 233 of the Criminal Law Offence Act Chapter 8:01 on October 10 for the offence of bur glary.

The mat ter was called at the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court before Magistrate Alicia George where the charge was read to him, and he pleaded not guilty.

Bail was refused and the case will continue on November 30.

Meanwhile, Steffon Cole, 19, of Good Fortuin, West Bank Demerara, was arrested on October 12.

It is alleged that he broke into a dwelling house and stole a number of

articles.

The charge was laid under Section 229 (a) of the Criminal Law (Offences) Act Chapter 8:01.

The matter was called at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts before Magistrate Leron Daly, where Cole de nied the charge.

He was released on $120,000 bail and the case was adjourned to October 31. (G9)

Charged: Steffon Cole Remanded: Stephon Howard

2 slapped with B&E, burglary charges

Suspend pilot for 24 months...

The ship’s Bell Book re cords for October 8, the BoI noted, are ad variance to the VDR retrieved from the ship’s bridge. “The second officer indicated that a scrap was kept on board the ship during transit which is lat er transcribed into the Bell Book. This strongly sug gests that there was tam pering of the records,” the Board said.

Further, it concluded that, “The VDR hardware was also removed from the bridge and crew members initially refused to hand over information to the members of the Board. The Guyana Shipping Act provided for the ‘Collision Regulations’ to be followed. However, no such regulations have been promulgated.”

Recommendations

Among the recommenda tions made by the BoI were that with immediate effect, the River Pilotage Service should come under the ad

ministration of MARAD; and that pilots should be subjected to annual medical fitness tests including vision (colour blindness to be part of), hearing tests and peri odical psychological evalua tion of all transit pilots.

They advised that MARAD and the compe tent authority should enlist MARAD pilots who are certi fied for Berbice Bridge tran sit to be the pilots for the DHB Corporation (DHBC) transit until such time oth er MARAD pilots are certi fied for the DHBC transit.

“The DHBC should re view the arrangement and size of the cluster piles to provide for most robust pro tection of the retractor area of the bridge and consider adjusting the height of the pedestal of the lights so as to avoid background lights from interfering with mari ner’s line of sight of all tran sit lights,” another recom mendation read.

The BoI went on to rec

ommend the following: that night work in way of weld ing must not be done during ship transit; and that the DHB retraction sched ule, when prepared by the DHBC, should be approved by MARAD before publica tion.

According to other rec ommendations, more DHBC staff on duty in the retrac tion area should be equipped with radio communication devices and night shift su pervisor provided with night vision binoculars since the night shift supervisor found it very difficult to identify the vessel when he first ob served it moving west of the transit area.

As such, the BoI, there fore, recommended that the DHBC must work in collaboration with the Georgetown Lighthouse to identify errant vessels in a timely manner so that early warnings could be relayed.

Recommendation Eight stated that all single screw

convention size vessels transiting the DHB should be tug assisted.

According to recommen dation nine, “No vessels with steering, mechanical and adverse stability con dition deficiencies must be allowed to transit the DHB unless such deficiencies are verified by MARAD and con tingencies are in place to fa cilitate transit.”

The inquiry said that the DHBC and Guyana National Shipping Corporation were not equipped with any doc umented reports of pilots and ship masters conduct that were not in compliance with good practices for safe transit of the DHB although there were numerous ver bal reports of such and had such reports been report ed to relevant authorities for action, the pilot would not have been onboard the Tradewind Passion

Therefore, with immedi ate effect, the BoI advised that all shipping agencies, DHBC and MARAD must set policies and guidelines for all mariners transiting the DHB and all reports of breach of such policies must be documented, investigated and appropriate actions tak en. Included in the other rec ommendations given by the Board were that all vessels transiting the DHBC should be mandated to possess Protection and Indemnity (P&I) insurance policies; that international Collision Regulations/Convention to which Guyana is party must be implemented as a mat ter of priority, in light of im pending increase in marine traffic and that the acquisi tion and operationalisation of adequate and appropriate vessel monitoring systems, and maritime surveillance systems should be priori tised for all maritime zones, including internal waters.

The DHB, a 6074-footlong floating toll bridge, was commissioned on July 2, 1968. The structure, which was given a life span of 10 years, is 54 years old. (G1)

Ramsammy’s Ruminations

LGE 2023 could change the political landscape of Guyana forever

After being advised that GECOM would be in a state-ofreadiness for local government elections (LGE) by March 13, the Government of Guyana announced that the LGE would be conducted on March 13 itself. Last week, in a media interview, Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo opined that the Opposition parties –PNC, together with its poodle; the APNU and the AFC - are “mortally afraid” of the LGE. The PNC know that the LGE will decimate them, with them losing even more grounds in the local authorities and municipalities. The parties that they lead in APNU are not real political parties, being various one-man and one-woman entities that refer to themselves as political parties to give some legitimacy to a thing called APNU. The AFC, which had said before Valentine’s Day 2015 that they would be “dead meat” if they joined up with the PNC, did just that. Long before today, Khemraj Ramjattan’s prophecy had become reality. If the last LGE were not enough, the March 2, 2020 elections demonstrated to them that their destination is inevitable mass rejection.

With community outreaches already confirming mass rejection, the PNC, the AFC, and parties like the WPA have a real dilemma on their hands. The WPA have long lost the capacity to contest an election by themselves. A few hundred votes across the whole country today would be a mountain too high for them. The AFC know that the thrashing they would take in the LGE 2023 would be an additional mortal wound for them, merely confirming their “dead meat” status. But not contesting will mean they forever lose their political space in Guyana; it would be a formal funeral for the AFC. If they contest, the thrashing would be so massive that they would all end their political careers. It is a loselose conundrum for the AFC.

The PNC’s dilemma is even more dreadful. Should they contest, they will relegate themselves to small political party status, way down from the time they were considered a major political party. That the PPP will emerge even stronger in the PPP’s traditional stronghold is already conceded by everyone. But the PNC are likely to see themselves fighting in their own strongholds to fend off the PPP from making further inroads in places they traditionally were never competitive. Whether it is the traditional PNC stronghold of Buxton or Victoria, Linden or Dartmouth, Dem Amstel or Hopetown, New Amsterdam or Manchester, Mahdia or Georgetown, the PPP will win more votes in the LGE 2023 than they had won in these communities in any other election ever in Guyana’s history. The inevitable truth is starkly staring at the PNC at this moment. Contesting the elections would mean that the PPP would win beyond the 65% of the seats they won in the 2018 LGE. It would mean also that the just over 30% of the seats the PNC and AFC together were able to win in the 2018 LGE would be further eroded. The question is whether the PNC would be able to win in the high 20% range or the low 20% range. The prospects appear seriously dim.

Not contesting means the PNC losing control of Georgetown, Linden, Mahdia, various NDCs around the country they presently control. The hard question now for the PNC is which poison to choose – opt to be badly thrashed in the 2023 LGE that will relegate them into small party status, or give up control of the few municipalities and NDCs they now control. Their options are between bad and worse, between a rock and a hard place. This is already Aubrey Norton’s legacy. Everyday hard-core PNC members know that the mismanagement of the country between 2015 and 2020, the fiasco of the attempted steal of the March 2020 elections, and the disastrous leadership of Aubrey Norton have combined into bringing the PNC to the same place the AFC have found themselves – “dead meat” territory. Norton is leading the party away from their loyal supporters.

Hardcore members are leaving. Staunch supporters are finding a friendly and hospitable environment in President Irfaan Ali’s Government and the PPP. Wherever President Ali goes in the country, he is treated as a genuine rock star. Wherever Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo goes, he continues to be treated as a rock star, a reputation he had long before March 2020. This is the PNC’s and the AFC’s major dilemma. Having to compete with two rock star leaders in the PPP, the PNC and the AFC are dizzy, confused, and paralysed. Their confusion is compounded when they visit their strongholds and people merely ignore them.

It is why they are trying their best to find a way to stop the elections. The voters’ list is their target to stop the elections. The demand for a new house-to-house registration is the same strategy they used for the 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2011 elections. In 2007, they agreed to a continuous registration process for the Voters’ List. Now they disown the continuous registration that they pushed for in 2007. The unpalatable truth for the PNC and the AFC is there is no way out of their dilemma. It is a sheer lose-lose situation for them: Contest and be decimated, boycott and lose any control of NDCs and municipalities they still hold today. It is a deadly snake’s poison – artificially inject it or let the snake bite you. Either way, they face oblivion.

Dr Leslie Ramsammy

The views expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Guyana Times’ editorial policy and stance

Brazil's Bolsonaro considering minimum wage increase after leaked reports

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's Government is con sidering raising the min imum wage and civil servants' salaries above in flation, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes said on Tuesday, but he denied in tentions to end middle-class tax benefits.

The remarks, made at a virtual event on cooperativ ism, took place ahead of an October 30 presidential elec tion runoff vote in which right-wing Bolsonaro trails former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in polls.

Folha de S. Paulo news paper last week reported the Government was study ing whether to end a consti tutional obligation to adjust the minimum wage annually by at least the previous year's inflation, news that negative ly hit Bolsonaro's campaign.

On Tuesday, the O Estado de S. Paulo news paper reported on Tuesday that studies by the Ministry proposed abolishing the abil ity to deduct medical and ed

Belize Opposition Leader confident of defeating moves to remove him

ucation expenses from in come tax. Such a measure would mainly affect the mid dle class.

In both cases, Guedes ac knowledged the existence of

internal studies, but attribut ed their preparation and leakage to Lula's Workers Party (PT) members who work in the Ministry.

"On the eve of elections, they leak studies that were discarded," he said.

PT did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.

The Minister stressed that Bolsonaro's Administration wants to ap prove a tax reform that re duces the burden on the poorest and taxes profits and dividends.

Later on Tuesday, the Economy ministry said in a statement that supposed studies, analyses, essays and opinions produced by the technical areas of the Cabinet could not be "incorrectly tak en as proposals from the Ministry or the Minister". (Excerpt from Reuters)

T&T security guard jailed for texting death threat to resident

A26-year-old wom an was remanded in custody by a senior parish judge on Tuesday af ter allegedly sending death threats via messaging plat form WhatsApp to a resident of the apartment complex where she was stationed as a security guard.

The allegations are that Samantha Edwards Smith sent a series of WhatsApp messages that read, "You are going to die soon…your time has come," and, “We are going to teach you a les son.”

Edwards Smith was charged with malicious communication, to which she pleaded guilty at the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court.

Attempting to explain

her actions, Edwards Smith told Senior Parish Judge Lori-Ann Cole-Montague that she was not in a "good state of mind” at the time of the incident, because she was the only security guard working that day and she needed to use the restroom.

She said after she used the restroom, she was berat ed by the complainant who accused her of allowing an unauthorised person onto the compound.

Edwards Smith said she denied the allegation and attempted to explain why she was not at her station, but the complainant started to insult her by calling her stupid repeatedly. This, she said, angered her and caused her to send those messages. (Excerpt from Reuters)

UN could administer over US$3B in funds to aid Venezuela

Top officials from the US State and Treasury Departments are dis cussing proposals for a fund that could release over US$3 billion to provide humani tarian aid to Venezuelans through the United Nations, according to nine people close to the talks.

The proposals offer a potential way to revive stalled political dialogue in Venezuela, and come as more Venezuelans try to reach the United States, cre ating clashes among US pol iticians over immigration.

Opposition Leader Shyne Barrow says he is confident of withstanding efforts to oust him as leader of the main Opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) and is also pointing an accusing finger at some “forces” with in the ruling People’s United Party (PUP).

Last weekend, a group of disgruntled UDP members, including the party’s Vice Chairman, Alberto August, announced plans for a recall convention to discuss the re moval of Barrow, who be came leader in March this year at a leadership conven tion, amassing 256 votes as against 253 for his closest ri val, Tracy Panton.

August has presented documents containing the signatures of party members urging the recall convention and party officials said the petitions will be vetted, be fore a decision is announced on the way forward regard ing the fate of the conven tion.

“When this recall is trig gered, we are hoping that nothing gets nasty. The UDP has gone through enough and so we will be meeting privately with the delegates and seeking to campaign with them. That’s about it,” said August.

Asked to explain what has brought about the need to recall Barrow, the UDP Vice Chairman said “we , we don’t want to go down this road.

“Like I said, the UDP has been through too much. We have triggered the constitu tional requirements of the party in terms of the recall of the party leader and that is what we are doing. We are leaving it at that.”

Media reports said that Barrow, a former rapper, has come under much criti cism for his style of leader ship, but has brushed aside such criticisms pointing to the work he has done since coming to office six months ago. (Excerpt from Nation News)

Migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border are prompting US President Joe Biden's Administration to call for unfreezing Venezuelan funds held in foreign banks that would provide needed food and medicine, the sources told Reuters.

According to the National Survey of Living Conditions (ENCOVI), conducted by Venezuelan universities, 94 per cent of Venezuelans were living last year in pov erty, while over half expe rienced moderate to severe food insecurity.

Some analysts and rights groups have said US and Western sanctions have ex acerbated the country's deep economic crisis.

In 2019, the United States under former President Donald Trump and other Western countries imposed sanctions on Venezuela to block President Nicolás Maduro's Government from accessing oil revenue, freez ing billions of dollars in Venezuelan Governmentowned accounts overseas. (Excerpt from Reuters)

Brazilian President and candidate for re-election Jair Bolsonaro attends an election, campaign event at a settlement of rural workers in Brasilia, Brazil, October 24, 2022 (Reuters/Adriano Machado)

Venezuelan migrants queue outside of the National Migration Institute (INM) to process a permit to stay in Mexico for 180 days, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, October 24, 2022 (Reuters/Jose Luis Gonzalez)

Belizean Opposition Leader Shyne Barrow

Around the World

New PM Rishi Sunak pledges to lead Britain out of economic crisis

OIL

Rishi

Sunak became Britain's third Prime Minister in two months on Tuesday and pledged to lead the country out of a profound econom ic crisis and rebuild trust in politics.

Sunak quickly reap pointed Jeremy Hunt as his Finance Minister in a move designed to calm markets that had balked at his pre decessor's debt-fuelled eco nomic plans.

The former hedge fund boss said he would unite the country and was expected to name a Cabinet drawn from all wings of the party to end infighting and abrupt policy changes that have horrified investors and alarmed inter national allies.

Speaking outside his of

ficial Downing Street res idence, Sunak praised the ambition of his predecessor Liz Truss to reignite eco nomic growth but acknowl edged mistakes had been

made.

Sunak said difficult deci sions lay ahead as he looks to cut public spending.

Hunt, who Truss appoint ed to calm markets roiled

by her dash for growth, has been preparing a new bud get alongside borrowing and growth forecasts due out on Monday, and repeated his warning on Tuesday that "it is going to be tough".

The new Prime Minister also restored Dominic Raab to the post of Deputy Prime Minister, a role he lost in Truss's 44 days in of fice, but reappointed James Cleverly as Foreign Minister and Ben Wallace at Defence.

Penny Mordaunt, who ended her bid to win a lead ership contest against Sunak on Monday, also re tained her position as lead er of the House of Commons, a role that organises the Government's business in the Lower House of Parliament. (Excerpt from Reuters)

Ukraine war refugees asked not to return this winter

Ukrainian refugees should not return until spring to help ease pressure on the en ergy system after a wave of Russian attacks, the Government said.

"The networks will not cope," said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. "You see what Russia is do ing."

"We need to survive the winter," she added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian air strikes had de stroyed more than a third of the country's energy sector.

Vereshchuk said that although she would like Ukrainians to return in the spring, it was important to refrain from returning for now because "the situation will only get worse".

"If it is possible, stay abroad for the time being," she added.

Ukraine's economy has suffered badly since the war began. Zelensky has called on the world for help urgent ly to cover an expected bud get deficit of US$38 billion (£33 billion).

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Ukraine would need US$3 billion every month to sur vive the next year - and US$5 billion if Moscow's bombardment intensified.

The Deputy Mayor of the western city of Lviv, Serhiy Kiral, told the BBC on Saturday that Russia's strategy was to damage crit ical infrastructure before the winter, and bring the war to areas beyond the front line.

Russia began attacking

Thousands mourn Palestinians killed by Israel in Nablus

Thousands of peo ple have turned out for the funeral pro cession of five Palestinian men killed by Israeli forces during a raid in Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank.

Residents and journal ists confirmed to Al Jazeera that two of the men – Hamdi Sharaf, 30, and Ali Antar, 26 – were unarmed barbers who were on their way home from work when they were shot dead on the street by Israeli special forces.

The other three men –Hamdi Qayyem, 35; Wadee al-Hawah, 31; and Mish’al Baghdadi, 27 – belonged to the Lions’ Den armed resis tance group, based in the Old City of Nablus, which has emerged as a centre of resistance against the Israeli occupation.

A sixth man, Qusai alTamimi, was killed later on Tuesday morning in ensu ing confrontations with the

Israeli army in the village of Nabi Saleh on the west ern outskirts of Ramallah in the central West Bank. A Health Ministry spokesper son confirmed to Al Jazeera that Tamimi was 19.

“There is a state of sad ness in Nablus, a very dif ficult atmosphere,” Bakr Abdelhaq, a local journal ist for Palestine TV, told Al Jazeera. “The fighters, even though they were young, were respected and had large popular regard.”

Millions of Palestinians across the West Bank ob served a general strike as they mourned the six killed. Schools and stores closed early in all cities.

The West Bank towns of Nablus and Jenin have been the target of near-daily raids, arrests and killings by Israeli forces over the past year due to the growing organi sation of small armed resis tance groups in the two cit ies. (Excerpt from Al Jazeera)

Ukraine's energy networks in retaliation for an attack on Russia's rail and road bridge to Crimea on October 8.

Areas targeted by the latest attacks include the Cherkasy region, south-east of the capital Kyiv, and the city of Khmelnytskyi, fur

ther west.

Since the Russian in vasion of Ukraine in February, the UN's refugee agency has recorded about 7.7 million refugees from Ukraine across Europe, in cluding Russia, out of a pop ulation of about 44 million. (Excerpt from BBC News)

Oil prices rise on weaker dollar, supply worries

Oilprices edged higher on Tuesday, rebounding from an early fall of more than US$1 a barrel, on a lift from a weaker dollar and supply concerns highlighted by Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister.

Brent crude futures rose 26 cents to settle at US$93.52 per barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose by 74 cents to US$85.32.

Both benchmarks rose and fell by US$1 during the session.

The US dollar index fell during afternoon trade, making greenback-denominated oil less expensive for other currency holders and helping to push prices higher.

Further support came from comments by Saudi Arabia's Energy Mister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman that energy stockpiles were being used as a mechanism to manipulate markets.

"It is my duty to make clear that losing emergency stocks may be painful in the months to come," he told the Future Initiative Investment (FII) conference in Riyadh.

Meanwhile, tightening markets for liquefied natural gas (LNG) worldwide and supply cuts by major oil producers have put the world in the middle of "the first truly global energy crisis," Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said.

The comments out of Riyadh and from the IEA are "a reminder that when it comes to the energy crisis, it's far from over," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures Group. "There are still concerns the market is undersupplied."

Uncertain economic activity in the United States and China, the world's two biggest oil consumers, limited oil's gains, however.

On Monday, Government data showed China's crude oil imports in September were 2 per cent lower than a year earlier, while business activity contracted in the euro zone, Britain and the United States in October.

Goldman Sachs Chief Executive David Solomon said that he believes a US recession is "most likely," while a recession could be occurring in Europe.

The US Federal Reserve could raise its benchmark overnight interest rate beyond the 4.50 per cent-4.75 per cent range if it does not see real changes in behaviour, he said at the FII conference.

US crude stocks rose by about 4.5 million barrels for the week ended Oct 21, according to market sources citing American Petroleum Institute figures on Tuesday. Gasoline inventories fell by about 2.3 million barrels, while distillate stocks rose by about 600,000 barrels.

US Government data on crude stockpiles is due today. (Reuters)

Midterm elections outlook darkens for Biden's White House

The White House has lowered its earlier op timism about the mid term elections and is now worried that Democrats could lose control of both chambers of Congress, Administration officials say.

Recent polls have shown Democrats who once had comfortable leads in some Senate races on a knife's edge, and Senate elections that were considered tossups between the two parties now leaning Republican as high inflation persists.

The House of Representatives, which Biden and some allies and advisers predicted Democrats could hold ear lier this year, is decisively swinging for Republicans,

polling analysts including FiveThirtyEight say.

Losing control of one or both houses of Congress will profoundly shape the next two years of Joe Biden's pres idency, with Republicans ex pected to block legislation on family leave, abortion, po licing and other Biden pri orities while pushing new laws to curb immigration and spending, using the debt ceiling as leverage.

Republicans are also ex pected to launch investi gations into Democratic spending and the business dealings and private life of the President's son Hunter. Some lawmakers say they hope to impeach Biden, his Cabinet members or Vice President Kamala Harris.

One person famil iar with the thinking in side the White House said Democratic chances of keep ing control of the Senate were seen as 50-50.

Biden predicted in May that his fellow Democrats would make gains in both the House and Senate, but he acknowl

edged last week that the race has tightened.

The White House, while realistic, has stuck publicly to that message of hope.

Former and current ad visers say the White House is preparing for any obstruc tion or probes that could be coming. (Excerpt from Reuters)

King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, London, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new Government

There are 7.7 million refugees from Ukraine across Europe (including Russia), according to the UN's refugee agency

US President Joe Biden holds a formal news conference in the East Room of the White House, in Washington, DC, US, January 19, 2022

DAILY

HOROSCOPES

Use your skills to help make a differ ence and set a precedent for onlookers to take note and do their part. Let your ac tions speak for you; positive change will unfold.

DILBERT

SUDOKU

(March 21-April 19)

Emotions will be close to the surface. Don’t let changes made by others dis rupt your plans. Focus on what matters by taking care of your responsibilities. If you love someone, let them know it.

(April 20-May 20)

(May 21-June 20)

A steady pace forward will get your desired results. Refuse to let someone’s uncertainty get in the way. Take pride in what you do, and head in a rewarding di rection. You can make a difference.

Stretch your mind and push yourself physically; you will do something spec tacular. Refuse to let anyone stifle your dreams or force you to the back of the room. Stand up and do your thing

(June 21-July 22)

Use your intelligence to overcome any dilemma you encounter. Don’t ex pect things to run smoothly at home. A power struggle will catch you off guard if you aren’t quick to respond.

(July 23-Aug. 22)

A shift is apparent. Head down the path of least resistance and see where it leads. Someone you meet along the way will impact how you think. A lifestyle change will encourage you to branch out.

(Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

Learning something new or doing something novel will be enlightening. The people you connect with will give you incentive to follow through with your plans. Impulsive behavior could cost you.

(Sept. 23-Oct. 23)

Get moving. You’ll feel a lot better once you put things behind you. Stop fretting over what to do next. Use your intuition to make the necessary changes and get where you want to go.

(Oct. 24-Nov. 22) (Nov. 23-Dec. 21)

You can dream all you want, but you’ll have to face reality at some point. Clear up what isn’t working for you in stead of sidestepping deteriorating situ ations. Speak the truth.

Change is within reach. Bolster your confidence and share your thoughts and plans. Spend time making your home more suited to your needs. Keep your goals simple and your life meaningful.

(Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

Slow down, take time to look over what’s happening around you and choose your words carefully. Get your facts straight; if you try to wing it, you’ll fall short and criticism will follow.

(Jan. 20-Feb. 19)

Look for a unique way to help some one you love. A gift or offering will make a difference to someone in need. If you stick to sensible, simple solutions, you’ll set an excellent example.

(Feb. 20-March 20)

Blitz from Marcus Stoinis gives Australia NRR-lifting win over Sri Lanka

Aspectacular display in which Marcus Stoinis thumped the daylights out of the cricket ball turned a tense game into a cake walk, and ensured Australia defeat Sri Lanka in play in the Super 12 stage of the ICC T20I World Cup tourna ment.

Australia needed 69 off 46 balls when Stoinis walked in, and there was poten tial for this game to become a low-scoring thriller. But then the man muscled six sixes and four fours in an 18-ball innings in which he basically bullied every ball he faced. He hit Australia’s

fastest T20I half century, off 17 deliveries, and ended up making 59 not out at a strike rate of 328.

Thanks most ly to him - and a little to Glenn Maxwell, who hit 23 off 12 - Australia not only claimed their first victory of the Super 12, but also reversed some of the

damage to their net run rate that New Zealand had in flicted in their first match. They are now back up to -1.555, with some of the tra ditionally weaker teams still to be played.

The Stoinis blitz

It happened so quick ly when the man hit three fours off seamers from his first six balls, though two of these were fortunate edg es. But then the sixes began to rain down off the spin ners, and you knew the man meant business. He mon stered Wanindu Hasaranga

twice over the general cow corner region, but perhaps even more impressively, he hit Maheesh Theekshana for three sixes, crashing him over long on, over extra cover, then down the ground, to finish.

Stoinis made sure that Australia hit 20 off that over, the 16th of the innings. This came at a time when Theekshana had complet ed just three runs off his two previous overs.

Stoinis hit one more six, off the pace of Kumara this time. But that was after he’d set an Australian record for the fastest fifty. This was a

game-breaking performance, after he’d bowled two half-de cent overs for 17 runs.

Taken apart Australia clearly had a plan to go after Hasaranga. In an era in which they were more abrasive, the Aussies might have called this “cutting off the head of the snake”, meaning taking down the opposition’s best.

Between Marsh, Maxwell, and Stoinis, Hasaranga was clattered for five sixes and two fours, and was blasted for 53 runs off three overs.

bounce on this pitch hard to contend with. Pathum Nissanka produced a mod est innings - 40 off 45 - that featured plenty of plays and misses, and balls that hit the high part of his bat.

None of the other top order batters really seemed to have had a measure of the surface and Australia’s pace, aside from Charith Asalanka, who came back to form with a 38 not out off 25 balls. Chamika Karunaratne’s 14 not-out off seven balls helped too.

Terrible outing

Jadon Campbell is the latest junior cricketer to benefit from this joint ini tiative: Project “Cricket gear for young & promising cricket ers in Guyana” - an initiative jointly owned by Kishan Das of the USA and Anil Beharry, Special Technocrat with re sponsibility for Governance, Marketing and Finance at the Guyana Cricket Board.

Jadon is a product of the Demerara Cricket Club. He has represented Guyana at the under-15 and under-17 levels, and is a compact righthander who looks more like former West Indies opener Stuart Williams when bat ting. Jadon, who attends St Rose’s High School, has been recipient of one cricket bat.

“I want to be the best (ver sion) of myself, and keep im proving on my game”, Jadon, who also keeps wicket, said at a simple ceremony held recently at the GCC Ground in Bourda. In response, Anil Beharry detailed that the ini tiative is more than happy to assist young and talented cricketers, with the hope that the fortunes of the West Indies team could be turned around quickly.

Total cricket-related items collected by the initiative so far are: $270,000 in cash, two trophies, twelve cricket boots, nineteen pairs of batting pads, twenty-five bats, fifteen pairs

of batting gloves, nineteen thigh pads, one pair of wicket keeping pads, two arm guards, six cricket bags and three hel mets.

In addition to the above, $600,000 worth in gear was donated by Sheik Mohamed, former national wicketkeeper /batsman.

Jadon Campbell receives a bat discipline and education are important characteristics of the recipients. Talent-spotting is being done across the coun try, and club leaders also as sist to identify same.

To date, forty-one young players from all three counties of Guyana have already bene fitted from the receipt of three junior gear bags, two trophies, two arm guards, sixteen bats, one box, three helmets, twelve pairs of cricket shoes, ten pairs of batting pads, one bat rubber and twelve pairs of batting gloves. In addition, two clubs in the Pomeroon area have benefitted from two used bats. Pomeroon, Leguan and Wakenaam Cricket Committees and the Cotton Tree Die Hard committee have also each received one box of red cricket balls, while the RHCCCC has received two such boxes besides fifteen white cricket shirts, one pair of junior batting pads, one pair of wicket-keeping gloves and a set of stumps and bails.

The Essequibo Cricket Board and the Town of Lethem have also received do nations from this initiative.

Cricket-related items, used or new, are distributed free of cost to young and promising cricketers in Guyana. Skills,

Progressive and well managed clubs also bene fit from the initiative. We take this opportunity to thank Javed and Imran of West Indian Sports Complex, Option Group of USA, Hilbert Foster, Bish Panday of P and P Insurance Brokers, Sean Devers, Trevis Simon, Årïêl J. Tïlkú, Aaron Beharry, Leanna Bachan and Imran Saccoor, Devon Ramnauth, Teddy Singh, Romash Munna, Ravi Etwaroo, Kelvin Brijlall, Ravin Harkishun, Surendra

Harkishun, Allan Mangru, Dennis Mangru, Vishal Mahabir, Sherman Austin, Huburn Evans, Rajendra Sadeo, Ramesh Sunich of Trophy Stall, Sheik Mohamed of Star Sports Awards and Trophies and Ajay Gainda of Cricket Equipment Guyana, Gajanand Singh, Peter Ramkissoon, Rabindranath Saywack, Roshan Gaffoor, Ameer Rahaman, Chin Singh, Denesh Chandrapaul, Dr Cecil Beharry, Davo Naraine of UK and Latch Mohabir and family.

Anyone interested in con tributing to this initiative can contact Anil Beharry on 6236875 or Kishan Das on 1-718664-0896.

Hasaranga’s game is partly built on not being hit table on slower, lower tracks, but he doesn’t have a lot of experience on the quicker, bouncier ones such as are in Perth. You would usually ex pect him to hit back at an as sault; he didn’t have answers today.

Sri Lanka didn’t nail their batting either, Sri Lanka’s top order found the extra

While Nissanka is just making his way, Australia captain Finch produced an even worse innings: he strug gled to 31 off 42, sometimes putting his team’s cause at risk. He was not out at the end alongside Stoinis, but he put real pressure on his fel low batters, and was visibly frustrated during parts of this innings. (Adapted from ESPNCricinfo)

Starc 4-0-23-1 Ashton Agar 4-0-25-1 Marcus Stoinis 2-0-17-0 Mitchell Marsh 1-0-14-0 Glenn Maxwell 1-0-5-1 Australia (T: 158 runs from 20 ovs)

BATTING R B David Warner c Shanaka b Theekshana 11 10 Aaron Finch (c) not out 31 42 Mitchell Marsh c Rajapaksa b DM de Silva 18 17 Glenn Maxwell c sub (KNA Bandara)

b Karunaratne 23 12 Marcus Stoinis not out 59 18 Extras(b 4, lb 2, w 10) 16

TOTAL 16.3 Ov

(RR: 9.57) 158/3

Did not bat: Tim David, Matthew Wade †, Ashton Agar, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood Fall of wickets: 1-26 (David Warner, 4.1 ov), 2-60 (Mitchell Marsh, 8.3 ov), 3-89 (Glenn Maxwell, 12.2 ov)

4-106 (Bhanuka Rajapaksa, 14.5

5-111 (Dasun Shanaka, 15.6 ov), 6-120 (Wanindu Hasaranga

17.3

BOWLING O-M-R-W Josh Hazlewood 4-0-26-1 Pat Cummins 4-0-36-1

BOWLING O-M-R-W Binura Fernando 0.5-0-5-0 Dhananjaya de Silva 2.1-0-18-1

Lahiru Kumara 3.3-0-22-0

Chamika Karunaratne 3-0-21-1 Maheesh Theekshana 3-0-23-1 Wanindu Hasaranga de Silva 3-0-53-0

Dasun Shanaka 1-0-10-0

Jadon Campbell is presented with his gear

Charith Asalanka got Sri Lanka to a defendable total

Marcus Stoinis whacked a half-century off 17 balls

Australia needed a win after stumbling in their first game

Project “Cricket gear for young & promising cricketers in Guyana”…

Pollard bemoans 'sad day' for WI Cricket

…says players not at fault for exit

Kieron Pollard has de scribed West Indies' failure to make it to the Super 12s of the 2022 T20 World Cup as a "sad day" for Caribbean Cricket.

The former captain, who retired in April 2022, has said he was both "surprised" and disappointed at West Indies' exit, and agreed that Head Coach Phil Simmons would now come under pressure to keep his job.

Pollard has, however, stressed that the blame has to be shared by all stakeholders, and not be shouldered by any one individual.

"A bit surprised, to be hon est, that (West Indies) weren't able to get over the line against the other teams," he told i95.5fm, a Trinidad-based radio station, last weekend. "But, again, that speaks vol umes of where our cricket is at the moment. I feel it. I feel it for the guys, because they are the ones that are going to get the bashing, and it's not all their fault."

Having already failed to secure direct entry into the Super 12s (permitted to the top-eight-ranked teams at a predetermined cut-off date, as well as the hosts Australia), Nicholas Pooran's team strug gled badly in the first round, notching a solitary win, against Zimbabwe, while los ing to Scotland and Ireland, which forced them out of the tournament.

The shocking exit invit ed derision both at home and abroad. Cricket West Indies President Ricky Skerritt is sued a scathing statement, saying a "post-mortem" would be carried out immediately, while former Australia cap tain Ricky Ponting described the team's performances as a "disgrace."

Pollard, though, was not interested in bashing Pooran and his men. Instead, he high lighted a wider point, espe cially on selections, which he said played a part in their dis mal showing at the 2021 T20 World Cup as well, when he was the captain. West Indies

crashed out of that competi tion with a solitary win along side four defeats.

"We have a young captain, we have young players, guys who would have played only a handful of (matches in) T20 cricket, and now they are in the World Cup," Pollard said. "And when I look back at it, I sit back and I have a smile on my face, because I remember some of the things that (were) said last year around this time when some individuals weren't selected.

“I just had to remind these people that there was a World Cup we were going to (in 2021) and another bilateral series (in

John claims victory in Flying Stars CC 50th Anniversary Race

New Zealand). And now some of the individuals get the op portunity to play in the World Cup, and again look what has happened. It's no fault of theirs, but when we tried to sort of protect them and let people under stand (in 2021) they were not ready for that, we were lambast ed. There were a lot of things that were said that were very de rogatory at times. It's a sad day for West Indies Cricket and (for) all of us."

Just like in last year's World

guys around to help the young sters, to help the youth."

Haynes had pointed out that form in the 2022 CPL would play a key role in selection to the World Cup squad, but Pollard has said that while that was fine, other parameters needed to be considered.

"…not just based on form, it's a holistic sort of approach on what you bring in all dif ferent facets and dimensions of the team. A guy might not be in form, but the experience and the knowledge that he can bring and share and help someone can be valuable as well. But, again, we as a peo ple, we go with what we see in front of us; so, the last thing we would have seen maybe would have been the CPL be fore the team was selected, and (we conclude that) whoev er did well in two games, they

of months to #7. Why?", he asked.

Coming back to the pres ent, Pollard expects Coach Simmons to face some heat, but believes that letting him go wouldn't solve any prob lem.

"I won't get into all of that right here and now. The easi est thing for us to say and to do [is]: 'Fire coach! Fire the captain! Change the players! And that's going to be a differ ence.' That's not going to hap pen," he said.

A better way, Pollard stressed, would be to have all stakeholders have an hon est discussion to find a way forward to help West Indies Cricket.

Mr.

Consistent, Jamual John, has proven himself on the circuit once again, emerging in the top spot of the Open category of the Flying Stars Cycle Club’s 50th Anniversary Race.

This race was held in the inner-circuit of the National Park in Georgetown on Monday, October 24th, 2022, and John led the pack for most of the way, and ral lied through the unfortu nate tumble that several of his colleagues took on the as phalt circuit to take gold.

Seasoned campaigners Kemuel Moses and Marlon Williams crossed the line in respective second and third in the Open category; while Briton John, Andre Greene, Christopher Griffith, Paul De Nobrega and Curtis Dey were among those riders who suffered a fall.

While Sherwin Sampson

won the Junior category, Ajani Cutting was first in the Juvenile category, while the Masters Under-50 category witnessed Marlon Williams being victorious, and Talim Shaw doing likewise in the Masters Over-50 category.

Meanwhile, Denise Jeffrey championed the fe

male category. Following are the full results of the Flying Stars Cycling Club’s 50th Anniversary Race:Open category

1. Jamual John 2. Kemuel Moses

3. Marlon Williams

4. Walter Grant-Stuart 5. Sherwin Sampson

Juniors’ category

1. Sherwin Sampson

2. Alexander Leung

Juveniles category

1. Ajani Cutting

2. Nivonne Wilson

Kweli Wilson Masters U50

1. Marlon Williams

2. Walter Grant-Stuart

Kwame Ridley Masters O50

1. Talim Shaw

2. Bruce Camacho

Female category

1. Denise Jefferey

Cup, West Indies' selections this year became a big talking point. The Desmond Haynesled panel named a 15-mem ber squad that did not fea ture the two best T20 players in the Caribbean: Andre Russell and Sunil Narine. At the time, Haynes ex plained this decision by say ing Russell was not perform ing the way they would like, and Narine appeared disin terested in playing for West Indies. The CWI then dropped Shimron Hetmyer for failing to get on a rescheduled flight to Australia.

Only two players, Pooran and Evin Lewis, were part of the original 15-member squad in both 2021 and 2022. Along with Rovman Powell, they were the only three with at least 50 T20Is under their belts. Jason Holder has 49, and is a former captain and a World Cup winner.

After that, West Indies were struggling for experi enced campaigners. This was in contrast to the 2021 squad, which featured Pollard, Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Russell, and Lendl Simmons.

"Experience means a lot, and we take that for grant ed in the Caribbean," Pollard said. "(There) has been a no tion over the years (that) as soon as you reach a certain age you should be done away with. And when you have guys in the team, they want you to get out of the team; or when the guys are not there, they understand the impor tance of the guys. And this is another situation of not hav ing (a) couple of experienced

should be selected. And that's not how it goes," he opined.

The onset of "decline”

According to Pollard, West Indies' "decline" in T20 crick et is not a recent occurrence; it began in 2016, immediate ly after they became the first team to win two T20 World Cups. Since that tournament six years ago, West Indies have won 33 out of the 99 T20Is they have played, and have suffered 58 defeats.

During Pollard's tenure as T20I captain, West Indies won 13 out of 39 matches, and suf fered 21 losses. Under Pooran, who replaced Pollard this May, West Indies have won eight out of 23 matches, and have suffered 14 defeats.

Pollard has blamed the "culture" for failing to have former cricketers as part of the system to help it grow.

"We dominated in the 80s, which was all well and good, (but) what did we do for the future? We went downhill. We won our last World Cup in 2012 and 2016. The decline of our T20 team started in 2016. The then captain, Daren Sammy, played his last game in 2016. All the guys who played and won that World Cup did not play cricket together for how many years af ter that. That is where the decline of our T20 cricket started,” he reasoned.

“Since then, we moved from the #1 in a space

"All stakeholders need to come together. When I say ‘all’, I mean ‘everybody’, and sit down and decide where we want to take cricket in the Caribbean. We need to im prove our facilities; we need to have academies; we need to put things in place for the younger ones, so they can be the ones to do West Indies proud. And if we don't do that and we just continue to fight, politicise, be insular, then we are going nowhere," he pre dicted.

Jamual John leading the pack

Jamual John receiving his winnings

Pollard believes West Indies have gone "downhill" ever since their triumph in the 2016 T20 World Cup

West Indies bowed out of the 2022 T20I World Cup with just a solitary win in the first round

Kieron Pollard

Keevin Allicock’s verbal exchange with Guyana Boxing Association…

Squash champion Nicolette Fernandes asks: Is this perhaps why Guyanese athletes are fearful of speaking out?

There is little more exhilarating for an athlete than to com pete with the name of your country emblazoned on your clothing. It can some times give you extraordi nary powers and will to give more of yourself, so much so that throughout my professional career I printed “Guyana” on all my competitive clothes, wheth er I was playing for my country or not.

There is also an unspo ken expectation that while representing our country, we athletes must adhere to standards of behaviour that will reflect pride in and respect for our nation. If we fall short, which we will as we are, in the end, as mortal as everyone else, it is up to our relevant gov erning sporting bodies to hold us accountable.

The question that is troubling me lately is this: Who holds the individuals of our governing sporting bodies to account ?

A frightening incident occurred whilst a team of Guyanese athletes, of which I was part, was rep resenting our nation at the South American Games. We had all spent the eve ning together, and just af ter we had all retired to our rooms for the night, there was a frantic knocking on our doors. We were told

that something was wrong with one of the boxers, Keevin Allicock. As the ma jority of the athletes were staying on the same floor, we were there to offer as sistance in no time.

Unfortunately, the only assistance we could offer was to seek help from the hotel’s front desk. Keevin was clutching his chest, had difficulty breathing, and was sometimes unre sponsive. We were para lyzed by fear and helpless

at the mercy of kind individ uals like the Panamanian Chef-de-mission and their doctor as we waited for the ambulance.

Meanwhile his condi tion worsened.

Days before, we all wit nessed, with awe and ad miration, what Keevin, Colin Lewis and Desmond Amsterdam had to en dure before even entering the boxing ring to make their weight categories. We brimmed with pride when

selves and, ultimately, for Guyana. We shared Colin’s and Desmond’s disappoint ment at their losses, and we were heartbroken as we watched a devastated Keevin miss his chance to compete in the semi-finals because he failed to meet his weight requirement.

This disappointment was completely eclipsed by the anguish we saw Keevin in a mere day or two lat er. Keevin in fact recov ered after being taken to a Paraguayan hospital via ambulance, where he was later diagnosed with rhab domyolysis. This could have been fatal, and could certainly have had serious lasting consequences.

family, and the team had been through. It made no mention of arrang ing for fur ther medi cal checks to be carried out to ensure that he had suffered no lasting dam age. Nor did it congratulate him on securing one of the three medals earned by Guyana in these Games. Instead, it rebuked him for daring to make a complaint

ness. Keevin and the entire Guyanese delegation were

they then went into the ring and medalled for them

MVP Sports’ futsal tournament continues tonight with group stage

The Petra-organised MVP Sports’ futsal tournament will re sume being played tonight at the National Gymnasium on Mandela Avenue with the group stage being un folded.

Twelve of the 24 teams that started the competition have been knocked out, and the remaining 12 will be di vided into three groups of four teams.

The most re cent omissions have been Melanie, Crane, Swag Entertainment, Albouystown, Vryheid’s Lust and Channel 9. Melanie was last Saturday ousted from the competi tion following a 2-7 loss to Stabroek Ballers. Only Marlon Forrester (12th) and Malachi Grannum (11th) could muster a reply for Melanie; while Henery Sampson (10th), Shemar Welch (10th, 17th), Dorwin George (2nd) and DaCosta Aboagye (6th, 16th, 18th) have etched their names on the scoresheet for Stabroek Ballers.

In the game following the Melanie demise, Future Stars thumped Crane 103. Both Ronaldo Dover (6th, 7th, 20th) and Tyrese Dennis (2nd, 8th 16th) netted hattricks, while Jamal Cozier (8th, 9th), Keron Solomon (18th) and Raushan Ritch (12th) com pleted Future Stars’ tally.

For Crane, Andres Marcano (2nd, 20th) scored a double, and Dexter Marshall (4th) added the other goal.

Swag Entertainment tried their best to match strides with Vengy FC, but came up 3 goals short in their 6-3 affair. Edgardo Herriea (21st, 23rd, 25th), Dexaniel Gomez (14th, 26th) and an own goal ac counted for Vengy’s 6; while Omar Bewley (13th), Kosi Gentle (27th) and Andre Meyers (22nd) scored for Swag.

Campbelville narrowly defeated Albouystown, 5-4. Albouystown sharpshoot ers Andrew Murray Jr (7th, 13th) Sheldon Forde (2nd) and Marlon Nedd (10th) found the back of the net, but the Campbelville snip er Martin Bethel went on a scoring frenzy in the 4th, 5th, 11th, 15th and 19th minutes.

Back Circle eased past Vryheid’s Lust 3-0 to book their spot in the group stage. Jamaine Beckles (13th), Stephan Reynolds (6th), and David George (8th) each netted one goal for the win.

And the Sparta Boss win was by walkover.

While the futsal teams battle within their respec tive groups for the next few playing days, the two top teams from each group, along with the two best third-place teams, will car

ry on in the competition.

The MVP Sports’ tour nament is also supported by ANSA McAL through their Magnum and Lucozade brands, and by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport. The winners of this tourna ment would walk away with a grand prize of $500,000.

The Groups are as follows: Group A

Sparta, Bent Street, Stabroek Ballers, BV

Group B Goal Is Money, Future Stars, Tiger Bay, Mocha Family Group C Back Circle, Vengy FC, Sophia, Campbellville

Tonight’s fixtures: 20:30 hrs : Vengy FC vs Campbellville

21:15 hrs: Future Stars vs Mocha Family

22:00 hrs: Goal Is Money vs Tiger Bay 22:45 hrs: Back Circle vs Sophia

23:30 hrs: Sparta vs BV

00:15 hrs: Bent Street vs Stabroek Ballers

We are all on our per sonal journeys, whether it be in life or in sport. For na tional athletes, our person al journeys become part of the nation’s story; a part of the national narrative. For the last 30 years, I have had the honour and plea sure of representing our country in sport. Without a doubt, I am at the very end of my sporting career. And this is why I feel an obligation to speak up. For the majority of those 30 years, I have been fearful of speaking out about some of the ways in which those bodies responsible for na tional sport have failed us all as national athletes.

I was recently invited to join a National Athletes’ Commission, an associa tion for athletes and a vehi cle through which our view points could be obtained and communicated to the relevant sporting associ ations. One of the things I committed myself to doing as a member of this group was to ensuring that I tried to hold our administrators accountable and encour aged younger athletes to do the same. This is, I think, what Keevin Allicock was trying to do in the letter he shared publicly. In his case, he believed, first, that se rious damage to his health was the consequence of the failure to have trained med ical personnel on hand and, secondly, that the absence of a scale impeded his prog ress in the competition.

Regrettably, the re sponse from Guyana Boxing Association (GBA) is prob ably the best indication of why athletes are so fearful of speaking out. GBA’s re sponse might have been an appropriate answer to an enquiry as to why a partic ular athlete did not meet the criteria for being part of a team. However, it is not an adequate reply to someone who complained of feeling let down in the context of a serious health scare while representing both GBA and Guyana.

GBA’s letter read as in sensitive and lacking in care. It demonstrated lit tle respect for Keevin or for the ordeal that he, his

public and, in fact, blamed him for what had happened, throwing in his allegedly poor training record to de flect blame from itself.

What it did accomplish was to confirm that GBA’s reputation, rather than the care and support of ath letes who give blood, sweat and tears for their country, was its primary concern. I stand by Keevin and every thing he has said.

The response from the President of the Guyana Olympic Association, Juman-Yassin, serves only to prove my point. To be the president of argu ably Guyana’s most im portant sports association for 26 years and still com municate such a lack of care and understanding of what is required for ath letic performance is ut terly heart-breaking to me. Notably, although be ing in Paraguay during the Games, Juman-Yassin did not contact Keevin about his welfare while in Paraguay, or since re turning home. I do not be lieve this reflects the man I know Juman-Yassin to be. We must all try to do bet ter.

Since the exchange of correspondence on social media between Keevin and the GBA, I understand that the Government did ar range a medical investiga tion for Keevin. I was glad to hear that he has eventu ally been given some sup port, but I still believe that he ought not to have had to endure what he did, includ ing the callous response of the GBA, before those who hold ultimate responsibil ity sat up and took notice.

Keevin, for what it is worth, you have done your self and Guyana proud throughout your career. We now live in an age of screens and sedentary life styles. An age where few er and fewer children ven ture out to the dwindling playgrounds and dilapidat ed sports facilities in our communities. It is an age where those responsible for sport at a national level be lieve that a photo-op with a

politician, and a slap on the back, will be enough to keep us happy and to encourage future sporting greatness. If this is the strategy, we will soon have no athletes. Shouldn’t national athletes expect something more? Shouldn’t we be less fearful about asking for it?

As I have already said, I am at the very end of my sporting career, and the only thing I seek to achieve by writing this letter, by speaking up and out, is to see national athletes val ued, supported, and receiv ing the same dedication and care from our govern ing bodies as we athletes have consistently put into our sports while wearing that Guyana uniform.

In spite of all this, na tional athletes continue to feel the power and pride of the Guyana uniform. The question is, however, how much longer will it be be fore the disappointment at how we are treated re moves its special appeal?

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Guyoil/Tradewind Tankers Schools Football League…

Golden Grove, CWSS to clash for title, after exciting 6th round

Cummings Lodge, Dolphin, and Christianburg Wismar Secondary School (CWSS) have each record ed victories in the Guyoil/ Tradewind Tankers Schools Football League, but the most notable victory was recorded by Golden Grove, which, by virtue of a 3-1 win over North Ruimveldt Multilateral, have set up a clash with CWSS for a chance to grab the 3rd Guyoil/ Tradewind Tankers Schools’ Football League ti tle.

In what was the final game of the day on Monday at the Ministry of Education (MoE) Ground, Golden Grove found themselves trail ing early on as they faced off with North Ruimveldt,

Hansjie Camacho, the man for North, having netted in the 19th.

However, Golden Grove’s reply came roughly ten min utes later off the boots of Captain Kelon Croal, whose signature long-range shot at goal only inspired his charges, as Kelvin Richardson added to Golden Grove’s tally six minutes lat er.

With the lead in their possession, Golden Grove shut down Multi’s scoring opportunities; and with a penalty opportunity of their own in the 60th, goal-keeper Emmanuel Lewis was able to extend their winning tal ly to 3-1.

Earlier in the day, Cummings Lodge added three points to their tal

ly with a comprehensive 5-0 win over Friendship Secondary. Fabian Figueria led the way with a brace in the 13th and 33rd, while Antwan Samuels and Nicholas Watts added one each in the 17th and 40th respectively. An own goal on Friendship’s part completed the five.

Dolphin Secondary also hammered home five goals when they opposed West Ruimveldt in the following game, which ended with a 5-1 result. Dolphin’s spoils were shared even ly between Nicholas Tappin (6th), Jequan Cole (8th), Reaquan Corbin (30th), Jamal Williams (46th) and Gerry Burnette (60th).

West Ruimveldt’s con

Bounty Supermarket take reins of National Indoor Hockey Championships

solation goal came off the boots of Elijah Marcus in the 20th minute.

Christianburg Wimar stuck to their winning ways with a comfortable 3-0 win over President’s College. Khristian Louis, Kelvin Hintzen and Kemani Field netted in the 34th, 45th and 48th, while their defense

kept PC quiet.

The win for Golden Grove and CWSS means these two teams are separated by one point in the league, with CWSS leading and Golden Grove at number 2. As such, with the teams yet to con front each other, the 7th and final round of the league will ultimately determine the

winner.

The final leg of the Guyoil/ Tradewind Tankers tournament will be played on Sunday, November 6th. The contest between CWSS and Golden Grove is be ing viewed as a final, and is scheduled for 6pm on that day. This tournament is also sponsored by MVP Sports.

The annual National Indoor Hockey Championships re turn to the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall with a new face of Bounty Supermarket this year. The supermar ket chain, which has been a keen supporter of the devel opment of young people and the community, has, for the first time, extended its ef forts into hockey as an ex tension of these efforts.

The competition com menced on Tuesday, 25th October, from 17:00hrs, and features four divisions: being men’s first division, men’s second division, la dies, and veterans (over-35).

In the competitive men’s division, PEPSI Hikers, the most successful team, will look to avenge their upset during the recent Lucozade Indoor Championships.

Experienced national cap tain Robert France leads this line-up with the sup port of top-calibre midfield er Jamarj Assanah, who has been one of the country’s top players over the past five years.

Old Fort brings to the tournament their tremen

dous pace and skill, and a youthful enthusiasm pri marily from their strong junior contingent who have stepped up to the se nior ranks. Old Fort re cently won the Sunshine Snacks Under-20 Indoor Championships, and the core of the team will now be joined by veterans Chris Low and Aderemi Simon to be strengthened for senior competition.

GCC’s all round stalwart Kareem McKenzie and the skilful Sargeant brothers, Marc and Meshach, form the core of their team, while the Garnett clan and the skilful midfielder Shakeem Fausette round out the table for Saints.

The ladies’ competition finds a dominant GBTI GCC Tigers as comfortable favou rites, their having not lost in this competition since 2018. Captain Gabriella Xavier and Makeda Harding will have good support from Madison Fernandes, Sarah Klautky and Kirsten Gomes for the Tigers’ powerful lineup, which will be a well-bal anced and difficult team to beat.

The Woodpecker Hikers, having been the last team to defeat the Tigers, will cer tainly be looking to repeat this feat, and have been improving the quality of their game in recent times.

Maria Munroe and Marisha Fernandes form the corner stone of this challenge.

Saints boasts the pres ence of recent junior MVP Claysa Bobb, along with the feisty Tekeisha DeLeon. What always makes this team a threat is the struc tured approach they bring to the game, instilled by national coach Robert Fernandes.

Old Fort’s Julia Gouveia and Carolyne Deane lead the reds, while the second GCC lineup, the GCC Spice, may exhibit the strongest attack of all teams through the duo of Abosaide Cadogan and Sonia Jardine.

The competition will also feature a men’s second divi sion and a veterans division featuring players over the age of 35.

The competition runs all week, with the finals set for Sunday evening, October 30, from 16:00hrs.

CWSS enjoyed a comfortable victory over President’s College

North Ruimveldt’s goalkeeper is beaten as Golden Grove strike a goal