Guyana Times International

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You can also read Guyana Times daily edition online at www.guyanatimesgy.com ISSUE NO. 343

WEEK ENDING April 30, 2017

US-based Guyanese sending $$ back home may have to pay 2% tax See story on page 3

…to help fund Trump’s border wall

Members of the National School of Dance performing a cultural item at the launch of the Guyana Tourism and Health Programme at the Umana Yana in Kingston, Georgetown, on Tuesday evening. This is the first such global programme of its kind in the world and Guyana was the 8th country to launch it under the Ministry of Public Health and the Guyana Tourism Authority.

NYPD cop charged for crash that killed Guyanese woman in Queens Page 10

Enrico Woolford to chair new NCN board

Page 46

Nandlall arrested, charged over law books fiasco Page 40

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WEEK ENDING APRIL 30, 2017 | guyanatimeSinternational.com

NEWS 3

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30, 2017| guyanatimeSinternational.com

US-based Guyanese sending $$ back home may have to pay 2% tax …to help fund Trump’s border wall

G

uyanese and other Caribbean nationals residing in the United States of America who send remittances to family back in their home countries could soon find themselves contributing to the cost of the construction of the Mexican border wall — a key commitment of US President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.

According to a report in the Jamaican Observer, a United States congressman is proposing that an amendment be made to the US Electronic Fund Transfer Act to impose a fee for remittance transfers to certain foreign countries.

Representative, Mike Rogers, of Alabama's 3rd

Congressional District that includes Auburn, introduced HR 1813, titled Border Wall Funding Act of 2017 in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, March 30 2017.

The bill allows for a two per cent fee charged on individuals sending money to recipients in 42 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

According to the bill, the remittance fees would be submitted to the US Treasury to be expended for the purpose of building President Donald Trump's proposed wall along the USMexico border.

“A remittance transfer provider shall collect from the sender of such remittance transfer a re-

President Donald Trump

mittance fee equal to two per cent of the United States dollar amount to be transferred (excluding any fees or other charges imposed by the remittance transfer provider),” the bill read.

It listed a penalty of not more than US$500,000 or twice the value of the funds in-

volved in the remittance transfer — whichever is greater — or imprisonment for not more than 20 years, or both; for people found guilty of evading the transaction fee.

Since February, similar legislation has been introduced to the US House of Representatives under

the Border Wall Funding Act of 2017 seeking ways to fund President Trump's proposed wall.

The most recent such bill was introduced by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas to allow the use of assets seized from Mexican drug lords, like Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. The US government is seeking US$14 billion from the drug lord as part of its prosecution of Guzman, which could go to cover the estimated US$12-billion security feature proposed by Donald Trump.

If passed, the bill could have a heavy impact on remittance inflow to Latin America and the Caribbean.

It is estimated by Pew Research that Jamaica received US$2.338 bil-

lion in global remittances in 2015, with US$1.669 billion of that coming directly from the US, and another US$500 million from Canada and the United Kingdom.

The largest destination for remittances from the US is Mexico, which Pew Research estimates was equal to US$24 billion in 2015.

A two per cent tax is estimated to net more than US$2 billion a year if it applied to all money regardless of who's sending it.

Other options the US is looking at in generating funds from Mexicans to build the wall include raising tariffs on imports, levying a “border adjustment” tax and increasing travel visa and border crossing fees.

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WEEK ENDING APRIL 30, 2017 | guyanatimeSinternational.com

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Tel no: (592) 223-7230/1, 225-7761.

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EDITORIAL

Take the economy seriously Govt’s new drug importation system will affect all Guyanese A Rest Stop, North Rupununi, Guyana. (Girendra Persaud photo)

half-year ago, repeating the need for a governmental stimulus of the economy, we discussed in this space the latter’s evident choice between “guns and butter”.

The phrase “guns or butter” entered the lexicon as a trope for signalling the tendency of some political leaders to focus their energies and their nation’s spending on the military (guns), rather than on the needs of the civilian population (butter).

The Nazi-militarised Government was particularly fond of the phrase, as its officials scoffed at the production of “butter”.

It entered economics as the classic model of a “productionpossibility frontier” of a nation having to choose between two goods.

At that time, President Granger announced a “five pillar” plan to reinvigorate the Defence Force versus his studied silence on a plan to stimulate the nose-diving economy.

The five pillars of the plan were: personnel, infrastructure, equipment, readiness and morale. The rationale offered by the President for the increased military spending was the threat on our borders posed by Suriname on the east and Venezuela on the west. Yet, the then Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force, Brigadier Mark Philips, had just assured the nation that our present forces were adequate to defend any threats from Venezuela, and had launched in Georgetown an impressive display of our military might.

With the GDF then at about half its authorised strength, the plan to bring back the Force to its full capacity plus relaunch the atrophied reserve force which used to be called the People’s Militia and staff it with its full complement will obviously cause the wage bill to rise precipitously. When the equipment needs are factored in, the present annual spending on the entity, estimated at about G$600M will have to be at least doubled.

When the choice is between guns or butter, a country can end up in a no-win situation. After WWII, the Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower became President of the USA, which had become the greatest power on the planet. Having to deal with that choice, he declared, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

But the choice does not have to be “guns or butter”; it can be changed to “guns and butter”. While this newspaper is fully supportive of the need to revive and maintain a force that can adequately defend our borders, we have to be realistic to appreciate that even a weakened Venezuela, for instance, can deliver a much bigger bang with their bucks. It therefore becomes even more urgent for our Government to spend a commensurate amount of time to halt the slide of our economy and initiate policies that can create double-digit growth rates to push our surpluses. We would then be in a position to support a larger Defence Force without the strain that would be caused in the present strained circumstances.

We note the recent acknowledgement of Finance Minister Winston Jordan of the need for a stimulus package to reverse the slide of the economy, but urge the Government – as we did six months ago – not to focus solely on the expenditure side of the balance sheet. Rather than criticising the business community for not taking risks, Government must use the panoply of tools at its disposal to reduce – or allow the business community to reduce – those risks.

The liberalisation of the economy was not meant to be confined to the external trading regime only, but also to the internal investment environment. We repeat our call to the Government: “Work with the business community to collaborate on ways to generate more income for the country.

In this way, we can have the safety of a prosperous populace protected by well-paid security personnel.”

By Dr Leslie Ramsammy, Former Health Minister

S

omething sinister is happening at the Food and Drug Analyst Department and it will affect ALL Guyanese. It will lead to massive increases in cost of medicines and supplies in the public health system, a cost that will be borne by taxpayers.

Government will have to spend more on medicines, but will receive less, leading to sustained shortages in the public health system. But it will also lead to higher cost of medicines in the private health system. Without full access to medicines healthcare will suffer.

At a special meeting held by the Ministry of Public Health at the regency Suite last week, the Director of the Food and Drug Analyst Department, Marlan Cole, informed suppliers that the department will only register medicines for entry into Guyana, which are already registered in America, Canada, the UK and Australia, banning generic medicines from India and other countries. This policy change dismisses the World Health Organization (WHO), the world’s premier health organization, and the UN, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNAIDS etc. which have assisted countries around the world to procure safe, quality medicines through the WHO Pre-Qualification System, medicines mostly not registered in America, Canada, the UK and Australia.

At the meeting, at the Head Table, were the Permanent Secretary and the Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Health, the Head of the Food and Drug Analyst Department, Mr Marlon Cole, Ms. Carolyn Healy of the USAID Global Health Supply Chain and other Ministry of Public Health officials. It is interesting that the USAID was present at the head table. The US has increased its production of generic medicines to compete with India and other countries.

This new architecture will effectively favor one company. Need a clue which of the existing suppliers will benefit? Think of the G$606M GPHC scandal.

Is the new pharmaceutical procurement system designed to benefit one company? You judge.

The Ministry of Public Health is abandoning a system that has worked well for Guyana for decades.

It is ignoring that WHO-Prequalification System for Pharmaceuticals was designed to assist countries in accessing safe, quality, affordable medicines. WHOPrequalified medicines are used in all developing countries and several developed countries. But most of the WHO-Pre-qualified medicines are NOT registered in America, Canada, the UK and Australia.

These medicines have saved millions of lives and prevented morbidity and disability for hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Importantly, these medicines have saved thousands of lives and prevented hundreds of thousands of morbidity and disability events in Guyana. These medicines are presently found in all public health institutions and in all private hospitals and private pharmacies in Guyana today. They will now be banned in favour of medicines made by large companies in America, Canada, the UK and Australia.

The majority of generic medicines, especially from India, Brazil, China, a number of European countries will now be banned from entering Guyana. Only expensive brand name medicines

will be allowed into Guyana. By design, this new policy benefits Ansa McAl since this Trinidadianbased company represents several branded drug companies selling their products at exorbitant prices which was publicly exposed in the recent GPHC solesourcing fiasco. For reference, GPHC paid G$606M for medicines which could have been procured from WHO-Prequalified Companies for about G$200M. Some of the Indian generic companies, like CIPLA, RANBAXXY, AUROBINDO, and several others have become the world’s pharmacy. They supply medicines to all countries in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, South America and most of Europe.

These companies are WHO-Pre-Qualified and their medicines have successfully undergone scrutiny for safety and quality. Notably, most of the active ingredients in medicines, manufactured in developing and developed countries, come from Indian companies.

Not registering a generic medicine in America does not automatically mean that these medicines are inferior. If this were so, these medicines would not have been pre-qualified by the WHO. For many nonUS, non-Canada, non-UK generic companies, the high cost of meeting the barrage of ever changing import barriers designed to protect American, Canadian, British pharmaceutical companies make marketing low-cost medicines in those markets uneconomical.

It is noteworthy that citizens from America, Canada, the UK, Europe and other countries travel to India to procure medicines because they cannot afford to purchase these medicines in their own countries.

The Food and Drug Analyst Department Head explained that his department wants “Mercedes and not Tata”, comparing medicines from America, Canada, and the UK to medicines coming from India.

Has he forgotten that when we could not procure HIV medicines from America, Canada and the UK for $US15,000 per patient per year, thousands of lives were saved in Guyana because of WHO-Approved Medicines for under $US300 per year? In fact, today, more than 80% of the patients on HIV, TB and Malaria, diabetes and blood pressure treatment around the world are treated with WHO-Prequalified medicines supplied by Indian generic manufacturers and these medicines are not registered in America, the UK, Canada or Australia. He should also know that Tata today owns and exports brands such as Jaguar and Land Rover to more than 150 countries.

In fact, the only documented counterfeit medicines in Guyana in the last decade were malaria medicines which were imported into Guyana from non-WHO-Prequalified Companies and the diabetes medicine metformin which was imported into Guyana from a generic company in Canada. Cole needs to provide evidence of the “massive amount of fake medicines” that came from India, China and other countries and identify the suppliers that brought these products into the country.

I urge the government to review this change in policy since Guyana is going in the opposite direction that most countries, including developed countries, are now going. In all these countries preference is given to generic medicines. Requiring imported medicines to be registered in America, Canada and the UK is a regressive move to stack the deck in favor of one supplier.

NEWS 5

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30, 2017| guyanatimeSinternational.com

Granger pushes ‘green agenda’ during UK visit P

resident David Granger on Wednesday met with the Queen of England, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England in a private meeting during which they discussed the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy (QCC) – a network of forest conservation initiatives which involves all 52 countries of the Commonwealth.

These discussions were held in the context of President Granger’s “green state” development agenda. The meeting marks the first time a Guyanese leader has met with Queen Elizabeth II in the United Kingdom.

Following the meeting, President Granger posited that relations between the two countries were “becoming warmer”, adding that the relationship between Her Majesty’s Government and the Cooperative Republic of Guyana has benefited immensely from the interactions during his visit.

The Guyanese Head of State further noted that the meeting was significant because, although he was not on an official State visit, he was able to meet with Her Majesty, who remained an influential world leader.

“The Queen is Head of the Commonwealth. When she adopts a programme, which is a ‘green’ programme, which is entirely consistent with Guyana’s ‘green’ agenda, it is

President David Granger meeting with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle in Berkshire, England. The meeting marks the first time a Guyanese leader has met with Queen Elizabeth II in the United Kingdom

very significant for Guyana and Guyanese, and, of course, she is a very influential person from a moral point of view; intellectual, philosophical point of view around the world… I can say that it was of the utmost significance for me, and for Guyana that she, since 2015 at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Malta, laid out this policy of the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy… As Head of State, it was an honour for me to meet the Queen and to share the vision of, not only a Green State, a Green Guyana, but also a Green Commonwealth,” he said.

President Granger went on to say that he would continue to promote the concept of environmental protection and preservation as Chairman of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), while ensuring Guyana’s commitment to becoming a ‘green’ state remained undiminished. “[The Queen] is convinced that this is the way to save the earth, to save the Commonwealth, to save our country and I’m in full support of her,” he added.

Moreover, the President also expressed Guyana’s gratitude to Her Majesty for Britain’s support on the im-

plementation of the Security Sector Reform Action Plan in Guyana. In January this year, UK military officer Russell Combe arrived in Guyana to oversee the implementation of the Plan.

This matter was also emphasised during President Granger’s meeting with Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon Boris Johnson, Wednesday at the House of Lords.

The President said that these meetings have augured well for Guyana’s relationship with the UK at both a governmental and private sector level.

“The main takeaway is

Guyana’s commitment to continuing as a member of the Commonwealth and as a State that is attractive to investment from British investors; a State that is organised and administered on the principles of accountability and transparency and a State that is friendly to investors. And in meeting with Foreign Secretary Johnson, he is quite aware of the issues affecting Guyana and we saw eye to eye on those issues,” the President said.

Rt Hon Baroness Anelay of St Johns, DBE, has announced that she would be visiting Guyana from May 1-3, as part of a three-country tour which includes Trinidad and Venezuela.

The British Minister of State of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office made this announcement at the Caribbean Council’s House of Lords Annual Reception on Tuesday evening, where President Granger also delivered an address outlining Guyana’s abundant resources, investment potential and its strengthened legal and regulatory framework for the national and multilateral investors, who attended the event.

During her visit, Baroness Anelay will meet with the Guyanese Head of State; the Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo; Caricom Secretary General Irwin LaRocque, and members of the Private Sector.

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What returns did the threeday State visit to The Bahamas by Granger and team garner for Guyana?

Dear Editor, It was reported in the Tribune, a Bahamian newspaper, on March 2, 2017 that President David Granger and his select cohort arrived in The Bahamas for a three-day State visit in a private plane. Thinking that there was an error with the report, since there was no possible justifiable reason to use a private plane instead of a commercial flight (whether first class or otherwise), my further investigation revealed that not only was this report of the use of a private plane accurate, but it was further evidence of insensitive profligacy and waste of taxpayers’ money by President Granger.

The investigation revealed that not only three Ministers, one of whom is his son-inlaw (Mr Gaskin, the Minister of Business), but a team of speech writers, bodyguards, assistants, and media personnel accompanied President Granger on this private plane and for whom daily stipends and accommodation had to be provided at the hotel, the rates of which are about US$430 per night. In addition, a number of gifts were purchased and presented to the Bahamian Government all bought and paid for with taxpayers money.

The total spent on this three-day trip was about G$18 million. The cost of the private plane alone was about G$8 million.

Two questions ought to have been asked by the media which holds the significant responsibility of being the fourth estate on behalf of the people of Guyana: 1) How could President Granger justify the use of a private plane instead of a commercial flight? 2) What investment did the three-day State visit garner for Guyana?

Of course, the media can be partially forgiven since President Granger assiduously avoids answering questions by dodging and not holding press conferences. But most sections of the media are also complicit by neglecting to ask President Granger the hard questions when the impromptu opportunity arises, quietly hoping instead to receive the perks of free travel with the Head of State or his Ministers, while Guyana continues along a path of visionless high-tax submersion and wasteful spending.

With admittedly dwindling investment and a reduction in all of the productive sectors except for gold, it is now obvious why there has been this urgency to increase taxes and an emphasis on increased tax collection – the “good life for the government”. This, ironically, on the authority of a president who has collected over G$50 million in salary since his assumption of office as President but pays not a single penny of tax on his income.

Guyanese are feeling the squeeze more than ever and struggling to make ends meet while our President displays his manifest insensitivity to our circumstances in grandiose style by driving around in Lexuses with large entourages and security detail and travel internationally by private planes. If the Bahamian newspaper did not publish the use of the private plane by President Granger, it certainly makes one question how would Guyanese ever have known about it or worse what else do we not know?

When times are hard, we expect our leaders to be sensitive to our struggles and not flaunt the “great life” in our faces. The famous Guyanese saying “he who feels it knows it” and with the “great life” the Government now enjoys it raises the question whether decisions can be made in the best interest of the Guyanese people, who need the support of a government who “knows it”. Leadership begins with responsibility, but lasting change happens by example.

Sincerely, Charles S Ramson

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30, 2017 | guyanatimeSinternational.com

The working class facing tough times Dear Editor, We are approaching another May Day, the holiday of the working people.

It is a time when workers celebrate their achievements and contemplate their future. This year, unfortunately, the toiling masses of Guyana have nothing to celebrate and a lot of concerns for the future.

In just two years, the PNC-led APNU regime has done great damage to our economy. It is the working people who are feeling the brunt of the pressures as a result of the regime’s faulty economic policies.

Indeed, the conditions of life for workers have deteriorated drastically.

What we are witnessing is an onslaught on the working class.

Thousands of jobs are being lost in the Private Sector. Many small- and medium-scale enterprises are closing their doors, leaving their labour on the breadline.

As if this was not bad enough, we see the massive attack on the sugar workers. The sugar industry is being decimated. The Wales Estate has been closed, leaving almost 2000 workers out of employment.

This is one of the direct consequences of the Government’s action.

More people are affected as well. All the cane farmers in the Canals will be forced out, and the hundreds of workers whom they employ will also be added to the ranks of the unemployed.

We also see the massive preparations being put in place to shut Rose Hall and Enmore Estates. The regime announced also that Skeldon will have to go.

Thousands of sugar workers are facing a very bleak future. However, not only the workers and their families are going to suffer, but whole communities will become depressed. It will also affect the country as a whole.

This is totally unnecessary. Sugar does not have to close. It has the possibilities to add value to its product and transform the industry from a producer of raw sugar to a complex, producing many products such as electricity, alcohol, ethanol, refined sugar, and other special types of sugar. That list is not exhaustive. The investments to do these things are not so great.

The Indian Government had offered assistance to recapitalise the industry

and allow it to develop into a complex.

Indian companies have shown great interest in the sugar sector.

A healthy relation can develop between GuySuCo and those companies in India and also in Brazil. However, the APNU regime has so far ignored the Indian interests and has not pursued the Brazilian option.

The regime is not interested in saving the industry. They seem gung-ho to close sugar.

It is not accidental. This regime is anti-working people. This is not just an attack on sugar workers; no, it is an attack on the whole working class.

This May Day 2017, working people and their trade unions and other organisations must rethink their strategy and tactics. All efforts must be made for unity of all working people.

Disunity in the face of the onslaught by the regime is allowing for the reversal of the gains working people have made in recent times.

This is my view.

What is yours?

Donald Ramotar Former President

Sunil Narine also has good batting skills

Dear Editor, I am in India for almost two weeks now to attend the “Indian Diaspora Indentured Academic Conference” held over the weekend in New Delhi where I presented a paper on Indian Indentureship in Guyana and the Caribbean. I used the occasion also to enjoy cricket in which several West Indians are participating in the Indian Professional League (IPL) cricket tournament.

Wherever I travelled in India and at 20/20 IPL matches, because of my ‘English’ accent, curious questions arise on my nationality as Indians would say “I look Indian”, and they want to know how come I speak English differently from them. Of course I am Indian as being born in Guyana does not make me non-Indian. And having Guyanese nationality does not make me a non-Indian in terms of race or ethnicity. It is easiest to say to Indians that I am from West Indies with which Indians easily identify or relate to in terms of cricket because of the several West Indian players in the IPL and the many IndoCaribbean players who toured or played against India. Samuel Badree, Sunil Narine, Chris Gayle, etc, are well known by Indians. And then questions arise about the great bowling ability and, of late, the batting skill of Sunil

Narine in 20/20 and the batting prowess of Shivnarine Chanderpaul in Tests, and why he is not allowed an opportunity to break Brian Lara’s record as the highest run maker in Tests for West Indian batsmen.

Everyone knows Sunil Narine (Indians pronounced his name as Nara-yan – a high Brahmin pandit caste) as among the best 20/20 bowlers in the word. But Indians and the world do not know about his batting skills. He has had some lusty hits in the IPL this year and in the Big Bash in Australia.

He also played for Guyana Amazon Warriors in the CPL. Not many know that Narine is also a batsman. Earlier this year, during field research on outstanding IndoCaribbean cricketers in Trinidad, I learn that Sunil Narine started out as a batsman in club cricket in his native Trinidad. He did not do well as a batsman when he started out his cricket career. He tried some bowling in order to be an all-rounder (batsman-bowler so his selection can be justified) where he also did not impress. So he decided he would focus on bowling. Fast or medium pace bowling was not his niche, and he did not have ability as a pace-man.

So he focused on spinning. Off spinning did not work. So he focused on leg spinning where he was most effective; off

spinning tend to trouble batsmen more than leg spinning.

Narine has troubled batsmen with his leg spinning ever since he started his First Class career around 2009, and he has done extremely well in the IPL as well as in other global matches in Australia, etc. He is one of the few bowlers who have taken all ten wickets in a match. So he is well-recognised as a bowler. But it is his batting ability that has surprised many – lower down the order and lately at the top of the order.

At the bottom, he has hit some lusty blows to the boundary, and more at the top of the order. He has never failed to impress, including in his latest match on Sunday night for the KKR against RCB. Very few know that Narine has good batting skills (or experience as a batsman), having batted at the top of the order in Trinidad before becoming an exceptional bowler. He has been batting well, and his captain Gautam Gambhir has praised his batting skills. That skill was amply demonstrated in Big Bash and IPL matches. He took 18 off fellow Trini Samuel Badree, in the very first over at a 300 strike rate. And of course, Narine remains an economical bowler in 20/20 and other formats of the game.

Yours faithfully, Vishnu Bisram

Is Guyana capable and ready for ecotourism?

Dear Editor, The current ecological concerns in Mazaruni, Region Seven, the gold industry’s spill of the recent past, the high level of bauxite industry pollution in Linden, and the opening of the oil industry all beg the question: “Are we capable and ready for ecotourism?”

Lack of consistency in the Government’s (current and past) ability to deal with the prevention of pollution and lasting disruption to the ecosystem of Guyana makes it difficult to give full confidence in the nation’s future oil industry’s ability to prevent a serious natural disaster, much so in the case of the usage of an island to process the oil.

The ministry in Guyana that deals with such environmental protection issues should not be incapable of preventing these serious disasters from happening in industries such as gold and bauxite, which have been the bed-

rock of our growth for over 20 years.

However, the evidence shows otherwise. The populace of the country must demand a high level of accountability for such failures to monitor, protect, and prevent environmental disasters. The attitude of “just show me the money” and turning a blind eye on the bad and unhealthy practices of those we do business with will not help us attain our goals of a green economy that is sustainable, but would instead hinder — and in some cases, send the nation backwards in its development.

A holistic approach to economic development and the sustaining of the environment must be at the core of our decision-making and economic development. It is not profitable for any nation to neglect the environment as it retrieves natural resources, as most of the profit could be easily compromised in a major clean up.

If ecotourism is a core objective,

as promoted and as illustrated in the land we have dedicated as a national reserve, why are we not aligning our efforts to support this vision? This is a question that should be addressed in the activities being pursued and supported by the national budget each year. Private and public investments are trying to support and be consistent with the national purpose as outlined by the incumbent and past administrations. Investment, both local and foreign, will be impacted by the level of confidence that investors have in our ability to stick with, and achieve, our outlined goals and vision for the country.

Today, to regain such confidence, clear and effective actions with measurable outcomes are needed in the resolution of the environmental problems that have been created.

Regards, Jamil Changlee

news 7

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30, 2017| guyanatimeSinternational.com

New pharmaceutical importation system will favour large foreign companies – Guyanese suppliers foresee adverse effect on business

F

ollowing the introduction of the new measure whereby a regional hub will now recommend approval for pharmaceuticals to be imported into Guyana, local importers had mixed reactions to the new system with many of them decrying the move, saying that it will “adversely” affect their business.

The new arrangement – which was signed on to by Public Health Minister Volda Lawrence since early March and announced by Head of the Government Analyst-Food and Drug Department (GA-FDD) Marlan Cole on Tuesday at a public meeting with local importers – will see the Caribbean Regulatory System (CRS), a regional regulatory body under the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), vetting and recommending pharmaceuticals to be imported into Guyana.

According to Cole, previously suppliers would submit dossiers to local regulatory bodies for review and approval of the drugs they wanted to sell on the market, but with the new system in place, suppliers will now have to make electronic submis-

sions to the CRS for it to do an assessment of the drug. He added that the CRS would then make recommendations to the GAFDD as to whether that drug should be registered locally based on certification from either a World Health Organisation (WHO) prequalified site or the particular medicine’s marketing authorisation issued in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Argentina, Cuba or Mexico.

However, local importers are up in arms over the move, claiming that it would more favour large foreign companies, such as ANSA McAL. In fact, this newspaper was told that this new measure will now mean that the majority of generic medicines – from India, China and Brazil particularly – will now be banned from entering Guyana. This means the ordinary citizens would have to incur additional expenses since only costly “brand-name” medicines will be permitted into the country.

When contacted on Wednesday, Mike’s Pharmacy Chairman Lakeram “Mike” Singh related that while he was

Mike’s Pharmacy’s Lakeram “Mike” Singh

not present at Tuesday’s meeting, he had a representative there and based on what was relayed to him, the new system “looks detrimental in the long run”.

Nevertheless, this publication spoke with the company’s Pharmacist, Radha Rooplall, who attended the meeting and she explained that one of their regular suppliers is an Indian company and with this new regulation, there are new criteria to obtain marketing authorisation.

“So that (new) criteria now makes it difficult for us to register our products from the Indian company, because it’s from India and we would now have to check to see if (those products and the Indian company) would

meet those criteria,” she stated.

Another issue that Rooplall pointed out they now face is the uncertainty of approval for shipments of pharmaceuticals that are already on the way from those companies. She indicated that this issue was raised at the meeting, and they were told that the marketing authorisation for some of those registered products would have to be reviewed.

“Remember we have been bringing in products from this company for many years, and we have already marketing authorisation for some of the products, so they are saying we can recall that and review it… So, I don’t know what will be the future in terms of importing drugs from India, but we would have to wait and see,” the pharmacist asserted.

Moreover, Rooplall went on to say that Cole had indicated to them during Tuesday’s meeting that the CRS would only be accepting drugs that were coming from the ABC countries, which would obviously be more expensive.

“So, we would have to

work with whatever they are approving… If they don’t give us approval to ship those generic drugs from India, then probably we will have to seek alternatives,” she noted.

Meanwhile, MediCare Pharmacy Managing Director Aneesa Bacchus told this newspaper that her company would not be directly affected by the new system since it bought its supplies locally. However, she added that there would be a transferred effect if their suppliers (other local importers) were affected.

“We’re a retailer, so we wouldn’t be directly affected, but if the importers are adversely affected by this new measure, then we will also be in at the end. And customers will be affected at the end too,” she stated.

Company favoured

Meanwhile, Former Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, in a letter to the press, has pointed out that by design this new policy benefits Ansa McAl since this Trinidadianbased company represents several branded drug companies selling their products at exorbitant prices, which was publicly exposed in the re-

cent Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) sole-sourcing fiasco.

Dr Ramsammy pointed out that not registering a generic medicine in America does not automatically mean that these medicines are inferior. “For many non-US, non-Canada, non-UK generic companies, the high cost of meeting the barrage of ever changing import barriers designed to protect American, Canadian, British pharmaceutical companies make marketing low-cost medicines in those markets uneconomical.”

He added that it is noteworthy that citizens from America, Canada, the UK, Europe and other countries travel to India to procure medicines because they cannot afford to purchase these medicines in their own countries.

The Caricom Ministerial Body for Health gave its approval to implement the CARPHA CRS programme in 2014. A few Caricom countries including Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago have refused to be part of this progrmme.

8 news

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30, 2017 | guyanatimeSinternational.com

Plot to assassinate President Guyana’s public education Granger was a hoax system facing severe challenges …complainant offered ‘witness’ money to confirm story

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s the probe into the alleged assassination plot against the Guyanese Head of State deepens, Police have discovered new information which may change the entire direction of the investigation.

Guyana Times International understands that the complainant, who is a well-known barber of Grove, East Bank Demerara (EBD), had offered a significant sum of money to someone to support his claim of being approached by two businessmen to kill President David Granger.

The complainant, who up to Monday evening was being hunted by Police, finally showed up at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Headquarters on Tuesday for a confrontation with the ‘witness’, who he had said had information to corroborate the assassination plot.

When contacted on Tuesday, Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum confirmed that there was indeed a confrontation between the ‘witness’ and the complainant. He said this was necessary based on recommendations from the Police’s legal advisers.

In a confrontation, the accused and the virtual complainant (in this case the witness and complainant) would relate their version of events in the presence of officers; and the accused either denies or confirms the statements.

Given the sensitive nature of the case, Blanhum did not divulge more information; however, he disclosed that the new statements were submitted to the Police’s legal advisers for further recommendations.

The statements initially submitted by the complainant and the alleged witness did not match, and as such, Police advisers had recommended a confrontation to clarify the situation.

Monetary offer

This publication understands from reliable sources close to the probe that the alleged witness told Police investigators during the confrontation that the complainant had contacted him, and offered a sum of money in exchange for him giving a statement claiming that he (the alleged witness) was present when the two businessmen contacted the complainant about allegedly assassinating the President.

According to the source, the complainant had only made the monetary offer after he informed the Police of the assassination plot.

Guyana Times International was told that the alleged witness refused the offer and had made contact with the Police when the investigation was

launched. This publication was unable to determine whether or not the complainant conceded to the statements provided by the alleged witness.

Fear

Meanwhile, another source close to the investigation told this newspaper that the complainant allegedly owes the businessmen whom he accused in excess of G$8 million, which he had borrowed to pay off debts when he first started a mining operation.

Independent investigations revealed that his creditors had approached him to enquire about their money; and based on his inability to repay the money and more so out of fear of what the men may be capable of doing, he allegedly levelled the allegation against them.

This barber had reportedly worked with the businessmen he implicated for some time prior to opening his own mining concession a few years ago.

These businessmen have already been interrogated by members of the Major Crimes Unit of the Guyana Police Force (GPF).

Mischief

Police Commissioner Seelall Persaud had told reporters that the Police’s legal minds were to make a determination on whether there was enough evidence to support the allegation of an assassination plot or whether it was just a ploy to create mischief.

He, nevertheless, said if the allegation was indeed true, the guilty parties involved could be charged for treason, but if it was a mischievous act, the person who made the allegation could be charged for providing false information to the Police.

TV interview

Shortly after news broke of the investigations into an alleged assassination plot against the Head of State, the complainant appeared on a local private television station to relate his story.

The matter involving the alleged plot to assassinate President David Granger was first brought to light by Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, at a weekly post-Cabinet press briefing.

In that interview, the barber revealed that he was offered G$7 million and given a “long black gun” by a businessman to carry out the job of assassinating the President, but he had declined the offer.

Reports indicate that he subsequently filed a complaint with the Police, prompting the investigation which has been ongoing for approximately three weeks.

…says SVN Director as protest continues over VAT on private education

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Demonstrators in front of the AFC Headquarters

he public education system is in a dire state and is being academically outperformed by private schools; hence, the need for those institutions.

This is according to educator Swami Aksharananda. He made the comment while at a protest against Value Added Tax (VAT) on education on Monday in front of the Alliance For Change (AFC) headquarters.

“There are many challenges in the public school system, everybody admits this. There is no one in this country who thinks that it is where it’s supposed to be…but as far as the public schools – if you have an objective analysis, we are in a dire state as far as public education is concerned and the ability to deliver education, it is very serious,” Swami Aksharananda told this publication.

While addressing the media, he added that parents were choosing the private education system as opposed to the public education system mainly from a performance standpoint. He noted that private schools were most of the times outperforming the government schools in both the National Grade Six Assessment (NSGA) and the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations.

“If you look at the results of education in this country, for example the NGSA, all the top results come from private schools, which is an indication of [their better performance]. People are smart. People know where they get their results and they go there, and it is not only because people can afford, but people will make the additional sacrifice for what they consider a better value for their money,” the educator opined.

When asked about the suggestion of the institutions absorbing the VAT, Swami Aksharananda, who operates the Saraswati Vidya Niketan (SVN) – one of the country’s top performing secondary schools, explained that it was not legally possible for those institutions to do so. He added that by making that suggestion, there was now the idea of private schools making large profits and that was far from the truth.

In March, Finance Minister Winston Jordan said that VAT on private education was not a move to target the institutions, rather it was a move for the Government to broaden the country’s tax base, and help fund the country’s expenditure shortfall in the 2017 G$250 billion budget.

A parent, Shamal Zalamuddin said he refused to pay VAT on education and noted that the tax imposition was not only on tuition fees, as it extend-

ed to all educational materials inclusive of pens, pencils and erasers. This, he notes, not only affects the private school students, but also those attending public schools as well.

“There is hardly any country in the world that pays VAT on education or health services or social services. My son goes to a private school, yes; I paid his fees today without paying any VAT. I am not going to pay the VAT and if they (the school) rebel, then I am prepared to take him out and I am prepared to home-school him,” Zalamuddin told reporters.

The protesters told the media that they chose to exercise their constitutional right in front of the AFC headquarters, since they were informed of an executive meeting at the office. They also noted that there were some members of the AFC who were sympathetic to their plight, so they were seeking an audience with them.

During the protest, AFC representatives from the office went out and engaged the protesters, informing them that they would have to be protesting for the next three terms. One representative said that the protesters would have to remain there since the VAT on education was there to stay. He added that although he was an AFC Youth Executive, he had protested against the parking meter project, but supported the imposition of VAT on education.

After failed attempts to contact AFC Leader and Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman, Guyana Times International contacted the party’s former head, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan, for an update on the party’s position on the tax imposition only to be told: “I don’t speak to the Guyana Times, y’all are asses.”

Parliamentary support

Meanwhile, the AFC will be put to the test when the parliamentary Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) tables a motion to repeal the 14 per cent VAT on private education at the upcoming sitting of the National Assembly on May 8.

Expectations are high that the junior partner in the coalition APNU/ AFC Administration would now support the motion, given its solidarity with stakeholders who have for weeks been calling on Government to remove the education tax.

Cabinet recently ruled that the VAT on private education would remain for the rest of the year, but it would be reviewed for the 2018 National Budget.

The AFC has signalled its intention to challenge Government’s collective decision and push for an earlier review.

NEWS 9

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30, 2017| guyanatimeSinternational.com

‘I have always acted professionally’ …Gold Board GM says in statement to SOCU

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uyana Gold Board (GGB) General Manager Lisaveta Ramotar has broken her silence on the allegations of fraud at her office, declaring her innocence of any wrongdoing.

Ramotar, who is the daughter of former President Donald Ramotar, along with a few other staff members of the GGB, was sent on administrative leave last week to facilitate a probe into what the Natural Resources Ministry said was their suspected involvement in money-laundering activities with embattled local businessman and gold dealer Saddiqi Rasul.

The Gold Board General Manager made her innocence known through a voluntary letter to the Head of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), Sydney James. In the letter, Ramotar said: “I wish to assert strongly that I am absolutely innocent of any wrongdoings. I have discharged my duties at the Guyana Gold Board professionally and based on the important metric of declaration it was under my tenure that the Cooperative Republic of Guyana obtained its highest-ever declaration to date.”

She also sought to clear up a number of issues that were influencing the probe. One such allegation was that Rasul sold gold several times per day using his mining company, indicating a washdown sever-

GGB General Manager, Lisaveta Ramotar

al times per day. However, Ramotar explained that the Guyana Gold Board was required to buy all gold presented to the organisation.

“The Guyana Gold Board’s mandate is not to verify production. The organisation does not verify production. The current process at the Guyana Gold Board is such that those in possession of gold can either have a production sheet, which would be a sheet out of the production books issued by GGMC (the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission) or they may be given a permission slip, which is issued by the Guyana Gold Board.”

Ramotar said the Finance Department of the Guyana Gold Board would collect both production sheets and permission slips when the Department made payments

to those selling gold. The production sheets and permission slips are uplifted daily by the GGMC, the body that regulates mining in Guyana.

As it relates to allegations that the company did not pay the two per cent tax, Ramotar said under a regulation which she has seen, mining companies are not required to pay the two per cent withholding tax.

“The Finance Department of the Guyana Gold Board is directly responsible for making payments to miners and, hence, has to get proof that in fact the seller of gold is a mining company. To this end, the Finance Department of the Guyana Gold Board must collect documents to support the non-payment of the withholding tax.”

The Gold Board was also accused of giving instructions to the Bartica Manager, to pay the higher of the two daily ‘fixes’.

“One of the Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs) of the organisation indicates that the time at which a client enters the client accommodation room determines the fix at which the client would be paid,” she explained.

Ramotar said some time in October last year, Rasul called the office to say that the employee selling gold on behalf of his company was at the Bartica Branch prior to the changing of the fix, yet the employee received the second fix.

SOCU Head, Sydney James

Ramotar said she called the Bartica Manager to inform him about the SOP. “He stated that one of Mr Rasul’s employees entered the Bartica office prior to the changing of the fix to sell gold on behalf of Mr Rasul. The employee stated that he had more gold in his vehicle and was going to step out of the office to uplift it. Subsequently, another of Mr Rasul’s employees entered the Branch with another set of gold selling on behalf of Mr Rasul’s company. The second person, according to the Branch Manager, entered after the changing of the fix and, hence, received the second fix.

When Mr Rasul was informed of the sequence of events, he continued to hold that his employee was there before the fix changed. I indicated to him that I would review the cameras and, in the meantime, the

second transaction was paid at the second fix. Since there was a dispute, I asked that the video recording of the event be brought to Georgetown for viewing. It was viewed and it was determined that indeed what the Bartica Manager stated transpired, occurred, and hence the decision to pay the second fix was upheld,” Ramotar stated in her letter to SOCU. On the issue of multiple visits to the Gold Board, Ramotar said all employees have been trained in anti-money laundering compliance and as late as the latter half of 2016, they were trained in identifying suspicious activities. She said front line employees were the ones interacting with customers and were, therefore, best placed to indicate if an activity was suspicious.

Ramotar, who has been serving in the GM capacity for some two years, said her duties at the Gold Board included implementing Board policies such as strategic and operational planning; coordinating activities for implementation; financial management: planning, budgeting and auditing; resource allocation; human resources management; information management; administration and external relations.

Also sent on administrative leave from the GGB are Deputy GM Andrea Seelochan and Legal Officer Suzanne Bullen.

Man charged for wife’s death in 2015 accident …when truck ran off Lethem-Pirara Bridge mendously from the loss of his wife.

Khan expressed his absolute confidence that the case against Amir

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Safraz Amir with his Attorney

wo years after his wife was killed in a gruesome accident on a remote trail in the Lethem area (Region Nine), 37-year-old Safraz Amir of Helena Number Two, Mahaica, East Coast Demerara was on Tuesday afternoon arraigned before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan, and charged with the offence of causing death by dangerous driving.

The charge stated that Amir on March 8, 2015 at Pirara Trail, Lethem, in the Central Rupununi District, drove motor van PRR 6731 in a manner dangerous to the public, thereby causing the death of Vimala

Balgobin.

Defence Attorney Jerome Khan related that his client was currently employed with Abdool Trading as a salesman, and described the incident as the “most unfortunate accident to take place”, reportedly occurring as the couple were making their way to Lethem.

Khan, in making a bail application for his client, pointed out that Amir was charged some two years after the occurrence and had never left the jurisdiction during that period, hence making him no flight risk. He added that his client was as innocent as he pleaded and had suffered tre-

was “weak”, attesting that if the Police were sure of his client’s guilt, they would have charged him within the shortest

possible time post-accident.

The prosecution made no motion to object to bail, which was

granted in the sum of G$200,000. The matter stands adjourned to June 6, 2017 at the Lethem Magistrate’s Court.

10 news

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2017 | guyanatimeSinternational.com

GNBA Chairman hands over advice NYPD cop charged for crash that killed Guyanese for broadcast legislation to PM woman in Queens

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Killed: Vanessa Raghubar

rosecutors charged an off-duty New York Police Department (NYPD) Detective who killed a 22-year-old Guyanese woman in a booze-fuelled crash in Queens, New York with criminally negligent homicide during a brief hospital arraignment on Wednesday, officials said.

According to the New York Daily News, Neville Smith, 32, was also charged with vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving for crashing his 2010 Mercedes-Benz into Vanessa Raghubar’s vehicle on the Van Wyck Expressway near Rockaway Boulevard in South Ozone Park about 04:00h on Sunday, authorities said.

Moments after the accident, Smith told responding officers he was returning home “from a dinner function for an old co-worker” when he struck Raghbuar’s car, according to court papers.

Raghubar, a psychology student at York College preparing to graduate in June, suf-

fered a massive head injury and bleeding on the brain, officials said.

She died of her injuries at Jamaica Hospital in New York on Monday, cops said.

According to NY Daily, the soon-to-be college grad was driving home from her sister’s birthday celebration when the fatal collision took place, heartbroken family members said.

Smith, a detective assigned to the 48th Precinct in the Bronx, was heading south on the Van Wyck Expressway at an unsafe speed when he rear-ended Raghubar’s red Honda Accord in the centre lane, according to cops.

The collision sent Raghubar’s car careening across the highway onto a grassy shoulder, where it struck a tree and an overhead light pole, critically injuring her and her two passengers, the NY Daily reported.

Her younger sister Maria Raghubar, 21, and her sister’s boyfriend, Justin Harricharran, 20, remained at Jamaica Hospital, where Maria

has undergone four surgeries for a shattered pelvis, a shredded bladder and a broken arm.

Maria Raghubar was seated in the rear seat when Smith struck the car, officials said.

Harricharran was sitting in the passenger seat.

Smith ploughed into a Jersey barrier after hitting Raghubar’s car, officials said. He was rushed to Jamaica Hospital with serious, but not life-threatening injuries, cops said.

Neville appeared drunk and reeked of alcohol, but refused to have a breathalyser test taken for several hours after the collision, forcing investigators to get a court order to draw his blood, officials said.

A judge ordered Smith held on US$300,000 bail, officials said. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison, prosecutors said.

“Drinking and then driving is a deadly combination,” Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement. “The defendant — a police officer bound to enforce the law — is now accused of breaking the law and with deadly consequences.”

Raghubar’s family has been calling for criminal charges against Smith since the fatal impact.

“He was a cop and he was drunk. We want justice,” Raghubar’s aunt Esther Mongul was quoted as saying by the NY Daily News on Monday.

“He was supposed to protect us, not kill us.”

(Excerpts taken from NY Daily News)

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rime Minister Moses Nagamootoo who is currently performing the functions of President, yesterday, received advice on the Broadcasting Regulations from Chairman of the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA), Leslie Sobers.

The handing over of the document took place at the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), Ministry of the Presidency.

Prime Minister Nagamooto upon completion of the new regulations will lay the document in the National Assembly.

He said the regulations will guide the operations of the authority and decisions. The PM stated that he would have conducted consultations with the GNBA on the issue of drafting a subsidiary law for the regulations for the broadcasting spectrum in Guyana.

Prime Minister Nagamootoo explained that he sought the advice of the GNBA board on what it “deems important issues that should form the regulations.”

The PM made reference to members that were on the previous board that had started to work on the regulations.

Prime Minister Nagamootoo highlighted that the regulations are important to let the operators or providers of broadcasting know that they are not, “In a free for all."

He said, “When you have a licence, it is not a licence to be irresponsible, unpatriotic or conducting any other functions that run contrary to the laws of Guyana and (they are there) to ultimately protect the interest and sovereignty of Guyana.”

The PM highlighted that, “The broadcasting entity is supposed to keep a log of all the programmes that are aired and they fail to keep the log...

You heard people complain that there was this terrible programme, obscene

or advocating violence or terrorism and the authority requests the broadcaster to produce the log and they say no we don’t have it. We don’t even have the tape. That is a serious violation!”

The Prime Minister explained that there is something called Public Broadcasting, adding “when you have a public broadcast you can have an emergency and the Minister responsible for broadcasting can request television and radio stations to broadcast a particular programme, alerting people to danger. A broadcaster may say I do not have to or if the President is making an address to the Nation, he or she may say why should I carry it, but if the regulations say that you shall carry such a broadcast and you did not carry the broadcast you are in trouble!”

The Prime Minister said that regulations are needed, but are not there to penalise anyone. “They are there to guide the operators that when they receive a licence, it is not like transport that you own the licensee forever. A licence is a permission to use the facility until such a time your licence is invalid.”

Prime Minister Nagamootoo emphasised that the government will intervene based on requests by the authority for assistance.

The PM encouraged operators to ensure that they adhere to the regulations and note that licences can be revoked if the rules and regulations are breached.

Additionally, Chairman of the GNBA Leslie Sobers in brief remarks said that the regulations will govern “how broadcasters operate in the country in keeping with the Broadcasting Act. These regulations we hope, will form the basis of the PM’s own work as the Laws are formulated and regulations that will go with the Laws.”

(GINA)

Self-confessed bandit to serve 56 months in jail A 39-year-old man was on Monday arraigned before City Magistrate Judy Latchman on a charge of armed robbery, and was slapped with a 56-month jail term after he admitted to committing the offence.

The guilt-stricken Michael White, admitted that on April 22, 2017, while armed with a knife, he relieved Taylor Lewinski of a grey handbag containing an IPhone among several articles worth a total of G$140,000, in an encounter that occurred at Avenue of the Republic in Georgetown.

The prosecution’s case was that the VC was walking north along Avenue of the Republic when White rode up on a bicycle and demanded that she hand over her bag. The VC fearlessly held on to her property, but when White whipped out a knife from his pocket, the woman was rendered defenceless

Michael White

and surrendered her belongings.

White reportedly collided with a pedestrian while fleeing the scene, but was apprehended by public-spirited citizens after the VC raised an alarm.

He was taken to the Stabroek Police Outpost, where a search conducted on his person unearthed the VC’s belongings in his possession.

news 11

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2016| guyanatimeSinternational.com

Linden celebrating 47 years as a township

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ively cultural performances and motivational speeches have set the tone, signalling the official opening of this year’s Linden Town Week (LTW).

Held under the theme, “Reflect, Refocus, moving forward with unity and strength for our community development”, the annual event was declared officially opened by two of Linden’s most recent CARIFTA Games champions Chantoba Bright and Compton Caesar.

The celebrations this year, which began on Sunday at a packed ceremony held at the LindenGeorgetown minibus park, will see Linden celebrating 47 years as a township.

Vybz Entertainment Inc will continue the execution of 10 days of exciting activities in collaboration with the Linden Mayor and Town Council (LM&TC). Officials who spoke at Sunday’s event utilised the opportunity to encourage Lindeners to unite, in the spirit of the event’s theme.

In his remarks, Mayor Carwyn Holland renewed his commitment towards the advancement of the town, noting that he would continue to charter the course towards the eco-

nomic and social development of all Lindeners.

Holland said he would continue to make representation for Linden to be selected as the ideal link between Brazil and Guyana, an initiative which he believed would create revenue and jobs in addition to enhancing the community as the commercial hub, linking South America to the Caribbean and Latin America. He further encouraged Lindeners to work together and to unite to attain the ideal model of development, noting that Linden has been given the gift of chartering its own course.

Business Minister Dominic Gaskin, who was also present at the event, pledged continued support to the community. “We as a Ministry will give our support to this Region…to the economic support of this Region.”

During the ceremony, a number of successful students from Linden were also awarded in addition to the outstanding CARIFTA athletes.

The ceremony was also graced by the presence of several Mayors, including those of Georgetown, Rose Hall and Bartica, who all extended best wishes.

Govt taking steps to revitalise collapsing economy, says Harmon

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aving received reports of an alleged downward spiral of business and economic activities in the country, Government is taking every possible step to revitalise the country’s economy, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, has said.

Harmon explained that the economy is always on the front burner of issues Cabinet members look into, and Government is working towards its resuscitation.

“The President has, at least on three occasions, summoned some of the key ministers — Finance, Agriculture, Business and Natural Resources — to look at options on how they are going to address certain things,” Harmon told reporters on Thursday.

He said the housing sector has also been earmarked as a key economic generator — to see an improvement in employment, among other things. The same will be done in several other sectors, the minister disclosed.

Harmon said Government is doing the best it can to ensure that Guyana does

is going on internationally,” Harman said.

Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman has also recently shared some of the measures being taken within the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (MNRE) that could affect economic growth across Guyana.

Bashed

Minister of State, Joe Harmon

not follow a path similar to what had been taken by some neighbouring countries that have been experiencing economic challenges. As such, every step is being taken to ensure revitalisation of economic activities and creation of a smooth flow of money in the system, he said.

He said, however, that Guyana’s situation has to be considered comparatively with the economic realities of neighbouring countries such as Brazil, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela.

“These economic realities are not strange.

People are reading, they are on the Internet and they understand what

Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo had earlier this month bashed Government for not doing enough to revitalise the economy. He said if government was serious about developing the economy, it could have already entered into approximately 50 public/ private partnerships as it inches closer to its third year in office.

Jagdeo reiterated that the economy is sluggish, and said it was not because of the absence of drug money, as some may claim, but because of government’s own admission – the lack of investors in the country.

“People are being laid off because sales have collapsed…,” Jagdeo pointed out.

He also highlighted the huge demand for public/private partner-

ships as he chided government’s slothfulness in capitalising on this opportunity. Gaskin recently said the government has not entered any public/private partnership because there is no framework in place to ensure value for money and that any form of abuse is prevented.

Jagdeo, however, is contending that there is no need for a fixed framework. “If the minister is serious, he’d look at an investment opportunity where they need a PPP (Public Private Partnership).

They would develop a prospectus which would estimate the cost of the project,” he said.

According to Jagdeo, the prospectus would also state conditions under which each side would participate, and the benefits to private sectors involved, whether it is guaranteed rate of return or special tax breaks; and then those conditions would be advertised.

“They could have done 50 of those by now if they are seriously involved in PPP. It’s a simple thing to be done.

It’s just ordinary work to pursue PPP,” he posited.

12 news

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30, 2017 | guyanatimeSinternational.com

‘White paper’ on future of Guyana’s Suspect arrested for sugar industry to be laid in Parliament murder of Georgetown resident in row over water

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Investigators at the crime scene

ne person is now in Police custody following the murder of a Georgetown resident in Water Street, Bagotstown, East Bank Demerara (EBD) on Tuesday morning.

Dead is Mark Ifill of Norton Street, Georgetown.

According to eyewitnesses, at approximately 10:45h on Tuesday, Ifill – who was described as the neighbourhood “junkie” – was stabbed to death by a Bagotstown resident.

Based on reports received, Ifill was filling bottles of water along a pathway which led to the house of the accused.

The 31-year-old accused reportedly approached him and demanded that he remove from the location and “stop fulling water”.

However, Ifill ignored him and continued to fill his containers and load them into his wheelbarrow. This enraged the alleged perpetrator who reportedly started

a fight with the now dead man.

This newspaper understands that the two were engaged in a fist fight for a few minutes when a gun fell out of the accused’s clothing. The alleged perpetrator reportedly attempted to shoot the “neighbourhood handyman”, but soon realised that he had no bullets.

As such, the fist fight continued and a neighbour reportedly went out to ‘part the fight’, telling the two men to “take a break”.

The men stopped fighting and Ifill reportedly went back to filling his bottles until a woman described as “the sergeant’s wife” told him to leave. Ifill then responded: “Okay, madam. I respect you, so I won’t full water here.”

Upon hearing this, the accused rushed into his yard, but was stopped by the same woman – who is also his neighbour – and she reportedly tried to calm

him down before letting him go home to his pregnant wife and five children.

The neighbour reportedly told the suspect to think about his family before doing “anything stupid”. She also cautioned him that “the junkie ain’t got nothing to lose” but he does –referencing his pregnant wife and children.

Nevertheless, the alleged perpetrator refused to heed the woman’s advice and went into his home, armed himself with a knife, and went out to confront the “junkie” again.

It was during this ‘faceoff’ that Ifill hit the accused numerous times with a bat, as he tried to defend himself against the knife in the hands of the perpetrator.

However, this attempt by the now dead man proved futile, as he was stabbed once to his abdomen and succumbed shortly after, since no one in the neighbourhood wanted to transport him to the hospital in their vehicle.

The Police were informed and the accused was detained, after he reportedly hid the murder weapon.

The accused is said to be no stranger to breaching the law, since he was involved in another incident back in 2012 which left the then 26-year-old Mark Solomon of Nonpariel, East Coast Demerara (ECD), dead. (Ramona Luthi)

By Alexis Rodney

A

draft ‘white paper’ on the Future of the Sugar Industry is set to be laid in the National Assembly on May 8, 2017; and while its contents have not been discussed extensively, pronouncements by President David Granger regarding his administration’s plans to close several sugar estates are therein entailed.

Minister of State Joseph Harmon, reporting on discussions coming out of Cabinet meeting earlier this week, said Government and the Opposition will debate the content of the ‘white paper’, which was submitted to Cabinet

by Agriculture Minister Noel Holder.

“This follows a process we had gone through with respect to the situ-

ation at GuySuCo. First, there was a Commission of Inquiry on GuySuCo. Subsequently, a special team was put together to look at some options for GuySuCo,” he said.

Following this, some options were provided to Government, and it was decided at Cabinet that consultations be held before any decision is made by the administration.

Harmon said, however, that during a stakeholder consultation, Government laid bare its position on the GuySuCo matter.

Stakeholders at that meeting included Government, the Opposition, and representatives of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) and the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees, along with sugar work-

ers.

“So several meetings were held at the Ministry of Agriculture, and as a result of those consultations, Government’s position became a little more crystallised,” he explained.

He said Government had also opened the floor for additional proposals for the sugar corporation, and GAWU had submitted some proposals, which he noted have been included in the draft white paper.

Harmon said three important issues have been highlighted and will be dealt with: the financial and technical evidence proving that it is feasible to amalgamate some estates and factories; the need and requirement for divestment of these facilities; and the utilisation of some of the facilities of the estates. continued on page 21

AG to launch special audit into controversial parking meter arrangement

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he Auditor General’s Office intends to carry out a special audit into the parking meter contractual arrangements which were made between Smart City Solutions Incorporated (SCSI) and the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC). The move is in keeping with the current audit it is carrying out at City Hall.

This was revealed by Auditor General Deodat Sharma in an interview with this publication on Thursday. While he could not provide details about the scope of the audit at this point in time, he confirmed that the audit office will be looking into the matter.

An audit into City Hall was requested by M&CC executives in a letter dated February 28.

The Auditor General’s Office had taken up that request, and an audit commenced in March, 2017. However, during that exercise, City Hall officials have not been as helpful as had been

hoped. Thus the final phase of the audit, which had commenced last month, has been stalled because of this lack of cooperation.

According to Sharma, his office has since requested the parking meter contract in furtherance of this audit.

The parking meter contract has been subjected to reviews from both the Finance Ministry and the Attorney General’s Chambers, after concerns had been raised about the project. Those reviews had not been favourable to the contract, prompting amendments to be made to the contract.

Among the concerns raised about the contract were the division of profits; the exorbitant amount being charged for parking; the development, as well as the terms of the agreement and the company undertaking the project.

An estimated 400 parking meters were expected to be installed

along selected streets in the central business district of the capital city of Georgetown.

Concerns have abounded over the criteria used for the selection of the streets with parking meters, with some seeing it as a discriminatory move, as some patrons will be mandated to pay for parking while others will not.

The parliamentary Opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) had strongly criticised the project, especially in light of the fact that there were no consultations on the matter beforehand.

Despite a plethora of flaws highlighted in the contract, the reviews did not explicitly speak of illegality, and the green light for the commencement of the project was given once certain recommendations were implemented. This included a reduced fee for parking, which was eventually changed in the contract.

Opposition position

Commenting

on

the matter, Opposition Member of Parliament (MP) Anil Nandlall had emphasised that the Opposition has completely rejected the instalment of parking meters around Georgetown on basis of the current state of the economy.

“The PPP has spoken on this matter. We are of the view that we do not need, and do not want, parking meters in Guyana.

It will impose an additional financial and economic burden on the people of this country,” he had posited. According to the parliamentary agenda, Opposition MP Irfaan Ali will be moving the motion to debate the parking meter project on the grounds that there were no public consultations, stakeholders have pleaded with the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) to revise the initiative, and the contract may have violated tender procedures.

The motion would have also addressed

two additional considerations, namely that some councillors had objected to the project’s implementation, and the question of whether the legal hurdles and protocols have been addressed, such as the M&CC having authority over public roads such as Regent Street, Water Street and Avenue of the Republic.

The PPP/C, in its motion, had also intended to call on the Auditor General of Guyana to conduct a forensic audit into the Georgetown Municipal Council, including the parking me-

ter contract. The parking meter project has since been the subject of High Court cases, mass protests in front of City Hall, and the intervention of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure in declaring major public roads off-limits from parking meters.

By the intervention of central government, the parking meter contract was eventually put on hold for a three-month period, which is expected to come to an end in June.

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Ed Ahmad jailed for Indigenous communities feeling impact of economic woes – PPP/C MP 2 years for mortgage

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eople’s Progressive Party (PPP) E x e c u t i v e Member and former Permanent Secretary (PS) of the Amerindian Affairs Ministry, Collin Croal said residents of Indigenous communities were hurting as the economic downturn was being felt across the country.

Croal was part of the two-man panel addressing the media at the PPP’s press conference on Monday. The former PS of the Amerindian Affairs Ministry, now renamed the Indigenous Peoples’ Ministry, said the economic pressure being felt on the coastland was also being felt in the hinterland.

These challenges include the Value Added Tax (VAT) placed on

PPP Executive Member, Collin Croal

air travel and the ban on used tyres. He said the VAT on air travel has caused an expected increase in fares and freight costs.

“What has happened is that in the absence of

village economies’ turnover, persons in the hinterland are feeling it more so,” Croal contended.

According to Croal, his Party has been seeking the patience and co-

operation of community members, noting that it is also working towards bringing a resolution. Added to the economic challenges, Croal highlighted the delay in payment to those attached to the Hinterland Employment and Youth Service (HEYS), which replaced the Community Support Officers programme.

Croal said he has been receiving complaints from individuals involved in the programme about the continued delays in payment. He said the Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs Ministry, which is solely responsible for the HEYS programme, has now shifted the responsibility of payment to the respective Regional Democratic Councils (RDCs).

fraud

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New York court on Friday sentenced Queens-based Guyanese businessman Edul Ahmad to two years in jail for conspiracy to commit mortgage fraud, reported the New York Daily News.

The sentence was handed down by Brooklyn Federal Judge Dora Irizarry. The Leonora, West Coast Demeraraborn Ahmad had pleaded guilty in 2012, in a New York court, to mortgage fraud conspiracy and was looking at a sentence of 10 years, with US$15 million in fines and restitution.

However, he became a key witness against his colleague, former New York State Senator John Sampson. In January, Sampson, who has roots in Guyana, was jailed for five years by Judge Irizarry for obstruction of justice and making false statements. That sentencing paved the way for Ahmad to be sentenced on real estate fraud charges filed against him in 2011

by New York prosecutors for the US$3 million mortgage fraud scheme.

The US-based Guyanese businessman was supposed to have been sentenced since 2015, but appealed to the New York court several times, successfully, to delay the ruling until after Sampson would have been sentenced.

Ahmad was a key witness in the 2015 trial against Sampson, which ended with obstruction of justice convictions but acquittals on other counts.

And before Ahmad took the stand for at least half of the prosecution’s case, he wore wires and turned over evidence that helped the Feds build the case against Sampson.

Sampson is appealing his conviction.

However, Ahmad was hopeful that by offering his services to the FBI, he would not have to go to prison, but would receive lighter punishment for cooperating.

Despite Ahmad being an asset in the Feds’ case against ex-State Senator Sampson, the Daily News reported that the US District Judge could not ignore the harm caused by his US$3 million scheme.

She laid into Ahmad for a property sale that, she said, broke the terms of his cooperation agreement. “To me, it does not show full remorse.

It does show someone who feels he’s ready to do what he needs to do, laws be damned, rules be damned,” the Brooklyn Judge was reported to

Edul Ahmad

have said.

While it was not the probation sentence Ahmad, 50, was looking for, it also was not the six-seven-year prison term he could have received.

Prosecutors said Ahmad’s work earned him a shot at a sentence below federal recommendations. In fact, during Friday’s sentence hearing, Assistant US Attorney Alexander Solomon told Irizarry that Ahmad’s cooperation was “impressive”, once he started talking, the New York newspaper reported.

Ahmad was “one of the best at making recordings”, he said — Sampson often talked quietly, so Ahmad repeated what he said so it would be loud and clear for Uncle Sam. Solomon noted, however, that Ahmad did make some serious flubs — like telling prosecutors the night before his testimony about the improper sale of a property discussed in the cooperation agreement.

Irizzary in handing down the sentence questioned just how useful Ahmad was on the stand, pointing to articles in newspapers such as the Daily News, where a juror called him “dirty”.

Ahmad’s lawyer, Samuel Kartagener, said he was “taken aback”

by Irizzary’s views. He urged the Judge to take the good with the bad.

Ahmad told Irizzary he meant no harm with the deal — which was an effort to stop a foreclosure on a property.

But Irizarry was not buying that Ahmad – a sophisticated, onetime Lamborghini-driving businessman – did not know what he was doing.

“You knew you had to disclose to the Government if there was any transaction on a property.”

It was a lapse in judgment, justified Ahmad, adding “I never meant to break the cooperation agreement.”

After sentencing, Ahmad declined to speak to reporters. Kartagener said he and his client were “disappointed with the result”. (Excerpts taken from New York Daily News)

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PPP alarmed over 12-month transition period to rehire new leaders for SARA

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Clive Thomas

he Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) is alarmed over the 12-month transitory period it may take to rehire new leaders of the controversial State Assets Recovery Agency (SARA).

According to the parliamentary Opposition, this long waiting time vindicates its position that the entity has very little to do with justice, but is driven by an agenda that is pregnant with political vengeance and discrimination.

Guyana Times reported on Saturday that the Director of SARU can remain at the helm of the entity for up to twelve months after President David Granger assents to the recently passed SARA Bill 2017 – which puts the legal framework in place for the organisation’s operation.

“This position of the Government has confirmed what we said from the inception: that SARA will be an agency staffed by politicians and imbued with a political mandate to witch-hunt, persecute, harass and intimidate identified segments of our population; that SARA has very little to do with justice, but is driven by an agenda overwhelmed with political vengeance and discrimination,” the party said in a statement on Saturday.

The PPP has posited that: “It is now obvious that members of the Government who spoke on the SARA Bill in the National Assembly (have) blatantly lied to the nation when they all assured in their speeches that politicians would not staff this agency; that professional investigators will; and that appointments will only be made via the parliamentary process outlined in the Bill.”

Intensified

The PPP has said its opposition to SARA is now intensified. “Not only are we opposed to the Bill itself – which, as we have said, is unconstitutional and exposes private property to arbitrary interference and confiscation — but we now express our vehement opposition to the persons who will now staff the agency,” the Party has emphasised.

The PPP maintains that the current personnel at SARA are political hacks who are devoid of any law enforcement and investigative training and qualifications required for the task of operating SARA. “They certainly do not qualify as “fit and proper” persons, as prescribed by both the SARA Bill and the President’s public

pronouncement on the characteristics of a “fit and proper” person,” the PPP has said.

According to the PPP, it is well known that Clive Thomas and other senior officials are leading politicians within the coalition Administration, and that they have repeatedly made public statements that are conclusive of the guilt of dozens of Guyanese without any investigation.

“In fact, Clive Thomas, who is identified to act as the Director, has already indicated that he has a list of private properties in respect of which he will seek court orders. It begs the questions: How was this list compiled? On what basis were these properties identified? Since SARU (never had, and currently does not have) investigative powers, who did investigations which led to the conclusion that these properties are stolen state assets?” the PPP has questioned.

Support

The PPP has said it supports any initiative which is genuinely intended to recover stolen state assets and investigate corruption in public office.

“However, we maintain resolutely that SARA has nothing to do with either of those objectives. We hope (that) by the Bill itself, the lies peddled in the National Assembly, the shutting down of the debates on the Bill in the National Assembly, and now the indication that politicians who have clearly demonstrated vindictive proclivities will staff the agency, some Guyanese and some in the international community would have realized that they have been terribly misled on this matter,” the PPP has stated.

Transition

The SARA Bill stipulates that its director should be an impartial person selected by a parliamentary bipartisan committee. However, this newspaper understands that the incumbent director can remain with the entity for up to another 12 months, until the relevant authorities embark on the selection process for a new head.

This is according to the SARU Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Aubrey HeathRetemeyer, who spoke to this publication on Friday.

Heath-Retemeyer said a transition period follows the presidential assent of the SARA Bill 2017, during which critical decisions will be made regarding the structure and operation of the entity.

“During that transition period, the present personnel in the unit will remain. There will be an attempt to ensure recruitment is done, so that other elements of (the) unit will be put in place so we can get on with what is required of us,” he explained.

Heath-Retemeyer disclosed that the transition period can last from 6 moths to 12 months, during which the current top officials can remain in positions of authority at SARU, now renamed SARA.

Construction of model homes picking up pace …for Housing Expo

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ore than 400 persons are benefiting directly from the ongoing development of various housing solutions taking shape in the community of Perseverance aback Providence on the East Bank of Demerara (EBD).

Just fewer than 30 houses are being constructed in time for the model village exhibition this month-end where the public can view the new housing solutions being rolled out by the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA).

During a tour of the construction site on Monday, the Project Manager, Kennard Dazzel said these housing solutions were intended to provide start-up homes for youths, public servants and low-income earners.

“It’s not your dream home where you have a couple thousand square feet and big large acres of land. It’s just to give the beneficiaries a (start-up),” he stated.

There are 80×45 foot low-income house lots to construct 600-square foot houses; 80x62ft moderate-income house lots to construct 900-square foot houses and 80×85 ft house lots to build 1100-square foot houses.

However, Dazzel noted that extensions could be made to the houses once a certain prescribed period of time has elapsed.

Comfort, affordability The cost of the houses will be determined by the contractors, and there will be no policy by the CH&PA to control those prices.

However, Minister within the Communities Ministry with responsibility for housing, Valerie Adams-Patterson had assured that the contractors would be penalised if they did not get the houses sold within six months; therefore, the prices would have to be competitive.

The Project Manager has guaranteed that the houses will be affordable, comfortable and of

visit to Poland earlier this year.

Consequent to the visit, the company shipped pre-fabricated materials to the country that would demonstrate how it constructed fireproof houses, Dazzel explained.

Fourteen contractors had signed Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with the CH&PA for the construction of these houses for the model village exhibition, which will be launched on April 28.

Project Manager Kennard Dazzel

the highest quality.

“From the concrete that is coming in, we are taking the necessary slump test. We monitor in terms of the water-cement ratio, and the stuff that is coming in to pour into the concrete. We are also monitoring the steel arrangement,” he said, noting that the CH&PA was responsible for the supply of all the building materials.

He further noted that the CH&PA has learnt from the mistakes of the “1000 homes (turn-key) project”, and has put systems in place to ensure that the end product was one that not only the beneficiaries were satisfied with, but one that the agency could stand by.

In the 1000 homes project, initiated by the previous Administration, the buildings developed defects even before they were occupied.

Fireproof

The CH&PA is constructing six duplexes and two single units.

Initial reports are that the contractors will have to construct 10 low-income, five moderate-income, and eight middle-income houses.

Also on display would be two houses, constructed by a Polish company.

Dazzel explained that the latter was a result of the Minister’s

Dual payment

Interested persons would have to make two payments, one to the CH&PA for the land and another to the contractor for the house.

Purchasers would have to have an application in the authority’s system or would have to meet the criteria to qualify for an allocation.

The dual payment formula is to guarantee persons in the system are allotted homes.

Currently, there are approximately 25,000 applicants in the CH&PA system awaiting allocations. Additionally, with the minimum age being changed from 21 years to 18 years, more and more applications are being received on a daily basis.

The low-income house lots will cost G$300,000, the moderate-income G$500,000 and the middle-income G$700,000.

Future

Following the development of this model village, the CH&PA will be moving to construct duplexes and single units across the country as part of its “Housing Solution 2017 and Beyond” programme.

Some 265 buildings will be constructed this year in ten locations in six regions (Two, Three, Four, Five, Six and 10). These will be divided into 768 units, each housing a family. The units expected to cost the government about G$5 billion.

‘White paper’ on future of Guyana’s sugar...

from page 12

He added that the President has already addressed some of these issues.

GAWU said on Tuesday that it would cripple planned efforts to close the East Demerara Estate (Enmore Estate) in the name of restructuring. GAWU President, Komal Chand, told this newspaper recently that the union was in the process of amassing workers to take to the streets in massive protests against the move.

Chand said that while Government has proposed closing the estate, it did not clearly state if it would go ahead with those plans. However, GAWU members are of the opinion that the estate will be closed.

“The information we are getting from the ground is that this will be a reality, because already they are not doing a lot of important work to have the estate functional next year,” Chand explained.

The top GAWU official, who met with sugar workers last Friday, told this newspaper that members were nervous about their future and about

securing alternative employment.

While the GAWU has been engaged in some level of protests over the past week, particularly in Enmore, Chand said the numbers are likely to grow in coming weeks and months.

“They (sugar workers) hope that they will draw support from the residents and others with the view to build a strong protest, because that might be one of the ways to get Government to rethink its position,” he explained.

Chand opined that if the protest attracted enormous crowds, like the protests regarding the parking meter project in Georgetown, it would send a strong message to the coalition Government.

He also pointed to the situation in French Guiana, where citizens came out in large numbers to protest high unemployment, crime, high cost of living, and a lack of investment from France.

While the Government has promised to present a white paper on the sugar industry to

Parliament, Chand believes it is deliberately delaying, so that the issue would be debated by the end of 2017.

“The Government is trying not to bring the official position to the public, and one of the reasons is because they want the matter brought by yearend,” he told this publication.

As it stands, there is much resentment in the sugar belt, and workers are highly demotivated because much uncertainty surrounds their future, Chand said.

“They have not received any increases for the past two years. The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) is now complaining about poor turnout. They are so demotivated,” he added.

GuySuCo has long complained that poor labour turnout has contributed to reduced sugar production.

The industry is facing its toughest times, with production at just over 180,000 tonnes last year. This is the lowest production GuySuCo has recorded since 1990.

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‘Jealous’ woman to spend 8 years behind bars for killing best friend

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Dead: Renita Thomas

he now 20-yearold Angelique Williams, who was charged with murdering her pregnant best friend in 2015, was on Tuesday sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment when she appeared before Justice Navindra Singh at the Georgetown High Court.

Williams had pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter on April 6, 2017.

While handing down his sentence to the visibly remorseful young woman, Justice Singh advised her to utilise the educational system while in prison and to abstain from consuming alcohol.

As she was escort-

Convicted: Angelique Williams

ed out of the courtroom, the young woman was heard extending seemingly sincere apologies to her best friend’s family as well as her own.

On May 21, 2015, the accused, who was 18 years old at the time, reportedly stabbed her best friend, Renita Thomas, who was then 20, at Versailles on the West Bank of Demerara.

According to reports, the two women had been best friends for over five years. However, on the day of the incident, the duo, in the company of Thomas’ one-year-old child and some friends, went to the Aracari Resort on the West Bank of Demerara.

While they were leaving the location, the

two girls got involved in an argument which escalated into a physical altercation. The altercation turned deadly when Williams armed herself with a broken bottle and repeatedly stabbed her best friend to the chest, stomach and head.

This happened in full view of the duo’s friends and Thomas’ child.

Reports in the media at the time indicated that the cause of the entire incident was jealousy on Williams’s part.

According to relatives, the best friends had made a pact to become pregnant at the same time and raise their children together. However, as they worked to make their plan a reality, Thomas got pregnant with her first child and Williams did not.

This angered Williams, but she reportedly “got over it” until the day in question when she accidentally learnt that Thomas was pregnant again and she had been “left in the dark”. (Ramona Luthi)

Cuban national to be deported for overstaying time – also fined G$20,000

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hief Magistrate Ann McLennan on Tuesday fined yet another Cuban for overstaying his time in Guyana when he appeared before her at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.

Daniel Palma Ramierez, of Havana, Cuba, pleaded guilty to the charge which stated that between March 1 and April 21, 2017, he failed to comply with conditions subject to which any permit had been granted, that is to say having been permitted to stay from January 31, 2017 to February 28, 2017, he overstayed the said period.

A sorry Ramierez told the court that while he was guilty of the offence, he was only a mason looking to better provide for and maintain his family back in Cuba.

He accepted full responsibility for his actions, stating that he only wished to return to his home country at this time.

Magistrate McLennan ordered that the defendant be escorted to the nearest port of exit after paying a fine of G$20,000 or serving a default sentence of four weeks behind bars.

Body in shallow grave: Miner remanded to prison D illon Daniels was on Monday arraigned before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan, charged with the murder of Seon Mentore, whose decomposed remains were unearthed from a three-foot-deep grave at Three Miles Karrrau Backdam in the Cuyuni-Mazaruni District of Region Seven some two weeks ago.

An investigation launched following the discovery of Mentore’s remains had resulted in two men implicating each other in Mentore’s demise; and as investigators dug deeper, they came to the conclusion that Mentore’s colleague had killed him and then buried his corpse.

Mentore’s remains were reportedly stumbled upon in the threefoot-deep grave by a boy flying a kite at Karrau

Backdam. The child’s parents informed the Police of the discovery, and ranks later visited the scene, leading to the arrest of Mentore’s former employer and colleague.

Mentore allegedly had been battered with pieces of wood and a cutlass after he was accused of stealing raw gold.

The charge Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan read the accused on Monday alleged that the accused, between April 7 and 17, 2017, murdered Sean Mentore in the mining community of Karrau Backdam. The accused was not required to plead to the indictable charge, but the matter has been transferred before the Bartica magistrate, before whom it will continue on May 19, 2017.

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Construction to commence Guyana’s Private Sector says conditions not on Stabroek Wharf …over 500 vendors, minibus operators to be relocated

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The Stabroek Wharf area

lans are moving apace to determine the best strategy to have hundreds of vendors and minibus operators in the Stabroek Wharf area relocated to facilitate construction on the wharf.

A meeting was held last week between Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) members and representatives from the Finance and Public Infrastructure Ministry. This is according to Georgetown Mayor Patricia Chase Green.

Commenting on the meeting, Mayor Chase Green stated that its purpose was to bring Councillors up to date with plans for the Stabroek Wharf, on which construction was expected to begin in early 2018.

“We were written by the Ministry of Infrastructure, saying to us that they will be starting to do construction of the Stabroek Market wharf in the first quarter of 2018. And they’re asking us to relocate all of those vendors,” she said.

She noted that there were 318 stalls on the wharf, while on the southern side of the Market 200 persons plied their trade. She stated that immediately outside the Stabroek Market, there were more vendors as well.

“So, we have to start identifying areas that can house those people when construction on that wharf begins; because they are going to be using that entire area to store the material for heavy trucks to be going in there. So, you couldn’t have

vending anywhere.”

“We also have to look at the relocation of all those minibuses. And so they’re asking us to start now. And that’s what (Wednesday’s) meeting was about.

Because our Councillors expressed concern about what is going to happen.”

“While the consultations would have started, we would have heard that most likely the vendors would not go back there, but who made that decision?”

Chase Green queried. “We didn’t make that decision. So, we have to consult more as to the way forward.”

When contacted on Friday, a representative of the Public Infrastructure Ministry noted that while the Ministry would be doing infrastructural works, responsibility for the vendors rested with the Mayor and City Council.

The Wharf has been in a state of deterioration for some time, with vendors expressing fear for their safety on several occasions.

Sections of the Wharf caved in during September 2014 and March 2015. In June, Town Clerk Royston King had declared that the Mayor and City Council had solicited assistance from the Public Infrastructure Ministry.

The modernised, new Wharf plans were designed by Civil Engineer Kabila Hollingsworth. The design includes a two-storey building with a terrace and stelling. Some G$400 million is expected to be spent on the Wharf.

Motorcyclist killed in WBD accident

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o t o r c y clist Corwin Anderson of Lot 99 David Rose Street, Bagotville, West Bank Demerara was killed on Sunday at about 05:45h following a collision with a car on the Nismes Public Road, West Bank Demerara.

The 29-year-old entrepreneur and father of one was reportedly driving motorcycle CG 4337 in a northerly direction when motor car PJJ 6297, travelling in the opposite direction, allegedly collided with him and sent his body flying several feet away from the scene of the collision.

Bleeding profusely, he was picked up and rushed to the West Demerara Regional Hospital (WDRH) by public-spirited individuals, where he later succumbed to the injuries he had sustained.

According to Sharon Anderson, one of his aunts, having been in-

Dead motorcyclist: Corwin Anderson

formed that her nephew had been involved in an accident, she immediately rushed to the WDRH, where she found him bleeding profusely. She has criticised the hospital for not being fully equipped to deal with her relative’s injuries.

“He was bleeding [profusely] and the doctor them gotta pumping, trying to get the blood out, because he was actually suffocating…he (was) choking.

The doctors had to remove the oxygen from

him just to get to clean out (the blood) from the mouth…. If I’m bleeding, by right you should have been able to be replacing that blood… But the fact remains that because (the hospital was) not… equipped, you know, it (cost him his) life,” she told this newspaper.

The aunt detailed that it was at exactly 07:26h when her nephew took his last breath. She said the police arrived at the hospital shortly after, as the driver of the motor car was being treated for minor injuries. He was subsequently discharged into police custody to assist with investigations.

The late Corwin Anderson was described as the “street live wire” by relatives and friends, who sought to describe how jovial a person he had been. He leaves to mourn his reputed wife, seven siblings and other relatives and friends.

(Ramona Luthi)

favourable for investment

PSC Chairman Eddie Boyer

Finance Minister, Winston Jordan

GCCI President Deodat Indar

rivate sector players have taken umbrage at Finance Minister Winston Jordan’s scathing criticisms of their willingness and ability to take risks and invest in the local economy.

During a diaspora meeting in Washington DC on Friday, Minister Jordan slammed the local private sector for being “stuck in their ways”, and not adapting to the changing business environment.

Jordan said: “I met the existing private sector, and they are stuck in their ways. We need to have an expanded breed of private sector players. We need a private sector who shall take more chances.”

But the heads of two major private sector umbrella bodies, Eddie Boyer of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) and Deodat Indar of the Georgetown Chambers of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), told the Guyana Times International on Sunday that the minister’s complaints are unreasonable.

sulted in the slowdown in the velocity of money flow, and this has ultimately impacted on the various sectors of the economy.

Indar explained that in the face of an overall economic slowdown, private sector individuals will not find it attractive to invest.

Both officials have defended the private sector’s willingness to invest in the local economy, but have asserted that Government needs to work with the key players to develop strategies which can jumpstart the economy.

Local content and carpetbaggers The Finance Minister had stated that a significant number of players are “stuck in their ways”, and are restricted in their growth because of a refusal to adjust to a changing and more challenging environment.

Jordan had said that the private sector players are not making the necessary investments, internally and externally, that would help the economy to grow.

“In spite of all the local content legislation we may put in place, few private sector firms will benefit if they do not re-orient the way they do business,” Minister Jordan had stated.

The private sector officials have, however, posited that local content legislation will actually serve as an incentive to invest.

The GCCI President outlined that, currently, cement for the oil drilling purposes is being sourced from Trinidad and Tobago, and is being docked right there. He argued that if local content legislation were in place, such services could be acquired locally, so the private sector could benefit from that foreign investment, which will overall contribute to the economy.

He lamented that without local content legislation in place, there will be very little benefit for Guyanese from the emerging oil and gas sec-

tor, as the only revenues will be from royalties.

And the PSC Chairman warned Government that “carpetbaggers” can easily be confused as risk-takers.

He charged that investors should be thoroughly vetted before any deal is sealed, as many carpetbaggers would be coming under the guise of investing in the emerging oil and gas industry locally.

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Incentives

Boyer explained that both the Government and the private sector drive investment, but the latter is not going to invest if the conditions are not favourable.

According to the veteran private sector official, Government needs to create the incentives in order for the private sector players to take up the challenges.

He noted, too, that the projects have to be bankable, as access to finance for investment is another major hurdle in doing business locally.

Boyer also noted that the current spate of taxation is doing more to discourage investment.

And GCCI President, Deodat Indar, noted that many businessmen have complained of the overwhelming taxes and the impact the new tax regime has on doing business in Guyana.

He noted that the number of taxes have re-

Risk and rewards

Economist Sasenarine Singh has also contended that businesses will not pump money into an economy if the investment climate is not favourable.

Singh explained that it all comes back to the ‘risks and rewards’ balance, and if the risks outweigh the rewards, then businessmen will not be encouraged to invest.

“No businessman is going to invest if he is not going to make returns.

Who is going to make investments in Guyana when the risks are so high and the returns are so low?” he questioned.

He also highlighted that there are other countries with greater risks involved, but businesses opt to make investments there because of the attractive rates of return.

New breed

Minister Jordan had explained to this publication that he wants a new breed of private sector players who are willing and prepared to think outside of the proverbial box and be creative and innovative, using cutting edge technology to improve productivity, thereby increasing competitiveness.

“My new ‘breed’ of private sector players would be seizing the many opportunities that are available for expansion, especially with oil on the horizon. They will try to form partnerships and alliances with the private sector in the Caribbean and further afield to overcome some of the barriers they face, such as financing and human resources,” Minister Jordan stated.

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AG’s refusal to apologise a disrespect to Judiciary – Nandlall

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ttorney General Basil Williams’s point-blank refusal to apologise to a sitting judge for his courtroom behaviour which forced Justice Franklin Holder to leave the bench in protest is not going down well with observers.

According to his predecessor, Anil Nandlall, Williams’s obstinacy smacks of a continued disregard for the Judiciary and the concept of separation of powers. The Attorney-atLaw made it clear that he has never seen such conduct in his years of practice. “(Williams) has demonstrated his utter disrespect and, indeed, has compounded his contempt for the Judiciary in refusing to apologise to Justice Franklin Holder for his egregious conduct in the courtroom,” Nandlall said in

to what transpired in the court, thereby disputing what the Judge’s record is. So he is compounding his disrespect by attempting to portray the Judge to be a liar. I have never seen this kind of conduct displayed towards the Judiciary,” Nandlall declared.

Separation of powers

Former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall

an interview on Sunday.

Nandlall observed that in the letter Williams wrote to President David Granger, dated April 15, to ‘explain’ his conduct, Williams spoke in the third person by describing himself throughout the letter as the Honourable Attorney General. Nandlall stated that this was significant.

“In that letter, he continues to regurgitate several lines in relation

Nandlall was also critical of Williams’s suggestion in his letter, that Justice Holder should recuse himself from hearing the Carvil Duncan case. Duncan is in a legal fight against his suspension as Chairman from the Public Service Commission (PSC).

And according to Nandlall, this suggestion does not take into account Duncan’s right to a speedy hearing. He stated that it would be unfair for the case to have to go before another Judge through no fault of

Attorney General, Basil Williams

Duncan, bearing in mind the already lengthy time spent in court.

“So Williams believes that he’s running the Judiciary, that he can dictate when Judges should hear a case. This is precisely why there’s a doctrine called the separation of powers, which makes the Judiciary independent from the Executive.”

“And the Executive cannot be seen to, in

any way, be giving the Judiciary direction. Why should the Judge recuse himself because Williams is on an ego trip? This is utter madness,” Nandlall told this newspaper.

While Williams insisted in his letter that if he had been in contempt of court, the Judge had a duty to cite him before leaving the bench, Nandlall stated that this was not so. According to Nandlall, the contempt of court power resides with the Judge and thus can be exercised in the future.

“But I hope that the Judiciary will act in such a manner to maintain its own integrity and would not act in a manner that may bring the administration of justice into disrepute and allow the populace to lose confidence in the justice system. And that’s why Judges have the power of contempt; it is to protect the system that administers justice.”

“When the public loses confidence in the administration of justice, society will begin to disintegrate. And here you have the head of the Guyana Bar adopting a posture that can lead to loss of public confidence in the administration of justice; all because of his ego and idiosyncratic behaviour.”

The matter arose while Justice Holder was hearing the legal challenge filed by Duncan against the attempt to remove him from the chairmanship of the Public Service Commission on March 23. Conflicting reports arose from Nandlall, who was present, and Williams about what Williams did to

Justice Franklin Holder

cause Holder to walk off the bench.

The day after the incident, Justice Holder formally complained to the acting Chancellor of the Judiciary that he had abruptly walked out of the courtroom because of statements made by the Attorney General.

He quoted the AG as saying, “I could say what I want to say and however I want to say it. I have always been like that.”

The High Court Judge said in his complaint that he felt disrespected by the Attorney General’s behaviour, and has called for an apology in open court.

However, Williams is holding out that he is not to be blamed for causing the High Court Judge to walk out of the courtroom. He has also insisted that his comment was not a threat.

President Granger had told reporters that he asked Williams to formally give a detailed explanation of what transpired. Granger is in receipt of Williams’ response.

Days after two media houses published Nandlall’s version of what transpired in the courtroom, Williams threatened lawsuits against the media houses. (Jarryl Bryan)

Woman charged for smuggling ganja to lover in prison

A

Laing Avenue, Georgetown housewife, who was reportedly caught red-handed trying to smuggle marijuana under her skirt to her reputed husband at the Camp Street Prison, was on Friday taken before city Magistrate Fabayo Azore.

The charge stated that on April 19, Purvina Kissoon had in her possession 278 grams of cannabis at Lot 12 Camp Street for the purpose of trafficking.

The unrepresented 35-year-old woman denied the charge, but Police Prosecutor Simone Payne nonetheless objected to bail, based on the nature of the felony and the penalty it attracted.

According to the pros-

ecution’s case, the woman entered the Camp Street Prison to visit her reputed husband, and was seen by a prison officer placing her hand under her skirt and removing an object, which she threw into a corner of the room.

The alerted officer then asked her to leave the room and retrieved the bag, which was revealed to contain three parcels of leaves, seeds and stems suspected to be cannabis. Kissoon was later arrested and taken to the Alberttown Police Station where the substance was weighed and sealed in her presence.

The woman was remanded to prison and will make her next court appearance on May 12, 2017.

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Citizens, regions to benefit from oil revenues – Trotman

…independent consultant to be hired to verify ExxonMobil’s info

G

Natural Resources Minister, Raphael Trotman

overnment has moved to hire an independent consultant to verify information supplied

by U.S.-based oil giant ExxonMobil, in light of another recent discovery of oil and gas offshore Guyana.

This information was revealed by Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman during a recent parliamentary committee meeting held in the Parliament Chambers.

The minister told the committee that Government has no intention of squandering the natural gas that would be made available to the country, but the matter would be extensively studied. He said an independent analysis will be conducted to determine whether water or natural gas should be used to pressurize the wells to extract commercial quantities of oil.

“Government is using several different means of corroborating and cross-referencing the information… We’re using other independent sources and contractors to tell us what there is,” he said.

Trotman said that when production begins in mid-2020, Government will install the relevant equipment to independently measure the oil and gas at the point of extraction.

“There is going to be real-time monitoring onshore and on the vessel by personnel on a 24-hour basis, to ensure that the production is as it said it would be,” he explained.

ExxonMobil recently told Government that Guyana may be able to access 50 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, which by calculation can provide the country with 200 megawatts of power.

According to the minister, the recent data was

provided only in March, following repeated requests by Government to have the oil company supply that information.

Trotman also said Government would ensure that both citizens and regions benefit from the oil revenues. He said Government is currently discussing several ways in which the ordinary Guyanese people could benefit, and one of those ways is through social programmes in the areas of education and healthcare.

He said Government would also consider whether the citizenry will receive benefits directly, such as year-end cheques, or via social services within the regions.

“The idea is that regions would receive a percentage, perhaps following the fiscal transfer system, as is used currently,” Trotman said. He, however, explained that that decision would have to be made by Parliament.

Consideration may also be given to have the population receive benefits in a variance in which each citizen would receive a cheque at yearend similar to the situation that obtains in places like Alaska.

Regions Five, Six and Ten would also benefit from the establishment of a petroleum facility which is carded for establishment at Crab Island in Berbice, the minister noted.

Government has already completed the structure for the Sovereign Wealth Fund Bill, an aspect of the regulatory framework for the oversight of the new sector. The fund will have budget support, or what he termed “budget stabilisation”, which he noted is to ensure that the Ministry of Finance is capable of carrying out programmes relative to the petroleum sector.

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WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2017| guyanatimeSinternational.com

Trinidad President tells rest of region it’s time to dump UK Privy Council

Bona fides… …of SARA ow that we have the legal basis for the institution charged with recovering state assets (the Bill was passed even though the Opposition was absent) and its “institutional placement” clarified (it’s an “agency”, and not a “unit”), let’s look at its bona fides for fulfilling its mission. Shall we?

Your Eyewitness won’t get immediately to concrete cases, like the G$7M scholarships given to two sitting ministers for their private studies. If G$1M law books for an AG are deemed crossing the line, why not these scholarships — especially the one totally unrelated to the present responsibilities of the minister?

While the Government’s been trumpeting its inspiration by the “UN Convention Against Corruption”, the 30 mature democracies in the OECD have some good advice for them. One of the most critical requirements in such bodies is the “Appointment and removal of the Director”. Since this point’s been raised before by your humble Eyewitness, and some may believe he’s got a hatchet to grind, allow him to quote from the OECD document: “The symbolic role played by the head of an anti-corruption institution should not be underestimated.

In many ways, the Director represents a pillar of the national integrity system. The selection process for the head should be transparent, and should facilitate the appointment of a person of integrity on the basis of high-level consensus among different power-holders (e.g. the President and the Parliament; appointment through a designated multidisciplinary selection committee on the proposal of the Government or the President, etc.). Appointments by a single political figure (e.g. a Minister or the President) are not considered good practice. The director’s tenure in office should also be protected by law against unfounded dismissals.”

So how does Clive Thomas stack up against these criteria?? Clive Thomas is the co-leader of the WPA – one of the parties in the governing coalition!! Can his bona fides be less credible for Director of SARA? He spent the last decade developing a theory of a “Criminalised State” the PPP was supposed to have created. Every study’s shown “selection bias” kicks in when a person reviews an issue he’s already taken a position on. He’s already declared the “guilt” of members of the PPP Administration.

He was appointed by a “single political figure” – namely, the President, and not on “the basis of highlevel consensus among different power-holders. He’s allowed his CEO, Retemeyer, and Advisor, Phillips, to hurl strident denunciations of the targets.

We now hear Thomas and crew won’t be vetted for another 12 months. If that’s so, SARA should close its doors for the duration.

Guyana needs to fight corruption, but not through corrupted means that’ll amount to lynching. …of union leadership The fallout from Patrick Yarde insisting on running once again for the presidency of the GPSU, after 30 years at the helm, continues to reveal that what is going on has very deep – but rotten – roots. First of all, for the same individual — who’s gotta be at least 70 — to head an organisation wherein members must retire at 55, can’t be right. He HAS to be out of touch with ground reality.

After members had picketed for him to step aside in face of his hand-picked team supporting his evidently “president for life” status, they claim they were “intimidated” by Yarde’s acolytes. This Mafia-like union’s tactic might’ve worked against recalcitrant businesses back in the 40s, or against the PPP in 1999, but not against civil servants. Please!!

However, a wrench has been thrown into Yarde’s juggernaut. The election, scheduled for tomorrow, has been postposed pending a mandatory audit of the Union’s books.

Since these have been cooked for so long, it looks like Yarde’s goose will at last also be cooked!! …for “getting on” bad Here it was, your Eyewitness thought the lady disrupting the Region 5 RDC meetings for months, while the land flooded and lepto loomed, was being obstreperous.

The lady obviously just hadn’t gotten her meds!!

N

T

rinidad and Tobago President Anthony Carmona has expressed frustration that his country and other CARICOM states have not replaced the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as their final authority in legal matters.

Though 12 of the 15 CARICOM territories have signed the agreement establishing the CCJ, which was launched in 2005 as the final arbiter in legal disputes among and within regional members, only Barbados, Guyana, Dominica and Belize have accepted this court as the end decisionmaker.

Carmona, who served as a High Court Judge before being appointed as President in 2013, expressed his frustration in Barbados during a presentation on Redefining Caribbean Pride for the

Trinidad and Tobago President Anthony Carmona

21st Century Youth, to University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, undergraduate organization, Students Today Alumni Tomorrow.

“Why have we yet not all subscribed to the jurisdiction of the Caribbean Court of Justice?” he asked President Carmona said he sees acceptance by all territories of CCJ to be the court of last resort as another step towards fortifying the Caribbean

identity.

“Perhaps the day will finally come when we can all take pride in, and responsibility for, defining, shaping, writing and ultimately, rewriting our own jurisprudence and laws in the context of our own peculiarities and the relationships among our own member states. The arguments for a common jurisprudence have been exhausted, but are not exhaustible.”

CCJ judges are predominantly of Caribbean origin, and according to a CARICOM document, “judges appointed to the CCJ are evaluated on the basis of wide-ranging criteria that include experience, high moral character, intellectual and analytical ability, sound judgment, integrity and an understanding of people and society”.

Carmona believes that with the majority of CARICOM nations yet to

make that constitutional move towards replacement of the Privy Council with the CCJ for their citizens, creates a deficit “that mitigates against the spirit of the Caribbean integration movement”.

“There have been many failed attempts at an integrated Caribbean in the past, with just a few making successful strides in this regard.

Today, Caribbean societies are confronting even greater difficulties in treating with such issues as crime and security, health issues, and, of increasing importance, the danger posed by climate change. The need to pool resources has therefore never been more urgent.

“There needs to be an embracing approach by all leaders. We must not be concerned about what we can get from each other but rather how we can help each other,” he said.

(Barbados Today)

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Guyanese author pens book to celebrate the abolition of indentureship

“C

Dr Basdeo Mangru

h a m p i ons of IndoGuyanese Welfare, 1838-1938” is a well-documented study

and Dr Basdeo Mangru, an overseas-based Guyanese, latest book on Indian immigration into Guyana.

It was published to commemorate the centennial of the abolition of indentureship in March 1917. This system, which lasted 87 years, was described as “a new system of slavery, slavery in another guise, regulated serfdom” and was a stigma on India. It took a massive anti-indentureship campaign, solely confined to India, to bring an end to this iniquitous system.

“Champions of IndoGuyanese Welfare, 1838-1938” concentrates on individuals and groups who championed the welfare of Indian workers in the 100 years following their landing in Guyana in May1838.

It captures their valiant efforts to expose the plight of those exploited workers from a system geared to dehumanise them and reduce them to a state bordering on slavery. The book highlights issues which have either been neglected or glossed over in existing literature.

Additionally, the book is geared to promote an awareness of our history and culture. While the AfroGuyanese community is somewhat familiar with their heroes, the Indian community is largely unaware of those who sacrificed their careers for championing the rights and welfare of Indians. Moreover, many of us are unfamiliar with the roles played

by Indians themselves to resist the plantation system. Indian workers, both men and women, showed they had the

capacity to resist efforts to subjugate them when working and living conditions became intolerable. They adopted such self-liberating activities as strikes, beating of estate personnel, torching cane fields and desertion. In the process, they were “knocked down” several times, but were never “knocked out.” Indian resistance is a significant contribution to Caribbean historiography.

“Champions of IndoGuyanese Welfare” details the activities of five individuals and three groups that exposed the atrocities perpetrat-

ed on indentured workers, the most exploited group in the Caribbean.

It commenced with the crusade of James Crosby, the longest serving Immigration Agent-General who so championed the rights of Indians that the Immigration Department became known as the Crosby Office.

Chief Justice Joseph Beaumont and Stipendiary William Des Voeux were humiliated and lost their jobs in the pursuit of justice for Indians.

In addition, the book discusses the various allegations of Bechu, the

fearless Bengali, who criticised planter tyranny and neglect. Bechu had so condemned the indenture system that the planters cancelled his indenture contract and repatriated him.

The book devotes considerable attention to the invaluable report of C.F. Andrews, an Emissary of Mohandas Gandhi, who condemned the education system, the blatant attempt to Christianise Indian children, poor housing conditions , the failure to recognise Indian marriages and the spread of alcoholism in the Indian community. It also describes the activities of the British G u i a n a East Indian Association in promoting the interest and welfare of Indians and emphasising their multilateral contributions.

This book has received favourable reviews from Drs Tyran Ramnarine, G a r y Girdhari and Frank Birbalsingh.

For more information on this book, contact the author at bmangru@ york.cuny. edu.

(Text from press release by Dr Mangru)

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WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2017| guyanatimeSinternational.com

Enigma Dance Studio

Reneé (left) and one of her students

By Utamu Belle

E

nigma Dance Studio, a local dance company, is on a mission to empower as many lives as possible through dance.

Reneé Robinson who was residing overseas, but came here last year for Guyana’s jubilee celebrations - has been teaching dance for over 30 years.

The professional dance instructor saw a need for youths to have an outlet for self-expression and self-development. This was when Reneé met fellow dance instructor LynnAnn Medford, who is now CEO and Artistic Director of Enigma, through a mutual friend.

Lynn-Ann indicated that she was looking for instructors, a collaboration that gave birth to Enigma Dance Studio.

The Studio offers seven genres of dance, including ballet, hip hop and contemporary.

Students, as young as threeyearsold, have been learning and developing under the tutelage of Reneé and Lynn-Ann. Recently, the local dance company extended its services out-

side of Georgetown to the Linden community, a move that has attracted several young women and girls. These students venture to the Lichas Hall on weekends for dance classes.

Sunday Times Magazine visited Reneé at the Studio where the instructor was finishing up on a session. Several excited,little dancers were eagerly awaiting their animated stickers - a “reward” Robinson hands out after a fun and energetic hour on stage dancing.

“Which would you like to have?” Reneé asked. “The purple one!” one of the girls replied.

The dance classes, tailored for both children and adults, are conducted on Saturdays.

As for Reneé, she is living her true passion. She mentioned that Guyana has been very welcoming since coming back to her homeland.

“Dance has been rewarding for me. I danced a little bit when I was younger, but sort of transitioned into teaching it.

I find that it has been great as many of my students have gone off to different parts of the country and the world

In the dance studio

to spread their love for dance.

Additionally, dancing has kept me fit,” she noted.

Reneé stated she teaches contemporary dance, which she describes as “African fusion”, jazz, tap dancing or whatever students request. At Enigma, there are instructors who basically teach all forms of dance.

“Enigma has grown.

The idea is to give students the opportunities to not only learn, but to branch out to become professional dancers.

Lynn-Ann provides that opportunity through Enigma Dance Studio,” Reneé pointed out.

The dance instructor admitted that not everyone who comes to class might be looking to become a professional dancer. Some may dance just to keep fit or venture into something different, which she said is “perfectly fine”. For Reneé, it is not only about producing professional dancers, but empowering them.

“It's about discipline, self-control and confidence building.

It’s about knowing that the world is your oyster and you can achieve your dreams. I think

dance is a great avenue to allow young people to find their voice,” she declared.

Reneé added that she gets a sense of satisfaction when beginners eventually master the art form.

“There are some students who come in that seem to have ‘two left feet’, but after working with them I see great changes. They blossom, their confidence and abilities improve. As a teacher, it's a great feeling. I feel accomplished when I see this,” she expressed.

Reneé considers herself as an “advocate for learning more than one style of dance and for true development of the art form”.

In an effort to address the future of dance in Guyana, Enigma is set to host a Dance Forum slated for April 29 and 30 at the University of Guyana, Turkeyen.

Enigma has put together a programme for Carifesta 2017, which is set to be hosted in Barbados in August.

Robinson related that herself and Lynn-Ann are putting together a “very historical, folkloric package for the event”.

Reneé Robinson

Plans are also underway for International Dance Day in Georgetown on April 29. A flash mob featuring approximately 60 dancers is set to light the stage. Enigma will also hosts adult morning stretch and fitness classes at its Studio on Regent Street, Georgetown and at its venue at the Guyana Cricket Club, which now has an additional four studios.

Reneé also pointed out that she has developed an arts education programme overseas

where she works as a booking agent for various artists and theatre dance companies.

“I’ve sort of transitioned more into arts management and art education,” she explained.

Reneé plans on taking dance to a “higher level” and has already set the tone for a brighter future for youths using the art form. She also believes that dance is a very competitive industry which provides the opportunity for a successful career, and for travelling.

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By Petamber Persaud

T

hat we experience a whirl of literary events at the start of each new year is occasion to stop and smell the morning glory and frangipani and hibiscus and lotus and the night blooming lily. We cannot easily dismiss the confluence of these days as mere coincidence; there must be more to this confluence of literary events, perhaps sublime, even divine.

The events in reference are World Storytelling Day, World Poetry Day, World Book &Copyright Day, World Intellectual Property Day, and National Library Week.

World Storytelling Day (March 20) World Storytelling Day is a manifestation of the new millennium, which has its roots in several initiatives started at the end of the previous millennium. For instance, in the early 1990s Sweden organised an event labelled ‘All Storytellers Day’ falling on March 20. In the late 1990s, storytellers in Perth, Australia coordinated a five-week long celebration of story, commemorating March 20 as the International Day of Oral Narrators. Nearer to home (Guyana), it was discovered Mexico and other South American countries were already celebrating March 20 as the National Day of Storytellers.

The first concerted and official effort by Guyana to celebrate World Storytelling Day occurred in 2011. That first commemoration was an initiative of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, and it was an honour and a pleasure for me to

The Shaping of Guyanese Literature

National Library Guyana

have coordinated and chaired that first World Storytelling Day in Guyana. That event was held on March 16 in the conference room of the National Library.

Hashtag/Tagline – oral tradition/storytelling/the book/reading/ storage and dissemination of information and entertainment/dealing with life’s issues.

World Poetry Day (March 21) World Poetry Day was originally set for October 15. However, in 1999, UNECSO declared March 21 World Poetry Day. World Poetry Day has its genesis in one person, a woman, who not only knew of the power of poetry and tasted its pleasures, but also wanted others to be a part of this sacred art.

In 1936, Tessa Sweezy Webb started honouring poets of Ohio, U.S.A. This vision soon caught the imagination of poetry lovers worldwide. By 1951, forty-one countries were celebrating the works of their poets. Webb used the third Saturday in October for her magnanimous work, but by 1951, October 15 was accepted as the ideal day to mark the occasion.

UNESCO’s declaration of March 21 as World Poetry Day was to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world and, as the UNESCO session declaring the day says, to “give fresh recognition and impetus to national, regional and international poetry movements”.

Hashtag/Tagline – oral tradition/the book/ reading, writing/ publishing/ the book/ nar-

rative poem as the first type of novel/ storage and dissemination of information and entertainment/UNESCO/ dealing with life’s issues.

World Book & Copyright Day (April 23) The main aim of World Book & Copyright Day is to focus on books in order to promote reading, to encourage publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright. Copyright is to encourage more creativity, better crafted works andmore elucidation, learning and entertainment. Copyright breeds innovation.

When in 1995 UNESCO proclaimed April 23 as World Book and Copyright Day, the organisation attached significance to the event as the birth anniversary or death anniversary of the following writers: Cervantes, Shakespeare, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Halldor K. Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, JosepPla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.

Hashtag/Tagline – the book/ promote reading/ encourage publishing/the protection of intellectual property/Shakespeare/ UNESCO/a better life for all.

World Intellectual Property Day (April 26) The main aim for World Intellectual Property Day is “to raise awareness in how patents, trademarks, copyright etc. affect daily life” and how it helps to promote creativity and innovation.

The event was established by the World Intellectual Property

Organization (WIPO) in 2000 and the date was chosen to coincide with the date when the convention establishing WIPO came into force.

Hashtag/Tagline – the book/ copyright/ creativity/ the protection of intellectual property/ a better life for all/WIPO. National Library Week (April 9-15) The first National Library Week was observed in 1958 with the theme ‘Wake Up and Read!’ The event has its genesis in the ambitious goals of the National Book Committee of the early 50s, which were to encourage people “to read in their increasing leisure time” to “improving incomes and health” and “developing strong and happy family life”.

The on-going theme

of National Book Week is ‘Libraries Transform’.

Hashtag/Tagline – the book/ reading/ the library/ storage and dissemination of knowledge and entertainment/ transforming lives/ improving incomes and health.

From the various taglines, it would appear that man made good use of the gift of speech by creating an oral tradition (poetry, storytelling, drama, song, ritual, custom, culture, etc.), which was empowered to capture all that was happening and package that knowledge in such a way to benefit succeeding generations.

And succeeding generations did make proper use of the oral tradition blueprint by bringing into form the book and

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all its attendant manifestations, leading to copyright and the protection of intellectual property and more creativity and more transformation and the improvement of life.

Responses to this author telephone (592) 2260065 or email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com What’s Happening: The new book, “Guyanese Writers of Indian Ancestry”, to commemorate the centennial end to indentureship and (Indian) Arrival Day is here!

There will be a few soft launches (no plans for a ‘hard’ launch); please make contact at the above number/email to get additional information.

Local artistes performing at a World Storytelling Day event at Umana Yana

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The Origins of Curry “A rchaeology”, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America, reported that archaeologists at the University of Washington at Vancouver analysed human teeth and residue found on pots from the site of Farmana - which dates back more than four thousand years ago and is located roughly 100 miles northwest on New Delhi - and found the first evidence of use of turmeric and ginger in cooking.

Farmana was part of the Indus civilisation, which once ranged from eastern Iran to modernday Delhi. “Archaeology”

contributing editor Andrew Lawler reports in “Slate” that the use of these spices at the site likely constitutes the first known instance of curry being part of a people’s diet - making it also, possibly, “the oldest continuously prepared cuisine on the planet”.

According to an affiliate website of Kew Gardens, the origin of the word ‘curry’ has a much narrower culinary and regional focus than today's meaning. While the origin of the word “curry” is still debated, it has been generally accepted that it came from the Tamil word kari, meaning ‘sauce’, and was a south Indian soup-

like accompaniment to rice.

When the Portuguese arrived in India, they adapted the word Kari to 'karil', and this word is still used in Goa. The ‘sauce’ has since been adopted and adapted by the British since the days of the empire.

The traditional south Indian kari does not have a fixed set of ingredients, but a typical mixture consists of roasted and ground curry leaf, coriander, cumin, mustard seeds, black pepper, fenugreek, turmeric and sometimes cinnamon, cloves and cardamom.

The UK’s “Menu Magazine” notes that the earliest known recipe for

'Curry Chicken' is a popular meal in Guyana

meat in spicy sauce with bread appeared on tablets found near Babylon in Mesopotamia, written in cuneiform text as discovered by the Sumerians, and dated around 1700 B.C., probably as an offering to the god Marduk.

It also notes that in British King Richard II’s reign (1377-1399) when the first real English cookery book was written, Richard employed 200 cooks and they, plus others including philoso-

phers, produced a work with 196 recipes in 1390 called “The Forme of Cury”.

‘Cury’ was the Old English word for cooking derived from the French ‘cuire’ - to cook, boil, grill.

In 1780 the first commercial curry powder appeared, and in 1846 its fame was assured when William Makepeace Thackeray wrote a “Poem to Curry” [see page 18] in his “Kitchen Melodies”.

While we mostly associate curry with hot and spicy peppers, the original Indian curry did not have any peppers in it since chilli peppers or red peppers were not native to India. It wasn’t until Christopher Columbus brought chilli seeds back from the New World and they were traded to India did they make their way into Indian cooking to become part of the spicy curries we know today.

Star of the week

Different spices used in curry

B

en Parag quickly became a household name when he wowed everyone with his melodious voice on the Indian hit reality singing television show, “Dil Hai Hindustani”.

Ben, who is fondly called Benny, is the son of Guyanese Kumar and Savi Parag. Ben’s parents are from Mibicuri Black Bush Polder in East Berbice Corentyne, but migrated to the U.S. several years ago. Although he was born in the U.S., Ben’s love for his parents’ homeland is unrelenting. He tries to visit Guyana as often as he can. Ben comes from a family of singers.

His inherent singing talent coupled with his passion for music since the age of six have aided in Ben’s mesmerising, jawdropping performances on the Indian reality show. Although the 19-year-old, who is also fluent in Hindi, did not win the competition, he returns home to the U.S. feeling honoured to have sung for some of Bollywood’s megastars and getting the opportunity to visit the country from which his ancestors migrated from, India.

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WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2017| guyanatimeSinternational.com

Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk

T

he Royal Geographical Society of London entrusted Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk with conducting an expedition of exploration of British Guiana in 1835; his work, it is claimed, led to the successful Venezuela and Brazil boundary arbitrations for Guyana, then British Guiana.

Schomburgk was born June 5, 1804 in the town of Freyburg on the River Unstrut, in Germany. The eldest of five siblings, he showed an early interest in nature, and in the 1820s, while living with his uncle, he learned botany from a professor.

Later, after several years of drifting through several Caribbean islands following his unsuccessful stint as a businessman, he voluntarily funded and took on the task of mapping the unexplored areas of the British Virgin Islands coast of Anegada.

Schomburgk’s work so caught the attention of the Royal Geographical Society (London) that the society proposed he should go to South America under its commission.

Arriving in British Guiana in 1835, he made three trips for the RGS, the first to the Rupununi, including the Kanukus in search of the plant used to make curare; the second up the Corentyne and Berbice River was made in 1837 where he discovered the Victoria regia water lily. On his last trip for the RGS, Schomburgk travelled to the source of the Essequibo River, the upper Orinoco, the Rio Branco basin and Mount Roraima where he came across slavers who regularly raided indigenous villages; it was here that he realized the need to define boundaries to help prevent such raids.

The demand for border definitions for the protection of the indigenous tribes stepped up pressure on the British government to establish the borders in the south-west and the west.

The British government then commis-

Robert Schomburgk, c1840 (from ‘The Guiana Travels of Robert Schomburgk 1835-1844’)

sioned Schomburgk in April 1841 to survey and mark the boundaries of British Guiana.

Along with his brother Richard, Schomburgk set off west, along the Barima, Barama, Waini, Amakura and Cuyuni Rivers. The second expedition took him to the Brazilian frontier, including Pirara. After Pirara, the team mapped the Takutu and Ireng Rivers then returned to the Kanuku Mountains. The region around Roraima followed, and Schomburgk's last journey was to the upper Corentyne and the Kutari River.

By this time, both the Brazilians and the Venezuelans had complained officially to the British government about Schomburgk's placement of boundary markers, which subsequently had to be removed.

The “Schomburgk line”, as it was called, came to form the basis of the

‘Purumama / The Great Cataract of the River Parima’. A magnificent view from Schomburgk's "Twelve Views in the Interior of Guiana" from a series of views of Guiana by Charles Bentley, executed as illustrations for Robert Schomburgk's work in the region.

British claim at the arbitral tribunal in Paris in 1899 that settled the boundary with Venezuela. Guyana was awarded a large portion, but not the whole of that claim. The Brazil boundary was settled after arbitration by the King of Italy in 1904 where the Schomburgk line also played a role.

Schomburgk was to play a posthumous role in fixing the trijunction point of the Suriname, Brazil and Guyana boundaries in 1936.

Throughout his travels, the explorer also collected numerous plant and animal specimens and accumulated many maps.

Bird specimens were given to museums; fishes, animals and animal skulls preserved by the explorer were also donated, as were many dried plants, fruits, seeds and living orchids.

Schomburgk was knighted in 1844 and sent to Barbados as a diplomat in 1846.

In 1857, he was sent to Santo Domingo

as British Consul then to Bangkok, Thailand. He returned to London in ill health and retired in 1864, dying March 11 of 1865 in Germany.

Road to Georgetown seawall, British Guiana n.d.

Vlissengen Road, Georgetown n.d.

‘The Comuti or Taqulare Rock, on the River Essequibo’. From Schomburgk's "Twelve Views in the Interior of Guiana"; a series of views of Guiana by Charles Bentley, executed as illustrations for Robert Schomburgk's magnificent work on the region.

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This week's Crossword

This week's Puzzle

see solution on page 47

Hoping it’ll go away…

T

…discrimination

his PNC-led APNU/AFC government reminds your Eyewitness of those little kids who believe that when they close their eyes the world disappears!!

Take discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation: no matter how they slice it, dice it, or even puree it, it ain’t gonna disappear. So why’s the Government insisting there are laws on the books forbidding discrimination against ANYONE, and they don’t have to be specific?

But even a moment’s thought about this assertion shows how dissembling this Govt can be. Just look at the “Prevention of Discrimination Act” — which has to do with employment generally. It excruciatingly spells out that “you can’t discriminate against folks on account of their race, sex, religion, colour, ethnic origin, indigenous population, natural extraction, social origin, economic status, political opinion, disability, family responsibilities, pregnancy, marital status or age. Whew! Now, if it was just a matter of forbidding “discrimination” against “anyone”, why spell out all these categories? Very simply because specific acts of discrimination against specific persons are always along specific grounds.

And that’s the whole point about discrimination.

Ain’t it? And Lord knows, people are discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. Let’s be honest: think of a workplace, any workplace — YOUR workplace. Do you thing they would’ve hired your boss if he was openly gay? Or, God forbid, trans???

Well, in case you didn’t realise it, that’s discrimination!

Problem is: while at one level most of us may say we look at everyone as “human”, that’s not the point.

Is it? When we actually CHOOSE, we’re forced to DISTINGUISH; and that’s where discrimination can come in.

If the criteria we use to make the cut isn’t related to the purpose — in this case, the job — then it’s discriminatory. And this is why the legislators made that laborious list above. They recognise folks have been discriminated at one time or another along those lines, and forbid it because it was wrong. So why not add “sexual orientation” to the list?

And we come to the crux of the matter: A large swathe of us — for many reasons, especially “religious” ones — evaluate gay or trans-people as “not quite” deserving of equal treatment. They make us uncomfortable just as how at one time — and even presently, in some places — to be asked to treat Black people equally made some uncomfortable.

So this Government will have to quit trying to ride with the hounds — those who discriminate against gays — and run with the hares — those who are gay.

There comes a time when they have to make the moral choice and explicitly forbid discrimination against gays.

And that time is now! …Code of Conduct TIGI’s complained that the Integrity Act – to which the PNC-led APNU/AFC govt had appended their much vaunted “Code of Conduct for Ministers” — is fatally defective for “vagueness,” among other sins of omission and commission. So what else is new – or surprising? This is an administration that’s “talked the talk” but is genetically incapable of “walking the walk”.

Genetically? Think PNC as the chromosomes in every ministry of this Government!

Now, while the Govt’s hoping it’ll just go away, let’s not forget this Code of Conduct was promised to be unfurled within THE FIRST 100 DAYS of the Government. Well, it’s now over 700 days and counting.

In the meantime, every week, there’s another scandal involving another Government official. Shall we count the instances, dear reader? We thought not!! It’s just too sickening. Isn’t it?

But it’s the moral responsibility of the supporters of the Government, who put them there with their sweet talk.

Like Spike advised, they should “do the right thing”. …ANSA’s sweetheart deal The Government’s hoping folks will forget the G$605M pharma scam involving ANSA. Well, a hat tip to the Stabber for keeping the spotlight on!

But they should look just outside the penumbra for the dirty trick just played!

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2017| guyanatimeSinternational.com

Chutzpah…

O

…of Moustache Man?

r a case of “just don’t give a damn” by the entire PNC-led APNU: in this case, of Basil Williams taking his odiferous doo-doo and rubbing it on the behind of the learned judge of the High Court?? Whatever it is, the AG’s drawn the battle lines between the Executive and the Judiciary – lines that were staked out early in this administration, when the Mustachioed Man went after the then Chancellor of the Judiciary.

Many in the society – especially supporters of the Government – brushed aside that early salvo as “sticking it to PPP appointees”. They assumed amnesia about what the PNC had proved in their first incarnation in Government: give them an inch and they’ll take a furlong; especially when it comes to the Judiciary. The two top honchos in the Judiciary are both appointed by this Government, and yet, here it is: the AG is walking all over them.

Justice Holder had tried to avoid bringing out into the open the conflict involving Executive overreach into Judicial competency when, after Williams’s gross disrespect, he left the bench rather than slap him with a contempt order for his contemptible behaviour and words. But against Justice Holder’s valiant sacrifice for the dignity of the Guyanese state, Williams displayed his total lack of class – and unconcern for the big picture – when he now insists the Judge can’t cite him for contempt OUT of court!!

Can you believe this? Well, this Eyewitness can.

Williams is a fella who’s so self-conscious about his unfitness for the office he holds that he’ll inevitably resort to the “brute force and ignorance” that’s become his trademark. What else is available to him? Certainly not the wit or legal facility of his Founder Leader, whom he tries to mimic, but actually parodies and caricatures!

But this is a serious matter, dear readers, and the leaders of the Judiciary will have to rise to the occasion, like Justice Crane did back in the day. In a Parliamentary democracy, there’s no ‘separation of powers’ between the Executive and Legislature.

The latter’s the slavish handmaiden of the former, since each MP is either a minister serving at the will of the President, or SLOBBERS at the thought of becoming a minister – to rake in the privileges and perks. Only the Judiciary stands between rule of law and rule of the jungle.

The matter of the AG being in contempt of the Court is not a matter that should be left for Pressie to call off his terrier. It is for the Chancellor and Chief Justice (both acting) to demonstrate they won’t be cowed because of their sex or their insecure tenure. …on waste Can the AFC be so oblivious to their status in Guyanese society nowadays that they would miss the irony of the caption they placed over their Column in the Muckraker: “Putting waste in its place”? Most Guyanese – especially their supporters in Berbice – see THEM as a “waste” today, and are only waiting for 2020 to dump them into the dustbins of history.

One of the reasons they probably don’t see the reality is because folks like the Muckraker’s publisher kept their column in the face of their total irrelevance both in and out of government.

Quick now: can you think of an initiative of the Government – ANY initiative – in which the AFC had a finger, much less a hand?

Your Eyewitness isn’t holding his breath on the VAT on private education ploy the AFC’s trying to pull to distinguish itself from APNU. That’s just a distinction without a difference, after the slavish support they’ve given up to now.

Like they say in Berbice: “Dew cyaan full wha’ rain na full!! …in food ad The theme for “Restaurant Week” reminds your Eyewitness of a used tyre outfit’s promo announcing a “blowout sale!!”

Doesn’t “Explore eat and repeat” highlight what you DON’T want food to do to customers?? Repeat!!

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haunell Duesbury, founder of Shunz Royal, is a talented makeup artist and an aspiring designer and ophthalmologist.

She is a former student of North Georgetown Primary and St.Roses High School. Presently, Shaunell is pursuing studies in optometry at the University of Guyana.

“I am very passionate about the eyes because I feel it is the most outstanding feature of the body and must be taken care of,” Shaunell said in an interview with Sunday Times Magazine.

To compliment her other talents, the 20-year-old pursued makeup artistry and fashion designing. Her passion for creating with her hands led to the start of Shunz Royal.

Through her label, Shaunell showcases and

fashion 39

shares her “God-given” creative skills with the world.

“I enjoy the practice of transforming and beautifying individuals, helping them to experience a different effect/look. At a tender age I found myself engrossed with makeup and creating clothing designs – all on my own. Over the years I honed my skills and felt the desire to give back,” she expressed.

Thus far, Shaunell’s designs are inclusive of handmade bras, chokers, flower crowns and tutu skirts. Her future plan is to expand her current offerings.

For more information, contact the designer at Shunz Royal on Facebook or Instagram Shunz Royal.

Shaunell Duesbury

40 news

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Nandlall arrested, charged over law books fiasco A s s i s t a n t Commissioner of Police Sydney James has confirmed that former Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall was charged with larceny of several

Commonwealth law reports, on Thursday.

The former AG is accused of stealing the 14 Commonwealth law reports worth more than G$2 million.

However, this newspaper understands that

when Nandlall was taken to court, the Magistrate declined to arraign him, saying he arrived too late. Hence, the arraignment is scheduled for Friday.

Nandlall had filed legal action in the High

Court on Tuesday and was granted an order effectively blocking ranks of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) from seizing several law books, which are now the subject of a Police investigation.

The conservatory order was granted by acting Chief Justice Roxane George. It states that the Guyana Police Force has 14 days within which to apply for the order to be varied or set aside.

Nandlall presented documents to support his arguments that the Government had taken over the payment of his personal subscription to the 14 Commonwealth Law Books as a condition of his service.

The incumbent Attorney General, Basil Williams has, however, accused him of stealing the books and had threatened to have him arrested.

After Nandlall filed a lawsuit against Williams for libel and slander, SOCU launched an investigation into the ownership of the law books and has since questioned the Opposition parliamentarian on the matter.

Former Attorney General Anil Nandlall

SOCU ranks also visited former President Donald Ramotar at the Leader of the Opposition Office to verify if indeed an arrangement was made for the Government to pay for Nandlall’s law books, which he confirmed.

SOCU officers had obtained a warrant to take possession of the law books, but Nandlall disclosed that they were in his possession at one of his premises, and he was unable to access the premises, because the person who had the keys was currently overseas. Last year, Minister Williams announced that the books were missing, and he subsequently launched an audit after sending home the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Indira Anandjit.

But Nandlall con-

tended that the Minister knew about the whereabouts of the books since 2015 during the transition period from one political administration to another.

Nandlall said the issue of the “missing books” was raised months later, after he had begun criticising Williams’s work.

The former Attorney General claimed the matter reached an explosive stage after he called out Williams over his courtroom outburst and following the legal proceedings he brought against him.

Nandlall, during a press conference following his release from SOCU on Monday, raised concerns regarding SOCU operating outside of its legal mandate to investigate financial crimes.

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2017| guyanatimeSinternational.com

Encouraging violent confrontations

By Ravi Dev

O

ne of the most disappointing outcomes of the past two years of the APNU/AFC Governance has been their failure to fulfil their promise in their Manifesto on “Ethnic Impact Statements”. For decades, I had been pointing out that, unlike what the PPP and PNC insisted during their heyday, Guyanese perceived and evaluated the actions of their governments through “ethnic” rather than “class” lens. This ineluctably followed from their own truth that, no matter what their public rhetoric, they had voted along ethnic lines.

Very early during the PPP regime, I wrote, “In Guyana, while the PPP Government attempts to discuss the impact of their policies on constituencies, their analyses are still couched in Marxist terminology. They insist on demonstrating that their policies help the “working class”. This doesn’t cut any ice with the ground constituencies, however, which generally categorize themselves ethnically and evaluate every policy from that perspective.

The PPP has had to defend every single initiative – be it appointments and dismissals to and from the Public Service, downsizing of the bauxite sector, house-lot allocation, contract awards, against claims by the African Guyanese community, for instance, of discrimination against them and favouring Indians in the sugar industry, rice industry, gun-permits etc.

In each instance, the PPP’s explanations have been too little, too late for the African Guyanese.”

I had hoped the APNU/ AFC coalition would have learnt something from that experience: their governmental actions would be scrutinised for their ethnic impact by Indians and other groups that did not vote for them. I was encouraged, therefore, when the major African-dominated APNU openly conceded it needed Indian votes, which the AFC could bring to the coalition, and when they declared in their manifesto, under the heading “Equal Opportunity”: “APNU/AFC recognizes

that each citizen, regardless of race, class, creed, social status or gender, has the right to access opportunities and make an important contribution to nationbuilding.

Failure to ensure ethnic balance in political, economic and social opportunities is counter-productive and a waste of our rich talents.

Moreover, as a nation we must realize that all ethnic groups must be developed, and jettison the zero-sum mentality of the past.

“Everyone can be made better off, given our bountiful natural resources.

APNU+AFC will reform and empower the Ethnic Relations Commission to provide Ethnic Impact Statements of Cabinet Decisions and Government departments, where necessary, and such findings will be acted upon in the best interest of all Guyanese.”

But today, not even the Ethnic Relations Commission has been constituted.

During my days in the Opposition benches, I had repeatedly discussed the need for an “Ethnic Impact statement” with the PNC, WPA and GAP. But I assumed the APNU/ AFC’s touting of the policy was a recognition that the charges of “marginalisation” from the African community had been a primary fuel in the ethnic conflagrations since 1998. And they would not want a repetition from “the other side” if they didn’t make it clear that the pie would now be divided fairly.

I had written, “While we concede that the cause (and solution) of our ethnic problem goes beyond governmental actions, the fact of the matter is that we have to begin there. It is a simple matter of justice. No matter which party forms the Government, we accept that Governmental actions have to be conducted on behalf of all the people: the State is our joint venture.

“If such “Ethnic Impact Statements” could be crafted and issued before the announcement and implementation of policies and programmes, they would precipitate discussion and debate, which could be utilized to modify the policies or programmes before they become political mobilisational tools. To wait for the inevitable

ethnic post mortems is to ensure there will be trouble. Big trouble.

The old cliché still holds: justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.”

With the precipitate actions in the sugar industry, the slew of ethnic appointments, the neglect of rice, etc., it is clear the promise of considering the “ethnic impact” of governmental actions has been jettisoned, like so much else. This inevitably increases the likelihood of violence, as occurred post-1997 from the PNC’s constituency.

news 41

42 travel & tourism

Boats moored on the river bank (Photo by Steve Humphreys)

T

he picturesque Burro-Burro river, Region Nine, lies minutes away from the popular rainforest resort Surama and Iwokrama International Centre for Conservation and Development.

At Burro-Burro, the surrounding community established Carahaa Landing Camp, a hammock camp on the river edge and also the starting point for many river trips. This

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2017 | guyanatimeSinternational.com

Arriving in a canoe at Carahaa Landing camp (Photo by Jay Seedy)

camp offers a base for night walks and day break canoe floats on the river, which allows the opportunity to observe giant river otters, tapir, spider monkeys and many more species.

A trip on the river reveals rich biodiversity and picturesque nature scenes. It is an adventure on remote Burro-Burro!

Emerald Tree Boa lurks in the trees on the river (Photo by Jay Seedy)

Journeying to Surama via Burro-Burro (Photo by Jay Seedy)

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2017| guyanatimeSinternational.com

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Enrico Woolford Berbice residents protest closure of sugar estates T to chair new NCN board S

even individuals, some of whom were active politicians during the 2015 General Elections campaign, were named to serve on the newlyestablished National Communications Network (NCN) board which will oversee the functioning of the Stateowned TV and radio stations.

Minister of State, Joseph Harmon made the announcement during post cabinet briefing on Thursday at the Ministry of the Presidency.

The persons identified were: veteran journalist and owner of Capitol News; Enrico Woolford, owner of Newssource and a renowned journalist; Gordon Mosely, broadcaster; Margaret Lawrence, Michael Leonard, Kamal Persaud, Dane Gobin and the Director of the Government Information Agency (GINA) Beverly Alert.

Woolford was appointed as Chairman of the board.

Persaud, Alert and

Enrico Woolford

Leonard are members of the Alliance For Change (AFC) which is in the governing coalition with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU).

Former Chairman, Bishwa Panday resigned from the post in December 31, 2016.

Panday, who was appointed back in September 2015, had told media operatives that he was not able to dedicate valuable time to the task as such he said someone who has the time should be appointed to serve in the position.

he protests against the impending closure of sugar estates across the country have gained momentum on the ground, as hundreds of workers of Rose Hall Estate staged a picketing exercise on Tuesday.

The Estate, which employs some 2400 persons, has not taken lightly the proposal made by President David Granger to have Albion, Blairmont, and Uitvlugt Estates remain open.

Many workers believe this is a clear indication that Rose Hall is one of the Estates that could be next to close its operation, and workers there are likely to be placed on the breadline.

The workers backed by their Union, the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) displayed placards as they vented their anger at the announcement of the President.

The otherwise peaceful protest was disturbed momentarily when former workers’ union representative Paul Austin, who was fired from the Estate and was now an Alliance For Change (AFC) activist, engaged protesters.

Traffic was stopped along the East Canje roadway for a few minutes as the protest took over the road.

Austin was taken away by the Police, and the several hundred protesters continued their peaceful protest.

One protester carrying a placard which read “Your own words, ‘Sugar too big to fail’”, called on the President not to close the Estate.

Another worker holding a placard which read “What about the 20 percent promise?” said they were all fooled by the coalition

The peaceful protest at the Rose Hall Estate

when its promise of a 20 per cent increase was made. “They raise they pay 100 per cent. The treasury isn’t running down with all the Minister’s pay since they double they salary? They are milking the taxpayers to full their pockets…”

The protest caused the Estate to cease grinding operations, as no cane was burnt on Monday in anticipation of the workers’ protest action.

Workers also reminded that just a few weeks ago, acting President Moses Nagamootoo in his substantial position as Prime Minister, while speaking at the remembrance event for the Rose Hall Martyrs, promised that “sugar will never die”. However, they say they are now faced with the real prospect of joblessness and impoverishment.

Furthermore, the workers are convinced that the plans touted

by Administration and Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) officials offer little hope for a secure and bright future.

They say the closure of Rose

Hall Estate – should it proceed, would take a heavy toll on many communities. The town of New Amsterdam would also be affected adversely in a big way.

According to one of the protesters, if the Estate is closed, there will be nothing for the more than 2000 workers to do as well as those who operate businesses that serve estate workers, as there will be no money to sustain those businesses.

“They talking about education – where you gon get money fo send the children to school? Two years they in there and they ain’t do anything fo sugar… nothing at all. Now they trying to take away bread from we.”

The emotions exhibited by the worried workers showed that it was not a politically motivated protest but one in which the workers were pleading with the Government to rethink a decision it has made which would adversely affect generations. More particularly, the effects of that decision would almost be irreparable, at least for decades.

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2017| guyanatimeSinternational.com

How we can play our part in saving the earth

S

Pre-nup violated

atiricus was down in the dumps. He felt like the fella in one of the oldies his dad used to listen to — “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay”. He was a man with a broken heart. As he headed down to the Back Street Bar, he knew he wasn’t going to get much sympathy from the fellas. But then he figured he’d explore why everyone claimed “misery loves company”.

“Eh! Eh! How come yuh mout’ suh laang?”

Bungi asked the moment Satiricus arrived at the table where he and Hari had already put away a few.

“Like the wife didn’t give you your frek, or what?” chimed in Hari with a sly grin, as he signalled the waitress for a beer for Satiricus.

“Nah…,”Satiricus said distractedly. “I just came back from party headquarters.”

“Suh wha’ goin’ aan wid dem KFC bais?” asked Bungi, as he clinked his bottle with Satiricus’s.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” confessed Satiricus. “You remember the Accord we signed with the Pee-an-See to get our fair share??”

“The Pre-nuptial agreement signed on Valentine Day?” Hari grinned. “I thought that was soooo sweet!! Like a real wedding, not a coalition!!”

“Wha’ happen?” demanded Bungi impatiently. “A’yuh get blow??”

“Well,” started out Satiricus, “I wouldn’t put it that way. But Nagga Man said he wanted a new agreement.”

“And what Rum Jhaat said?” asked Hari while he polished off his beer to hide his smile.

“We haven’t seen Rum Jhaat since he was seen drinking with some British spy at the Desert Lagoon,” answered Satiricus with a worried frown. “I wonder if he was reconditioned.”

“Suh wha’ wraang if Nagga Man want wan new agreement if he and Rum Jhaat a get blow?” Bungi wanted to know.

“The man want us to picket the KFC office,” said Satiricus, shaking his head. “So he can tell GrainJa he’s getting pressure.”

“Me tell yuh ‘e lose ‘e balls afta he get larwah!” chuckled Bungi, slapping the table.

CROSSWORD SOLUTION

47

“Oh Devi, who has the ocean as Her garments and mountains as Her bosom, Who is the Consort of Sri Vishnu, I bow to You; Please forgive me for touching You with my feet.”

L

Anu Dev

ast Saturday was Earth Day 2017! It’s always struck me how different cultures personify the Earth. As Hindus, we view the Earth as Dharti Mata, or Prithivi Mata — Mother Earth — nurturing, caring, like a mother. The Greeks used to view the Earth as Gaia, personifying the Earth as a giant connected ecosystem working to maintain balance and harmony within the environment.

But how do we Western-oriented folks view the Earth today? We certainly don’t treat the Earth as reverently as we once did, that’s for sure.

We cut down trees, burn fossil fuels, and spray insecticides like there’s no tomorrow. We clear massive swathes of trees to build factories, to plant specific crops, or just to do landscaping to make the place ‘prettier’.

Thinking about these things, my mind always drifts to that speech Agent Smith gave in the Matrix, comparing humans to viruses because of the way we move to an area, use up all of its resources, and then just move on to another area. I think it’s always stuck with me because it is what we do: We dig up all of our gold, all of our bauxite, we

drill up all of our oil. We pump copious amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, never minding the consequences.

But we can’t just decide to shut down our factories, stop driving our cars, stop constructing buildings.

Can we? As a species, we’re continuously trying to move forward, trying to make discoveries; it’s not realistic to think that we could just shut down and go back to the Stone Age. But this drive does not have to translate itself as destroying the Earth.

At the individual level, we could try to do the little things, which in my estimation would result in a ‘big thing’ — a shift in the paradigm of how we view the Earth. If we really see her as our Mother, we wouldn’t dump on her. Would we? One of our biggest problems, for instance, is that many of us seem to have absolutely no problem with littering.

Without compunction, most throw wrappers out of car windows — like confetti, to celebrate their don’t-give-a-damn attitude and utter disregard for the appearance of their surroundings.

Respect the Earth, respect your surroundings.

Hold onto that soda can for just a few minutes, until you find a bin.

In the movie Tomorrowland, Hugh Laurie’s character had

really great monologue: “Bees and butterflies start to disappear, the glaciers melt, algae blooms. All around you the coal mine canaries are dropping dead and you won’t take the hint! In every moment there’s the possibility of a better future, but you people won’t believe it.

And because you won’t believe it, you won’t do what is necessary to make it a reality. So you dwell on this terrible future.

You resign yourselves to it for one reason, because *that* future does not ask anything of you today.”

Let’s not resign ourselves to that future; let’s actually start making some changes today.

Like when you’re choosing a car to buy, do you really need that giant gas-guzzling Humvee? By buying more fuel-efficient vehicles, you would be able to do your part in slowing the depletion of our fossil fuel reserves, and also you would be reducing the amount of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide produced by the combustion of fuel in your engine, since you would be burning less fuel overall.

And turn off your lights when you leave a room! The Earth and your electricity bill will be thankful for it. These are supposedly little things, but little things can add up; that’s probably the first thing we learnt in math.

The world around us is changing, and many of these changes aren’t for the better. And these aren’t abstract, inconsequential changes.

These are real, physical changes we can track and measure and see with our own eyes. Global sea levels have risen 8 inches within the last century, and the planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 19th century.

Countries like Guyana, which are below sea level, will be greatly affected, especially since most of our population is concentrated on our coast. As I look through my back window at the sea wall at high tide nowadays, I see the waves ominously lapping over.

So, this Earth Day, think about the Earth. Think about what small part you can play in helping to preserve the Earth.

The Earth won’t be ‘saved’ by some superhero swooping in to fix all of our problems. It’ll be saved be normal people like me and you getting our act together and being more conscious about the way our actions can affect the world around us.

And we do need the Earth to be habitable for quite a while, seeing as we can’t just pack up shop and move to the Moon or Mars just yet — as Mr Trump seems to believe.

Examinations season

By Ashley Anthony

C

XC examinations have officially started. Thousands of Guyanese are about to write what many consider to be the crowning jewel of high school examinations, CSEC and CAPE. Nerves are high, and everyone is probably worried about how much they know, and how much they still need to know.

I think it’s important to remember that everyone is equally as nervous as you are. It is as though we never believe we are ready for an examination until we actually write it and we see that we were prepared when we pass. There is a lot of pressure placed upon students writing these examinations, to the point where some teenagers begin to see the examinations as a determination of their self-worth and ability to succeed in life. And although examinations

are important, your entire identity shouldn’t hinge upon your performance in them. Of course, you should aim to do your best, but you shouldn’t place so much pressure on yourself that it becomes unbearable.

That being said, if you’ve got a lot of lastminute studying to do, it’s time to get started.

Although pretty much everyone advocates for studying continuously throughout the year, often times this isn’t exactly possible. For example, you might not have been taught something until right before the exam, you might have been stuck doing tonnes of SBAs (or IAs, for CAPE students), and didn’t get the time to study before this, or maybe you just had a really severe lack of motivation. Whatever the situation was, it isn’t going to change the date for your examination.

One of the best ways

to achieve last-minute studying is to plan it out. CSEC and CAPE examinations usually have a few days or breaks in the schedules (which vary depending upon the subjects you’re writing). If you are familiar with your timetable, and you know when your breaks are, these can be utilised to push in any last-minute studying you need to do. If you haven’t already, now is the time to work through past papers. Although textbooks might be able to provide questions that test specific objectives, it’s always good to become acquainted with how the questions are asked by the examiners themselves.

From my experience, examination questions are usually more involved than generic textbook questions, combining multiple objectives into one. To be sure you’re on the right track, check out the subject reports for

those years. Finally, don’t simply learn what your teacher has taught you and assume that you’ll be prepared. Teachers can make mistakes too. Take the initiative and check the syllabus to be sure that you’ve covered every single objective within it to the specified detail.

Good luck to everyone writing CSEC and CAPE this year – power through.

And if you think the stress and the late nights are testing you, remember that it doesn’t get easier.

You have to be able to overcome this to move on to more difficult challenges like university or your first job.

48 Bollywood

Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn films to release trailers with Salman Khan’s ‘Tubelight’

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2017 | guyanatimeSinternational.com

Priyanka Chopra returns to India for short break

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W

e have heard that Salman Khan’s film is not just a film but a celebration for movie-goers as well as the industry. With Tubelight, this is literally going to be true as even his contemporaries Shah Rukh Khan and Ajay Devgn are banking on his star factor.

Mid-Day reports that the two actors have decided to release their upcoming films’ theatrical trailers, Ajay’s Baadshaho and Imtiaz Ali untitled film, with Salman’s release, Tubelight.

Amar Butala, the CEO of Salman’s ban-

ner, confirmed to the daily, “The makers of both films have approached us, and we have decided to attach the two trailers with our film.” The reason for SRK and Ajay Devgn eyeing Tubelight is because this film releases on Eid this year, which is a long weekend.

A source informed the daily, “‘Tubelight’ is a big holiday release. It is customary to attach multiple trailers with such films. We will be happy to accommodate both [trailers] if the stars agree to the arrangement.”

Interestingly, the last time SRK and Ajay Devgn clashed at the box office was back in 2012

when their films Jab Tak Hai Jaan and Son of Sardar released on the same date. Back then, Ajay Devgn’s film could not stand up to SRK’s stardom. So, would it happen again and this time with their trailers?

Well, only future has the answer.

Meanwhile, people are extremely excited and on the edge of their seats to know when Tubelight teaser would release. The Salman Khan-starrer has ChinaIndia war as its backdrop. The film would also mark the debut of Chinese actor Zhu Zhu. (Indian Express)

Kailash Kher celebrates musical journey of ‘Kailasa’

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elebrated singer Padma Shri Kailash Kher celebrated the music journey of his band ‘Kailasa’ in the presence of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis among many iconic personalities from the world of music and films. Talking on the occasion on Tuesday night, Kailash said, “When I came to Mumbai, I had to face a huge struggle and series of rejections before managing to get my recognition. But I think those days made me stronger and I am thankful that Almighty blessed me with the love of so many people across the nation that wherever I go, people love my music.”

The evening started with a small audio visual presentation that captured the journey of band Kailasa and its members Paresh and Nuresh followed by a comedy performance by Raju Srivastava.

Presented by P.S. Chhatwal the occasion was graced by singers like Alka Yagnik, Udit Narayan, Papon, Mithoon, Armaan Malik, Prasoon

Joshi, among others.

Calling himself a “fan of Kailash Kher” Favdavis said, “Today I am here not as a Chief Minister but as a music lover and fan of this brilliant singer.

It is great to see that at the age of 43, he received the Padma Shri. It is great to know that Prime Minister Modi has set the new rule where the selection of Padma Award is not only limited by state recommendation but also by the celebration of genuine talents,” he added.

The evening ended with a soulful performance by iconic Punjabi singer Gurdas Maan. (Indian Express)

riyanka Chopra is in India for a short break and there is nothing except party on her mind for now.

Well, we are not even complaining as the global Indian star has returned to her homeland after proving her mettle in the west. And if anybody needs a proof of her popularity in Hollywood, then her comparison to superstar Tom Cruise and her being addressed as an international celeb

by Kelly Ripa on the Live with Kelly show is the testimony of her hard work.

While the actor was having a fun time with her industry friends in the past few days, sever-

al pictures from the party made their way on the internet. Also, Priyanka herself has been sharing a lot of clicks from her short stay in India.

On Wednesday, the Dil Dhadakne Do actor posted a picture with Alia Bhatt and captioned it, “My sassy face! Lol shouldn’t do it too often! Love u girls @srishtibehlarya @aliaabhatt.”

But the pretty picture with the pretty ladies was not a perfect click in the first attempt. It took Alia several attempts to get the right expressions for the click. How do we know this? Alia wrote about it on her Twitter handle. “Hahaha after

various attempts my expression still remains the same,” wrote Alia replying to Priyanka’s post on Instagram.

On Monday Priyanka threw a party for her friends from the industry and on the guest list were — Karan Johar, Salman Khan’s sister Arpita Khan Sharma with husband Aayush, Arjun Kapoor, director Puneet Malhotra, Manish Malhotra, Sonali Bendre and Mini Mathur.

Though it was PeeCee’s party, all attention was on Alia Bhatt and Sidharth Malhotra who arrived in the same car and were seen spending time together.

Priyanka will return to the US to promote her Hollywood debut Baywatch with Dwayne Johnson. Also, in a live video on Facebook, the actor made it clear that the Baywatch team is not coming to India for promotions.

(Indian Express)

Bruna Abdullah’s topless photo goes viral

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odel-turnedactor Bruna Abdullah has been away from the silver screen but has become the talking point on social media, not for any upcoming project but her sizzling photo shoot in which she has posed topless. The actor has shared a breathtaking picture of hers on her Instagram account as she quoted a Meredith Brooks song, “I’m a bitch, I’m a lover. I’m a child, I’m a mother. I’m a sinner, I’m a saint. I do not feel ashamed. I’m your hell, I’m your dream. I’m nothing in between. You know you wouldn’t want it any other way” #90s Meredith Brooks!!”

Apart from this, the actor turned heads for her hot bikini pictures that she had shared on her social media account. In these pictures, Bruna can be seen spending some quality time

with longtime boyfriend.

Wearing an eye-popping bikini, Bruna has been sharing pictures from their vacation.

The picture has been shot by celebrity photographer Rahul Jhangiani who has earlier clicked some aesthetic pictures of other many celebrities and models including Sooraj Pancholi, Anushka Sharma and others. Bruna is known for her roles in films like Mastizaade, Jai Ho, Grand Masti, I Hate Love Stories and others

but has not appeared in any films recently.

Apart from films, the actor has also appeared in several reality shows on television. She was part of dance reality show, Nach Baliye season 6, with her ex-boyfriend Omar Farooque.

Apart from that, she has been a part of adventure reality show like Khatron Ke Khiladi. Now that she has everyone’s eyes on her, it would be interesting to see if she bags a film in coming future.

(Indian Express)

been the talk of the town.

At a recent award show, Shahid was seen proposing Mira again in front of hundreds of cameras. The two

have been setting some serious relationship goals and also giving some good parenting tips to their fans.

(Indian Express)

Shahid Kapoor, daughter Misha enjoy some pool time

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hahid Kapoor is celebrating the onset of summer with daughter Misha Kapoor by spending some pool time with her. The actor shared an adorable picture of him with Misha on his official Instagram account and wrote, “Pool time with missy.”

Shahid also tagged this moment as his best time. In the picture, while

Shahid has all his attention on Misha, the little one seems to be enjoying sucking on her father’s thumb.

By the way, while doing so she has her eyes on the camera, which do tell us that just like her father she loves to be on camera.

However, we all know that Shahid was quite apprehensive about letting his daughter choose acting as a career when she grows

up.

Misha, who was born in August last year, was also seen bonding with her grandparents. DNA reports that despite having a busy schedule, Shahid makes it a point to take Misha on regular visits to his father Pankaj Kapur’s home. And even Mira takes Misha to Delhi to meet her parents and spend time with them as the couple

want to instill strong family values in their daughter.

Misha is Shahid and Mira’s first born. After hiding her from the shutterbugs for a long time, Shahid went easy about being a protective father as now we often see him sharing pictures of his daughter and let the shutterbugs click her when they go out together. Mira and Shahid’s romance has also

Hollywood 49

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2017| guyanatimeSinternational.com

Abigail Breslin was too shocked to report sexual assault

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ctress Abigail Breslin says she did not report her sexual assault as she was in a state of shock and denial. The 21-year-old actress recently opened up about the dreadful incident on Instagram and posted an infographic by RAINN, an anti-sexual violence organisation in the US. The actress was then prompted to share another post, after one user commented on the previous image, “Reported

rapes are the only rapes that count.” In the second post captioned as “Trigger Warning”, Breslin revealed she was in a relationship with her rapist. “First off, I was in complete shock and total denial…Second of all, I was in a relationship with my rapist and feared not being believed… Thirdly, I knew how hurt my friends and family would be after finding out, and I didn’t want to put them through that.”

She further says she was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder a year and a half ago and has made a “lot of progress since the event occurred”. Towards the end, Breslin wrote, “Unreported rapes count.

Reported rapes count.

End of story.” (Indian Express)

Charlie Puth’s new single has caught our ‘Attention’

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harlie Puth’s new single titled “Attention” has caught everyone’s attention, not just with great music but also the way the artist has chosen to push this track. The song, is in collaboration with a pop-up art in Los Angeles called ‘The Attention Room’. It is a LED installation that is made to duplicate how your brain reacts when it receives attention. Sounds trippy? Well, you can also take virtual tour on the official site of the project.

The song, which is in itself about the experience seeking attention, hooks you from the first beat,

and as many fans have called it – catchy.

Information about his next album has not been released so far, however.

Fans have already started to wonder if Charlie’s song is about rumoured exBella Thorne. They have been tweeting to Charlie, asking him about the ‘girl’ who led the singer on. The song written by Charlie Puth and Jacob Kasher, and produced by Charlie Puth has made fans wonder about the singer’s love life for sure. Charlie will also be seen performing with Shawn Mendes on Illuminate World Tour, starting in Portland on July 6. (Indian Express)

Baywatch new trailer: Priyanka Chopra’s sexy, powerful villain has Dwayne Johnson terrified

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riyanka Chopra is our girl in the west. When she signed Baywatch, we did a mental high-five. When the first trailer of the film landed, we sent Dwayne Johnson messages upon messages, demanding to see more of Priyanka. It seems The Rock has finally delivered. After the Baywatch poster featuring only Priyanka, a new international trailer has landed and Priyanka owns it with F-bombs and her sexy, luscious villain (Dwayne’s words, not ours).

In the trailer itself,

we see PeeCee fluttering her eyelashes at Dwayne as they meet for the first time. Behind that sexy face, however, is a drug dealer and a killer as we realise it soon enough.

When things don’t go her

way, Priyanka’s Victoria Leeds is not afraid to pick up the gun and drop that F-bomb. But we have to say this, the more we see of Victoria, the more we love her baddie act. Hell, she may even overshad-

ow Dwayne and Zac Efron’s bromance.

Earlier, sharing the poster of Priyanka, Dwayne had written, “I rarely use the word, “Perfect” (except when describing my kissing when I drink tequila on weekends), but every superhero movie, needs a SUPER villain and @priyankachopra is PERFECT as our lead baddie in #BAYWATCH. Bad ass, intelligent, sexy, sophisticated, charming, evil and great tequila drinker. #Perfect #BAYWATCH MAY 25th.” (Indian Express)

Johnny Depp’s ex-wife Amber Heard makes her relationship with Elon Musk official

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fter the acrimonious split with Hollywood star Johnny Depp in January, Amber Heard is making news for her close association with 45-year-old Tesla billionaire, Elon Musk. The two have been often spotted together and are ru-

moured to be in a relationship. Now, the actor has turned all the rumours into truth with a picture that she had posted on her Instagram account recently.

The actor made her relationship with Elon official with a picture in which you can spot her

lip mark on the cheek of Elon. In fact, the actor has captioned the picture as ‘cheeky’ too. Even Elon shared the picture on his official Instagram account and described his dinner date.

Telegraph.co.uk reports that the couple were seen holding hands during a trip to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in Australia where Amber is shooting for her upcoming film Aquaman. By the way, it also claims that the actor is gelling well with Elon’s children, who were also captured by some shutterbugs at the spot.

Elon and Amber have not officially spoken

about their relationship but this picture is a proof of their growing fondness for each other. Recently, the actor’s father, David, told Grazia magazine, “Amber and Elon are both very serious about each other. She would love to get married.”

While Amber got divorced from Johnny Depp in January after filing a case of physical violence against him in May last year, Elon has been married twice before. He has five children from his first marriage with Justine Wilson, and divorced British actor Talulah Riley for the second time last year.

(Indian Express)

Joker role in ‘The Dark Knight’ Madonna’s biopic is in the not responsible for Heath works, titled ‘Blond Ambition’ Ledger’s death - Kate Ledger

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eath Ledger’s sister, Kate Ledger has said the actor’s role in The Dark Knight was not responsible for his untimely death from a prescription drugs overdose in 2008. Ledger’s sister refuted the claims that the actor was suffering from mental health issues at the time of his death, reported The Telegraph.

“I was really shocked, because that was him (Ledger) hav-

ing fun. Every report was coming out that he was depressed and that (the role) was taking this toll on him, and we’re going, honestly, it was the absolute opposite. It couldn’t be more wrong. He had an amazing sense of humour, and I guess maybe only his family and friends knew that, but he was having fun. He wasn’t depressed about the Joker!” Kate said at the premiere of “I Am Heath Ledger” at the Tribeca

Film Festival. This documentary film follows the life and struggles of Heath Ledger and provides an insight to the actor beyond his famous character.

Producer of the documentary, Matt Amato added, “I hope it’s an antidote to a lot of the gossip that exists in the world. There are some really terrible things about Heath out there.”

Ledger was 28 when he was found dead in his New York apartment on January 22, 2008, barely months before the release of the Christopher Nolan film.

The actor was awarded the 2009 Oscar for best supporting actor for the film posthumously. An exhibition about Ledger’s life is also to be conducted in October 2017 by the Western Australian Museum.

(Indian Express)

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adonna, who is one of the most successful and iconic artists in the pop music history, is getting a biopic. Universal has confirmed that it is working on the singer’s biopic titled Blond Ambition.

The studio has acquired rights to Elyse Hollander’s Blonde Ambition screenplay, that topped the 2016 Black List, the industry ranking that tracks Hollywood’s most-liked unproduced screenplays.

Fifty Shades of Grey producer Michael De Luca has joined his hands to produce the film along with Brett Ratner’s RatPac Entertainment.

John Zaozirny of Bellevue Productions also will produce. The project, which is based in early 1980’s, will focus on the times when Madonna was struggling in New

York to get her first album released while navigating fame, romance, and the dismissive attitude of the music industry at the time.

Blonde Ambition is the debut script for Hollander, who worked as an assistant to Alejandro G. Inarritu while he made Birdman, and Fresh Off the Boat co-executive producer Kourtney Kang. She is repped by WME, Bellevue, Ryan Pastorek and Robby Koch of Hansen Jacobson, as mentioned in a HollywoodReporter.

com report.

However, it’s unclear whether the project is Madonnaapproved, among Blonde Ambition’s producers is Brett Ratner, who directed the singer’s Beautiful Stranger video in 1999.

Also, there is no information if Universal has secured rights to use Madonna’s early hits like ‘Holiday,’ ‘Lucky Star,’ ‘Borderline’ and other Madonna-era hits, which her fans would love to hear once again at the theatres. (Indian Express)

50 sport

WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2017 | guyanatimeSinternational.com

Lady Jags encamped ahead of Caribbean Cup – International Players to join in May

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ccording to a press release for the Guyana Football Federation, 25 of the most talented national female football players have been called to a five-day camp in New Amsterdam, Berbice in preparation for the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Women’s Caribbean Cup scheduled for May 24 to 28.

This is the first time since the new executive is at the helm of football administration in Guyana that the female national team will participate in the CFU Women’s Caribbean Cup and speaks to the renewed focus of the new administration to women’s football development in Guyana.

The players, selected via the Guyana Football

The National Women’s squad along with GFF TDO Ian Greenwood (left)

Federation’s (GFF) Technical Development programme, include those from Linden, Berbice, Rupununi, West Demerara and Georgetown according to the release. All of the players were also part of the recently concluded inaugural Women’s Development League.

This is the first of two camps for the team,

commonly referred to as “Lady Jags”, and features two goalkeepers, eight defenders, seven midfielders and eight forwards from the following Member Associations – Georgetown – 10, West Demerara – five, Berbice –one, Upper Demerara – three and Rupununi – six.

The second camp, scheduled for May 12 to

22, will include overseasbased players after which the squad will be announced. Encampment for the “Lady Jags” is managed by Head Coach designate and Technical Development Officer, Akilah Castello assisted by recently-appointed GFF’s Women’s Development Officer, Trisha Munroe.

This initial camp,

which began on April 24 will seek to introduce the new national playing philosophy as implemented by the GFF Technical Department and will cover a range of technical areas of assessment.

The encamped players are; Goalkeepers: Ruth George (Fruta Conquerors) and Nataile Nedd (Fruta Conquerors) Defenders: Anastacia Horsham ( Fruta Conquerors), Keshauna McRae (Foxy Ladies), Rebekah Nurse (West Side Conquerors), Ronecia Lewis (Demerara Queens), Odessa Romeo (GDF), Collette Hope (Fruta Conquerors), Ameka Semple (Saints Sports Club) and Jillian Hawker (Paiwomak Warriors)

M i d f i e l d e r s : Terryka Joseph (Fruta Conquerors), Lakeisha Pearson (Fruta Conquerors), Siacy Adams (Foxy Ladies), Tiandi Smith (Foxy Ladies), Shamika Marcus (Foxy Ladies), Vanissa Sacapieo (Saints Sports Club), Roshanna Grandison (Demerara Queens) Forward: Sasha James (GDF), Anulissa Johnson (Fruta Conquerors), Chante Leacock (NA United), Sherrilyn Kingston (Demerara Queens), Samantha Roberts (Paiwomak Warriors), Helen Domingo (Snatchers), Sonia Griffith (Saints Sports Club) and Shennel Daniels (Fruta Conquerors).

Warner hits CONCACAF with US$40 million countersuit old grouses, and was noth-

(CMC)

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isgraced former football supremo, Jack Warner, has launched a US$40 million countersuit against continental governing body, CONCACAF, and FIFA Council member Sunil Gulati, for “persistent defamation of character.”

In response to a US$20 million lawsuit filed against him last week

by CONCACAF in a US Federal Court, the 74-yearold said he had no choice but to instruct his lawyers to initiate legal proceedings.

He argued in a statement that the most recent corruption allegations made against him were “repetitive and ancient”, and said he would fight to protect his name and that of his family “to the very end.”

“I have been slaughtered for the past six years and have remained silent, ignoring my legal options to respond to the atrocities that have been perpetrated against me by men of the lower ilk,” Warner said.

“And so the time has come for me to respond and hence the lawsuit against CONCACAF and Gulati in his personal capacity.”

Only last week, CONCACAF moved to recover millions of dollars the organization claimed had been obtained by Warner and former general secretary, American Chuck Blazer through corruption.

The lawsuit comes against the backdrop of ongoing efforts by the United States Department of Justice to have Warner extradited from his native Trinidad and Tobago to also face charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies.

However, Warner said the most recent lawsuit was simply more trumped up charges stemming from

ing but a means of distracting from the under-achievements of the organization in recent times.

He also slammed Gulati, the president of the US Soccer Federation and who also serves as one of CONCACAF’s three members of the FIFA Council.

“The vindictiveness of CONCACAF’s de jure President Sunil Gulati (not its figurehead Canadian de facto President Victor Montagliani) is what is taking the CONCACAF down a very dangerous path,” Warner charged.

“All these false allegations filed in an American Court simply because the USA did not obtain the votes to host a FIFA World Cup will fall to nought.”

He added: “I have left the CONCACAF since 2011. Why the CONCACAF will not leave my family and me alone is simply mindboggling.

“CONCACAF football is at its lowest today and the current threat to sue Warner and Blazer for 20 million US is nothing more than a distraction to shift its pathetic current state away from the management of this Confederation.

“The quality of CONCACAF football that is being viewed is much lower than that which is being played in second and third tier divisions across Europe and fans across CONCACAF are no longer even excited about the chances of our teams within this Confederation at the upcoming FIFA World Cup.” Warner led CONCACAF and the Caribbean Football Union for 21 years and became a powerful FIFA vice-president before resigning both posts amidst the torrid cash-for-votes scandal in 2011.

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WEEK ENDING APRIL 30 , 2017| guyanatimeSinternational.com

Stage set for HERO Cyclists anxious to CPL 2017: Florida to take on Boyce & host 4 exciting games Jefford Relay Festival …See schedule for the "biggest and best” campaign

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he stage is set for the Hero C a r i b b e a n Premier League (CPL) to be the biggest and best party tournament to date, after tournament organisers confirmed that the fifth instalment will start on Friday, 4 August with St. Lucia Stars welcoming 2015 champi-

and Barbados Tridents squaring off against reigning champions Jamaica Tallawahs in back-to-back games.

The action will then move to Port of Spain in Trinidad & Tobago which will run simultaneously with the St. Lucia leg of matches (from the week of 7 to 15 August), before

“Last year was the tournament’s biggest, with a global TV and online audience of almost 150 million and in the region of 250,000 fans attending our games. We are determined to enhance the fan participation across each venue, ensuring an even better experience for the many thousands of fans who

ons Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) to the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium.

The 34-game competition, which will be staged in seven countries over a six-week period, will conclude with the finals on Saturday, 9 September, with the name of the host country set to be announced in due course.

The times for the Florida swing of matches have been confirmed, while the remaining start times will be confirmed in the coming weeks.

There will be the usual blend of day and night games, with the starting times to be announced shortly, and the St. Lucia opener will lead into two keenly-contested double-headers in Central Broward Stadium in Lauderhill, Florida (on the weekend of 5-6 August) where Guyana Amazon Warriors will face Chris Gayle’s St. Kitts & Nevis Patriots

Guyana and St. Kitts & Nevis host the middle legs of the biggest party in sport (from 17-23 August).

As the race for one of the coveted finals berths heats up, the final rounds of matches will be held in Jamaica (from 25 August – 1 September) and Barbados (from 29 August – 3 September).

Finals week will begin with a play-off on Tuesday, 5 September before the two eliminators and the finals, which will round off the 2017 tournament on Saturday, 9 September.

Looking ahead to the 2017 campaign, Hero CPL CEO Damien O’Donohoe said; “We are delighted to announce the dates of the Hero CPL fixtures earlier than usual this year which we believe will enable fans, sponsors, media and all of our key stakeholders ample opportunity to plan their trips and holidays for the biggest party in sport.

will descend on each of our seven host countries.

“Once more we have the best talent in world cricket across our six teams. There has been a lot of eye-catching transfers, with Chris Gayle, Lendl Simmons and Dwayne Smith moving sides in the close season and the likes of Afghanistan’s exciting leg-spinner Rashid Khan, Chris Morris and Kane Williamson set to make their tournament bows. We are excited to welcome such a high calibre of talented, local and international players to the Hero CPL in just a few months’ time.

“It is our pledge to make the 2017 Hero CPL the ‘Year of the Fan’ and there’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes to showcase all that is great about Caribbean culture, society and sport around the world.”

Tickets will go on sale in the coming weeks online from www.cplt20. com. (CPLT20)

S

Hamzah Eastman

ome of Guyana’s best cyclists are gearing to compete on Sunday in two highly anticipated races when the second annual Boyce and Jefford Relay Festival and Family Fun Day gets going at the Police Sports Club Ground, Eve Leary from 10:00h. This is according to a media release from the organisers of the event.

The two races that will be contested for the first time this year include ‘The Devil Takes the Hindmost’ and Mountain Bike event. Each race will fetch lucrative cash

prizes, compliments of Jude Bike Shop on Robb Street, Bourda.

Proprietor of the Shop, former national cyclist, Jude Bentley said he is happy to partner with the organisers to host a tangible race for the wheelsmen. Bentley extended an invitation to all cyclists to compete in the race.

“If you have a bicycle and you want to ride, there is nothing stopping you from entering; cyclists don’t let anyone stop you. These events are for you to come and ride and I am happy that there is such a big occasion for cyclist to compete,” Bentley said.

The release also stated that the races will have the seasoned campaigners, including Alonzo Ambrose, Shaquel Agard, Paul DeNobrega, Hamzah Eastman, Orville Hinds, Michael Anthony, Jamaal John, Christopher Griffith, Mark Harris, Raphael Leung, Andrew Hicks and Britton John.

The races are open to others who wish to compete.

The Devil Takes the Hindmost

Shaquel Agard

carries a total cash prize of G$50,000 with G$25,000 for the winner; G$15,000 for second and G$10,000 third place. The number of laps of this race will be decided on the day based on the amount of entrants to the event.

Meanwhile, the Mountain Bike event will carry a total purse of G$90,000 with G$25,000 for the winner; G$20,000 for second place; G$15,000 third place; G$12,000 fourth place; G$10,000 fifth place and G$8,000 for sixth place. Jude Bike Shop is the sponsor of the cycle races.

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Men's cricket a chance for BCB surprised by Pakistan tour cancellation 2022 Commonwealth Games

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Bangladesh have not toured Pakistan last in 2007-08 (Photo: AFP)

akistan's decision to call off their tour of Bangladesh in July and August has taken the BCB by surprise, though the board said it was yet to receive official communication from the PCB. "We are really surprised. Even a month ago we knew that the tour was on," BCB's media committee chairman Jalal Yunus said. "There was a discussion between both board chiefs during this week's ICC meeting in Dubai. This upcoming series was ours to host according to the FTP. In 2015 the two boards went into a deal that we will play two series for the following two years in Bangladesh.

"There was even a financial issue, which was

dealt with at the time.

They said they wanted to play here [in Bangladesh] till 2017. They wanted Bangladesh to play two T20s in Pakistan before continuing the series here. We don't want to play there. We want to stick to our schedule, which has the whole series being played in Bangladesh."

Yunus said the BCB had learned of the PCB's decision through the media. "If the series does get officially cancelled, we have to go into discussion with them. We have cleared the financial issues so there's no need to talk about those things now. We haven't heard anything from them in official correspondence. We heard it through the media that

they want to cancel the tour."

Bangladesh last toured Pakistan in 200708, for a five-ODI series.

Since then, Pakistan have toured Bangladesh twice, in 2011-12 and 2015. They PCB said it was cancelling this year's tour because Bangladesh had not reciprocated with a return visit.

If the tour is off, Bangladesh will have a break in July this year, because their next fixtures after the Champions Trophy in June is a proposed home series against Australia in late August.

(ESPNCricinfo) Mohammad Isam is ESPNcricinfo's Bangladesh correspondent.

en's cricket could return to the Commonwealth Games as early as 2022 if Birmingham is chosen as host city.

ESPNcricinfo understands that the city has been invited to bid for the Games by the UK government after Durban, which was originally scheduled to be the host city, was obliged to withdraw due to financial and political issues.

Women's cricket was already included in the Durban schedule but Neil Snowball, the Warwickshire chief executive and a member of the Birmingham Commonwealth Games bid company, has confirmed the intention to include men's cricket, too, subject to the agreement of the ECB and ICC. The format would be T20.

The games would be held at Edgbaston and at Worcestershire's New Road home.

Birmingham will not be the only city vying to step-in as hosts. Cities in Canada, Malaysia and Australia are all expected to apply, while Liverpool have also confirmed their interest. Liverpool are not thought likely to include cricket among the sporting events.

Birmingham does have a couple of considerable advantages, though. As part of their bid to host the Games in 2026, they hired an independent company (Origin Sports) to put together a feasibility study that is understood to confirm their readiness for the event while, unlike some rival candidates, the city al-

ready has the vast majority of the venues - including the Alexander Stadium, Edgbaston, Villa Park, and the National Indoor Arena required to host such an event in working order.

The city does currently lack a 50m swimming pool, though one is scheduled to be opened in 2021.

Applications for the bid have to be received by the UK government

by April 28 with a decision made by the end of July.

While the ECB has previously given their support for the idea of cricket returning to the Games, the support of the ICC cannot yet be guaranteed. India are scheduled to be the tourists to England in 2022, which might render their involvement more likely, but it is far from impossible that individual Commonwealth members could opt out of the Games even if the ICC grant their approval. England did not send a team on the only previous time cricket was included in the Commonwealth Games in Malaysia in 1998. On that occasion South Africa defeated Australia in the final.

Cricket is not cur-

rently one of the mandatory events incorporated into the Commonwealth Games but is on the list of optional sports that host cities have the power to add to their staging of the event as they see fit and with the support of the relevant sport's governing body.

The Commonwealth Games might also be considered a steppingstone towards cricket returning to the Olympics. Rugby 7s followed a similar route, appearing in the 1998 Commonwealth Games and progressing to the Olympics in 2016.

"It's an obvious stepping-stone," Snowball told ESPNcricinfo, "and, subject to ICC and ECB approval, we hope we can progress this four years earlier than we originally anticipated.

"We feel we have a very strong bid.

Usually cities have seven years to prepare to host such an event, but we are certain we can deliver an outstanding Games in 2022 that includes men's and women's cricket."

(ESPNCricinfo) George Dobell is a senior correspondent at ESPNcricinfo

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