PEAS AND RICE; MACARONI PIE
SHEPHERD’S PIE; BAKED PORK
BBQ CHICKEN; BBQ SPARERIBS
STIR FRIED SEA CAT; FRIED SNAPPER
GRILLED STEAK FISH;BREADFRUIT AND SALT FISH
PORK STEW; LAMB STEW
PLAIN GRAVY; POTATO SALAD
STEAMED VEGETABLES
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WHEN the Sunday Express arrived at Ramsaran Trace, Bejucal Road, Cunupia, and walked into the site that houses about 100 workers of the Beijing Luijing Construction Company (TT) Ltd, the first thing we noticed was the pungent urine smell. During the visit on Friday the Chinese immigrant workers smiled and nodded, most of them sitting around. None of the workers could speak English but some muttered “home, China” and complained “no money”. In one room where one worker was trying to sleep and his bunk-mate at the top was reading, a picture of US President Barack Obama was hung up. Caroni public health inspector Deodath Gayadeen was also on site measuring the living quarters of the workers. The Sunday Express learned that there were six workers in each room which measured ten feet wide and 15 feet long. St Helena/Warrenville councillor Shama Deonarine, who visited the site on Thursday with public health officials, described the conditions as “really, really terrible” to the Sunday Express in a telephone interview. She noted that when the officers returned on Friday they advised the Beijing Luijing officials on certain remedial works to be done on the hygiene situation on the bathroom and kitchen. During the Sunday Express visit a representative of the company said it was “private property”, barred any more pictures and escorted us off the property. Another company representative who asked not to be named said the workers were supposed to clean their own rooms and toilets.
“You don’t have no maid here.” The workers came to public attention when about 100 of them staged a protest on Tuesday on the Uriah Butler Highway, claiming they had not been paid in two months and they wanted to go home. Some of the protesting workers were arrested and Beijing Luijing reportedly applied to the Immigration Division to have the work permits of 32 workers revoked because of breach of contract. Beijing Luijing is working on the Aranjuez Junior Secondary School and the Five Rivers Secondary School, having finished the Tranquillity Government Primary School last week. The two projects were stalled due to the protests. The company stated in a release on Friday that workers were actually disputing a deposit fee which they had forfeited. On the issue of poor living conditions the company said the conditions in the media “are not recognisable to us as conditions provided to our employees” but did not discuss the issue further. Trade union leaders, political groups and a number of other bodies have condemned the “slavery” conditions the workers were exposed to and called for an investigation. Labour Minister Rennie Dumas, other ministry officials and the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) have met with Beijing Luijing to discuss the issues of deferred earnings, claims for outstanding wages and duration of contracts. On the living conditions issue the OSH officers found that the premises were removed from the work site and outside the OSH Act, but they did use “moral suasion” to have remedial measures taken regarding general hygiene at the site. Broadening the issue of Chinese immigrant workers, whom the Government have praised for their work ethic and rapid pace, the Sunday Express also visited the Frederick Street housing of Chinese workers of China-based Shanghai Construction Group (SCG). The workers are currently at the National Academy for the Performing Arts in Port of Spain, a project of the embattled Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago. Like the Cunupia site there was a urine smell, a communal concrete sink and workers had their clothes hung out to dry. One garbage bin was overflowing and the room sizes also appeared similar to ones in Central. One Chinese worker told the Sunday Express that three to four workers stayed in one room and the size was “more space than when I worked in China”. He said the conditions were “better than I imagined”, had no complaints about the toilet facilities though he found the overall site “just kind of dirty”. He reported that there were about 300 workers currently living at the site and a lot of people were leaving and going back to China, about 30 per week. He also provided the workers’ schedule: they start at 7.30 a.m. and work until 10.30 a.m. then break for lunch and rest, return to work from 1 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. He said sometimes they “overwork” to have the site ready in time for the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) next month, but he had no problem with it. Returning to the Cunupia site, Deonarine said the Town and Country Planning Division had to bear some of the blame for the situation, as it was taking too long to approve or reject the application from Beijing Luijing. She said the company had applied for a warehouse office since October but the division continued to “drag its feet”. |
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Airport security officials say a small plane carrying ten passengers was forced to make an emergency landing in Grenada after its engine caught fire. No one was injured. The plane had left St Lucia and was en route to Trinidad Friday night when it was diverted to the Maurice Bishop International Airport. The cause of the fire is unclear. It is owned by Briko Air Services Ltd, which is based in Trinidad. A woman at the company who declined to give her name would not comment on the incident. Briko Air Services has a fleet of nine single- and multiengine aircraft. It offers private charters to most Caribbean islands. |
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Time and proper management are the healing tools that CL Financial needs- and some interest from the local private financial sector wouldn’t hurt either. So said the conglomerate’s Group chief executive officer, Steve Bideshi, as he addressed the inaugural awards ceremony of the Securities Dealers’ Association of Trinidad and Tobago (SDATT), at the Banquet Hall of the Queen’s Park Oval, Woodbrook, on Friday. Bideshi, whose last responsibility was as CCO of Citibank, Turkey and Israel Cluster, took the lead at CL Financial in July of this year and is expected to do major damage control. Debt restructuring, he said, remains the priority of those working to bring the company back to its former glory but there will eventually be some shrinkage of the overall package to maximise profitability. Bideshi’s management scope covers about $15 billion assets and does not include CLICO and the Clico Investment Bank (CIB). Speaking mainly on Home Construction Ltd (HCL) and Angostura, Bideshi said these companies were without competitors in their field and were expected to recover nicely. Angostura, he said, was already on its way to recovery while the HCL priority was the completion of One Woodbrook Place-the company’s massive and massively beleaguered upscale housing project. “The issue here is leverage. Time and proper management are what they need,” Bideshi said, adding that these elements were needed by CL Financial as a whole. He said inter-company debt was one of the top problems to be resolved within the group but dimissed the notion tha assets could have been scuttled off to various buyers. While there will eventually be some selling, the company’s core assets will remain and it is possible that the CL Financial of the future will have a limited range of insurance, with the focus instead on its drinks company and real estate, Bideshi said. He also advocated the involvement of the private sector in helping change the company’s fortunes. “We are asking the private sector to co-invest,” he said. “Private equity has to step in-get involved, you have a role to play. Don’t allow the foreign companies to get all the action,” he said, criticising the sector for a “lack of innovation” and a too-laid-back attitude. “When I look back at Trinidad and Tobago over the past few months, I see a shortage of issuers,” he said. “The dominant player is still the Government. There has been no marked movement of innovation in the last five years.” Bideshi also predicting subdued growth in the developed markets over the next two years and noted that that local institutions and the Central Bank have begun to reduce interest rates-which presents many opportunities for local investors. He predicted, too, that both interest rates and inflation will continue to fall. “The major threat is to sit back and wait on the Government as the dominant issuer,” he admonished. |
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With last week’s protest action by the Chinese workers still fresh in the public’s consciousness comes a new revelation of the apparent involvement of T&T firms in the exploitation of Chinese labour on local projects. The Sunday Express obtained a copy of the employee contract of a local firm hired by the Government via the EFCL to do work on the Barataria Junior Secondary and Couva West Junior Secondary. The firm, Trinity Housing, is a local company owned by Rahael Holdings Limited, Tradezone #1 El Socorro Ext, San Juan. Trinity Housing sourced and hired Chinese labourers to work on the two schools. The contract between workers and the employer, Trinity Housing, is written in Chinese and English. The document titled “Contract Agreement with Worker” states that the contract is for an initial period of two years, with an option for either party to renew it from year to year after, to a total of five years. The contract also states that the workers are holders of valid work permits for Trinidad and Tobago. Workers are further told that they will be paid a basic salary rate of $16.20 per hour, net of all taxes and deductions for the first 120 hours per forthnight. Workers are also told that after 120 hours per fortnight, they will be entitled to a rate of $20.50 per hour. They are promised housing facilities which includes “no more than four people sharing each room, a separate bed and bedding, fans or other ventilation for each room in housing, adequate storage space for personal effects and adequate lavatory and bathing facilities.” They are also promised ‘free transportation’ from the housing facility to work sites, airport upon arrival and departure, to and from medical facilities in case of sickness and to and from the bank for the purpose of establishing a bank account. However, the February pay slip of one of the workers with Trinity Housing, obtained by the Sunday Express, shows deductions for National Insurance and Health Surcharge. And with the contract asking for 120 weeks of work per fortnight at $16.20 per hour, this breaks down to 60 hours per week, a violation of T&T’s labour laws which mandate a maximum of 40 hours per week, and after that, extra payment for overtime. The contract also tells the worker that “for each of the first six months of the contract, the company will withhold $1,500 up to a total of $9,000 which may be used by the company in the event a worker wishes to return to China before the expiration of five years, to purchase the return ticket.” The contract, however, states that the worker is granted a work permit for one year and is bound to work for two years with an option to renew their contracts. Fifty workers from Trinity Construction had earlier this year, on August 24, had staged a silent protest outside the Chinese Embassy in St Clair , protesting non-payment of overtime monies for the past year and not getting meals for two consecutive days. For local contractor Emile Elias, the issue is much bigger than grievances between workers and contractors. Elias contends that the labour laws of T&T were being seriously violated by such contracts in that they do not uphold the required working hours, proper humane conditions and proper payment of overtime. “These contracts appear to be illegal on the face of it and the question is, why is the Government allowing its contractors to sign illegal contracts with workers?” he wondered in an interview on Friday. Elias also believed that these contracts point to a serious violation of the laws governing work permits in T&T, noting that Government and local companies were mandated to advertise available jobs, and then prove to the Work Permit Committee that there were no available nationals to do these jobs before work permits could be granted to foreigners. The construction industry is hardly one that does not have local workers to complete jobs, he notes. Elias says, too, that work permits are normally issued for one year and renewed after, so the fact that the company is making its workers pay their own way back (an estimated $17,000TT) if they leave before five years appears to be a violation of the law as well. Noting that he himself has often had to endure strict rules when applying for work permits for Caricom nationals to work in T&T’s construction sector, Elias said: “Why is the general rule of advertising for the jobs to prove you cannot get nationals to do it is not imposed on contract labour? It would seem that the Ministry of Labour has not enforced the laws of this country and that is a very serious situation.” “It would seem to me that there is a cartel-workers are being hired from China through local labour brokers and these are powerful politicians, there seems to be a political mafia here that hires them, and these workers are being treated like slaves and can get no redress from their own country and ours. That’s a national shame.” |
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In an unprecedented move, the Government has quietly fired a Chinese contractor it hired two years ago to build the Princes Town East Secondary School, citing a lack of delivery on nearly 90 per cent of the $151 milllion project. And, a local company which hired Chinese workers to work on at least two major Government projects, appears to be in major violation of T&T labour laws, binding Chinese workers into a modern-day apprenticeship akin to slavery. These revelations come in the wake of last Tuesday’s protest action by Chinese workers with the Beijing Liu Jiang Construction company-they claimed not having been paid salaries for two months, having no food to eat, squalid living conditions and long hours of work, from dawn till dusk. The Government’s secret move to fire the Chinese firm from the job has resulted in top local contractor Emile Elias calling on Prime Minister Patrick Manning to review his Government’s unofficial policy of hiring mainly Chinese contractors for mega-billion dollar State projects. Elias also wants Manning to publicly explanation why these foreign contractors are lagging behind in projects, and why they are allegedly engaging in breaches of labour and humanitarian laws regarding their workers. Elias also wants Government to explain whether it has been directly responsible for violating international and local labour laws to ensure that these Chinese firms get lucrative contracts at the expense of local citizens losing jobs in an environment of growing economic duress and unemployment in Trinidad and Tobago.
The Chinese firm which was terminated from the Princes Town East Secondary School project is the China Zhejiang Ningbo Construction Company Ltd. It was hired by a Government Special Purposes company, the Education Facilities Company Ltd, to construct the Princes Town school, as well as the Siparia Junior Secondary School. In a letter dated September 7, 2009 to the firm, which is signed by the EFCL’s CEO, Paul E Taylor, the EFCL notes that Ningbo Construction was given the contract to construct the school on June 4, 2007, with a completion date of October 3, 2009. The contract price was $151,304,347.83. EFCL’s CEO Taylor goes on to tell the company that: “The Engineer, Reynald Associate Ltd (RAL), for the project has informed by letter dated June 24, 2009 that as at June 24, 2009, 90 per cent of the contract period has elapsed and only 13 per cent of the works have been completed.” Taylor further tells the company that in letters from the Engineer dated June 24, July 9 and July 22, 2009, Ningbo Construction was notified to submit a recovery plan of the lost time in accordance with Clause 8.6 of the conditions of the contract on a number of occasions. The Engineer had also pointed out that “there has been no significant work done on the site over the last two months,” and “the rate of progress is way below what is required to complete works within the Time for Completion.” The Engineer further noted that the company, “Was requested to submit a revised work programme and method statement detailing actions that was intended to expedite progress and proceed with the works in accordance with the revised work programme.” Taylor tells Ningbo Construction that in the letter dated July 9, 2009, the Engineer had informed the company that “you have failed to proceed with the works with due diligence and under Clause 15.1 of the Conditions of the Contract, notice was given to you that if no significant change in the rate of progress of the works was made within 14 days of the said notice, then recommended action in accordance with Clause 15 of the conditions of the contract will be made to the Employer, the EFCL.” Noting that by letter dated August 12, 2009, ‘The actual progress of the works has fallen further behind the current programme of works’, the EFCL tells Ningbo Construction that the contract was officially terminated on September 21, 2009. The letter does not state how much in financial losses that the State, and therefore taxpayers, have incurred due to the termination of the $151m plus contract. This is the first time that Government has actually taken the last resort, drastic action of terminating a contract due to non-performance, especially regarding a Chinese firm. In the past two years, however, several of the Chinese firms hired by Government special purposes companies to conduct works have incurred heavy cost overruns on various mega-million dollar projects, as well as failed to deliver these projects on time. These include China Jiang Su, the firm hired to construct the Tamana project by ETECK, which, in February 2008, was two and a half years overdue on the project, and which demanded $50m more to continue-which was paid by the Government. The group Shanghai Construction Ltd, which constructed the Prime Minister’s $150m residence, was also over time and over budget. This firm was also hired by UDeCOTT to construct the Ministry of Social Development Tower, which was also hit with cost overruns and allegations (following official complaints by UDeCOTT’s consultant on the project) that the firm was importing unsafe steel to do the job. UDeCOTT subsequently said the materials were all safe. Shanghai Construction Ltd was also hired by UDeCOTT to construct the Academy for the Performing Arts, which is still under active construction in Port of Spain, even though its completion date was put at August 2008. |
File photos
LEFT: Bruce Bowen, president and CEO of Scotia Group Jamaica.
RIGHT: Minna Israel, president of RBTT Jamaica Limited. RBTT will implement a new prime rate on November 1. Scotiabank Jamaica has again cut its prime lending rate, this time by less than a point, moving it to 19.875 per cent from the 20.5 per cent rate set in August.
The new rates become effective November 1.
“There has been a long-term call by Jamaica for lower rates, so now we are putting our money where our mouth is,” said Hugh Miller, who was recently promoted to vice-president of treasury at the bank.
Miller formerly held the position of assistant general manager, treasury and foreign-exchange trading. Another of his colleagues, Wayne Hewitt, has also been given an expanded role in the bank, and is now senior vice-president, corporate and commercial banking.
Miller noted that the primary motivation for the cut was to ensure that Jamaican can access affordable financing.
Looking to boost business
But the Bruce Bowen-led Scotiabank, ranked as one of the biggest commercial banks in Jamaica, may be looking to boost business, given that other banks too are lowering rates, even as its closest rival National Commercial Bank of Jamaica makes strides in the loans market.
In the past year, Scotia Group’s loan portfolio has grown by $13 billion to $95 billion at July 2009, but NCB’s portfolio, while it still trails at $89 billion at June 2009, grew by $18 billion.
RBTT, the No. 3 bank, in a second rate cut since the summer, will, starting November 1, quote its prime rate at 20.5 per cent, down from 22 per cent at the end of August.
“This is in direct response to the reduction in interest rates by the Bank of Jamaica which has lowered rates five times since the start of this year,” stated Minna Israel, president and country head of RBTT Jamaica.
Bank of Jamaica since July has decreased interest rates by a cumulative 4.5 per cent. BOJ now quotes rates on its open market instruments at 12.5 per cent to 17 per cent.
FirstCaribbean Jamaica cut its rate on October 1 by 150 basis points to 20.25 per cent.
NCB has made no adjustment but says its current base lending rate of 21.75 per cent is negotiable, while First Global Bank says its 20.75 per cent rate is under review.
Stimulate investment
RBTT’s Israel said the lower cost of credit should provide affected householders with more expendable income, and should help to stimulate investment and business retooling.
The banks’ response to the central bank’s signals to reduce lending rates has not, according to business interests, been acted on swiftly enough.
Omar Azan, president of the Jamaica Manufacturers’ Association, who has been the most vocal on the issue, says the cost of capital remains a disincentive to productive activity.
Azan and others continue to push for nothing less than single-digit loan rates.
On October 6, Scotiabank introduced a special, but non-revolving $500-million loan window for the productive sector that priced credit at 9.95 per cent.
The JMA president said the banks should make the initiative the start of a trend by following suit.
Colin Hamilton/Freelance Photographer
Scotiabank on Thursday, October 15, launched the Jamaican arm of Scotia Private Client Group, a division targeting high net worth clients at Devon House in St Andrew. Among the guests at the launch were (from left) Beverly Levy, Hugh Hart and Earl Levy. In what the company dubbed as individuality, Scotiabank Jamaica last Thursday formally launched Scotia Private Client Group (SPCG), a unit dedicated to bringing in business from top tier clients.
SPCG is an international brand for Scotiabank’s private-banking operation, with clients now being able to access products and services through 25 offices in 18 countries globally.
“Depending on what our private clients’ needs are, we bring in a trust service through a wealth-structuring session, an offshore investor, discretionary investment management and access to a broader range of investment products through partnering with Scotia Capital,” said Dan Wright, senior vice-president and head of SPCG.
While the number of clients that fall into this group was not disclosed, Wright noted that individuals who qualify have more than US$250,000 (J$22 million) in investable assets with the bank.
“A significant number of our clients throughout the Scotia retail, corporate and commercial network would fall into the private-banking sector,” said Wright.
SPCG also offers these select clients access to specialised and tailored wealth-management solutions.
Last Thursday, the group announced its new MasterCard Black credit card, offering US dollar chequing facilities and a quick payroll service at the launch of the Jamaica office at Devon House in St Andrew.
Quick payroll allows for periodic salary payments to staff of wealthy clients, including personal assistants, household staff and drivers.
Twelfth in the region
The Jamaican office will operate from Scotia Group’s newly opened financial services centre on Constant Spring Road in St Andrew.
Its launch is the 12th in the region.
SPCG already has eight such centres in the Caribbean, one in El Salvador and two in Peru.
Others are to be opened in Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico and Chile next year.
Globally, the wealth- manage-ment arm, which includes the private client group, manages funds in excess of US$24 billion, said Wright.
Jamaica Gleaner
Avia Collinder, Business Reporter
Riding the bullish auto market that was in play up to 2007, and for a time in 2008, commercial banks, in this wave of consumerism, became accustomed to doing booming business from car loans.
But now with new and used-car dealers reporting more than 50 per cent declines in car sales, the banks’ marketers are challenged to attract auto-loan customers - interest rates specials being the most popular enticement.
By the banks’ own accounts, they began reducing car-loan rates even before any downward general rate adjustments were considered in response to the central bank’s recent lowering of the benchmark rates by a total 4.5 per cent in a series of cuts since July.
FirstCaribbean Jamaica, one of three banks to have reduced rates, said that even before that general rate cut, interest rates for auto loans had already been reduced from June.
Now RBTT is following suit, announcing this week new loan rates effective November 1 of 20 per cent for motor vehicles up to one-year-old and 21.75 per cent for vehicles older than a year.
The bank noted, however, that it does not finance pre-2004 vehicles unless additional collateral is provided.
Scotiabank is going further with a new-car rate as low as 19.25 per cent.
Qualified clients
The offer, which was introduced in July, is still available to qualified clients but for a short period to October 31.
Without giving numbers, Scotiabank’s Elena Villafana-Sylvester, vice-president of electronic financial services and retail banking, said auto loans have fallen off this year in keeping with the downward spiral in car sales.
And where purchases are in fact financed through the bank, rides in the $2.5 million to $4.5 million price range have been the most popular.
Despite the general downturn in business, BNS claims that it is increasing market share, hailing a recent 10 per cent quarter over quarter growth in new car loans as “a significant achievement in a declining market”.
In August, Scotiabank partnered with Stewart’s Auto Sales to offer a waiver of the first instalment on new-car loans. The offer runs to October
First Global Bank (FGB) last set rates in January at 19.75 per cent and maintained them there notwithstanding a 30 per cent decline in car loans, according to Kerry-Ann Stimpson,
First Global’s auto-loan rate is a shade below its 20.75 per cent base lending rate.
The bank says it issued 92 car loans between January and September this year, compared with 133 for the same period last year.
“The general mood of our clients is a virtual aversion to new credit and a shift towards saving and investing,” Stimpson told Sunday Business.
“This is quite understandable as we encourage sound personal financial management practices by our clients.”
First Global is now banking on the general move towards lower interest rates as well as the Government’s recently announced tax incentives to car dealers to improve sagging car purchases and financing deals.
At the same time, the bank, which recently suffered major losses from irregular bond trades by a senior staffer, is putting a positive spin on its credit risk practices in relation to its car-loan portfolio.
“Prior to, and in spite of, these challenging times, FGB has also been proud of its credit-risk practices and continues to enjoy a low-key return rate on its motor vehicle loans,” said Stimpson.
She said in the January to September 2008 period, 10 vehicles were repossessed, while only seven vehicles were collared by the bank for overdue debts in the same period this year.
Drumming up support
Not to be outdone, big bank, NCB has since September been attempting to drum up support for its 19.75 per cent ’special rate’ for new and used-motor vehicles.
Noting that car loans were only 0.5 per cent of the bank’s retail loan portfolio, Kerine Hamilton, marketing manager at NCB Business Services, said car loans were “performing in line with expectations” given the current damper on car purchases and the associated loan demand.
NCB’s special includes “no principal payments” for up to three months.
File
Police patrol Frederick Street in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, just chains away from the capital’s Independence Square. Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
More and more Jamaican drug mules are heading to Trinidad as their first stop in the continuing effort to smuggle ganja into North America and Europe.
Local and international law-enforcement agencies are now looking at this new gateway which is attracting an increasing number of drug mules.
Last month, 72 drug swallowers were held by local police as they tried to leave the island.
More than 70 per cent of those drug mules were headed to the eastern Caribbean with the vast majority going to Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.
“Because law-enforcement agents in the United States and the United Kingdom are looking out for Jamaicans, what they do is try to get the drugs to Trinidad and from there other persons move it to North America and the UK,” Detective Sergeant Jubert Llewellyn told The Sunday Gleaner.
“But we are aware of them and the fact that we have nabbed so many shows the effectiveness of the measures we have put in place to address that situation,” Llewellyn added.
First hit
The link between Jamaican drug dealers and their Trinidadian counterparts first hit the national radar forcefully in June when four persons were held attempting to export 123 kilograms of ganja to Port-of-Spain.
They included Peter Hutton, a Trinidadian, who had travelled to Kingston and paid three Jamaicans to assist him to export the weed to his country.
The four were arrested at the Norman Manley International Airport with compressed ganja packed into water heaters.
At that time, the police reported that they suspected Hutton of exporting ganja to Trinidad on previous occasions.
Weeks later, the Trinidadian Coastguard and police personnel seized two crocus bags of ganja on a vessel transporting clinker from Jamaica to Trinidad.
With those developments, police from the two countries have been sharing information and, according to Llewellyn, the local police have the knowledge base of how the drug mules operate and who they are.
He said the police have determined that a large number of the new drug mules are from central Jamaica, with residents of Clarendon figuring prominently on the list.
“What we have picked up is that they come into Kingston and ingest the drugs and attempt to leave the island,” said Llewellyn.
Close watch
The narcotics police are also keeping a close watch on persons returning to the island from Trinidad following a recent case where one man attempted to smuggle cocaine into the island.
On October 11, cocaine pellets were found in the stomach of Don Lawrence of a Port Royal address after he returned from Trinidad. Lawrence was subsequently arrested and charged.
That find occurred during a busy 48 hours for the narcotics police as they clamped down on would-be drug smugglers.
Hours before the arrest of Lawrence, the police detained two residents of St Ann who were allegedly seen attempting to attach two metal canisters to the hull of a ship off Gordon Cay, Port Bustamante. The canisters contained almost 100 kilograms of ganja.
Also on October 11, almost eight kilograms of cocaine was found in the suitcase of Lovel Godfrey, a 25-year-old of a Kingston address, as he attempted to check in for a flight to the United States.
More than 120 kilograms of compressed ganja was also seized by the police during a raid at Roundberry, St Elizabeth.
Howard Peart, 51, owner/operator of HP & Sons Auto Repairs, and 22-year-old Andrew Lewis, otherwise called ‘Country’, of Mountainside, St Elizabeth, were charged with possession and taking steps to export the drug.
While the police have long sought to clamp down on the guns-for-drugs trade between Jamaica and Haiti, the Trinidad connection is now proving to be an equally big worry.
Deadly risk
