15. November 2009 by admin.

MELBOURNE, Australia – Aussie coach Tim Nielsen said his charges will not be underestimating the West Indies when they come calling on their three-Test tour here later this month.

Torn apart by a bitter contracts dispute, the Windies are expected to face a tough challenge regrouping but Nielsen said he expected them to be dangerous side, especially with the leading players included.

“With (Chris) Gayle back and [Ramnaresh] Sarwan and (Shiv) Chanderpaul and [Dwayne] Bravo, those sort of guys, they’ve got most of the top six they’d normally have playing again,” Nielsen said.

“So we’ll need to bowl well and catch well to make sure that we attack those guys because we know if they get ‘in’ they score quickly and get big scores,” Nielsen told the Melbourne Age.

The impasse saw the top tier players refuse to play, forcing selectors to choose a second string side for the Bangladesh tour and the ICC Champions Trophy.

Following the end of the dispute last month, a full strength 15-man squad was selected for the Australian tour, with Gayle appointed captain.

It includes four players from the makeshift side but Nielsen said he did not expect West Indies to be a disjointed unit.

“I think they’ll be cohesive. I noticed in the media the other day someone was mentioning that it’s difficult when the admin’s not always seeing eye-to-eye with the playing group, and that’s obviously been happening for a period now,” he said.

Australia have already been installed as heavy favourites to win the rubber, with West Indies having not taken a series win against the World champions in 15 years.

Their last series win came when Richie Richardson led his side to a 2-1 win in the five-Test rubber here in the 1992/93 series. (Antigua Sun)

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15. November 2009 by admin.

By Sir Ronald Sanders

Government representatives of all the countries that now form the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), except the Bahamas and Haiti, were present at a meeting in Montego Bay, Jamaica when “majority opinion was clearly in favour of a Federation”.
They made concrete and visionary decisions and adopted resolutions that they anticipated would help their small countries individually and collectively. The overarching resolution recognised “the desirability of a political federation” in which “each constituent unit retains complete control over all matters except those specifically assigned to the federal government.”
Knowing from experience that any form of deeper integration would need transportation between their countries to move goods and people, the representatives expressed their belief that “the provision of adequate inter-regional and external shipping services and other communication is essential.”
They were wise enough to know that trying to maintain individual markets, individual currencies, as well as bargaining individually in a competitive global market is not practicable. In this connection, they decided that they should appoint a Single Trade Commissioner with “a well qualified staff of assistants” and “adequate funds” to bargain internationally for the region.
They boldly stated, “Immediate, direct representation in negotiations affecting overseas trade and commerce is essential to the economic achievement of the countries”.
They also recommended the creation of a Committee “composed of delegates appointed by the Legislatures” of each country to make recommendations on “the assimilation of the fiscal, customs and tariff policy” and “the unification of the currency” of the countries. Not content with that, they also recommended the appointment of a Commission to examine in consultation with the governments of each country “the establishment of a Customs Union”.
And, these Caribbean leaders justified a Customs Union as follows: “the encouragement of inter-regional trade which would naturally be duty-free within the Union; the encouragement of local industries; the establishment of uniformity in tariff rates and customs administration; and the strengthening of the position of the Caribbean territories as far as bargaining power is concerned in relation to international trade agreements.”
They were also mindful that there would be disruption to some countries arising from a Customs Union. Therefore, they were careful to say that a suitable tariff should be prepared “having regard to the fiscal problems of the Governments whose revenue would be affected by the introduction of a Customs Union”.
On the matter of the single currency, they declared themselves “in favour of the early establishment of a uniform currency throughout the Caribbean”, and insisted on recording the view that “this measure is of very great importance to trade and commerce and it would also have advantages in strengthening the currency and the credit of this region”.
Food security was also very much on their minds. Thus, they recommended that “immediate steps be taken for setting-up of a central body of primary producers (representative of all the countries) with a view to accelerating the development of agriculture throughout the area on a sound economic basis”.
A special Committee dealt with the matter of debt and how it could be handled in a Customs Union and a Federation. The Committee held the opinion that the debt position of each country “would have to remain as at present until the comparatively advanced stage of federation is reached” when the major revenues are centralized in a federal exchequer. The Committee envisaged that the Federal government should assume responsibility for the remaining debt less accrued sinking funds.
Quite remarkably, the Committee of all governments also agreed that “the Federal government should be the sole authority for raising loans on the external market, although it would be both feasible and desirable to permit local loans to be raised for approved purposes by individual governments subject to the sanction of the federal finance authorities”.
Unfortunately, this conference of Caribbean government representatives did not take place in 2009. It took place in September 1947. It was attended by V.C Bird of Antigua and Barbuda, Grantley Adams of Barbados, Alexander Bustamante of Jamaica, Albert Gomes of Trinidad and Tobago, A M Lewis of St Lucia, J B Renwick of Grenada, S F Bonadie of St Vincent, M H Davis of St Kitts-Nevis, C A Dupigny of Dominica, Dr J B Singh of Guyana and W H Courtenay of Belize. Also attending as a member of the Caribbean Commission was Norman Manley of Jamaica.
“The Conference on the Closer Association of the British West Indian Colonies”, as it was called, laid down the blueprint not only for Caribbean integration and development, but also for strengthening the region’s capacity to bargain in the international community.
In the end personal political ambitions and misplaced nationalism fostered by misinformation hijacked this regional project. A federation was formed, only to fall – not because it would not serve the Caribbean’s people; but because it did not suit some of its more influential politicians.
Thus, a customs union and a common currency were discarded, only to rise again as the Caribbean Single Market and Economy 59 years later. In the meantime, experiments with individual independence and ‘going it alone’ economic policies have done nothing more than emphasise these are impossible dreams.
The present Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM), now involved in negotiations with Canada after the disappointment of an unequal Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union, is a half-sister to the more robust single Trade Commissioner the leaders had in mind in 1947 to negotiate for their one Caribbean state.
As for debt, almost all of the CARICOM countries now have a debt to GDP ratio of well over 100% and their economies are in deep trouble; the notable exception being Trinidad and Tobago which has been saved by its oil and gas resources. The Caribbean people could have been spared this situation had the Federation survived, implementing the rules for incurring debt that the 1947 Conference had envisaged, and implementing the blueprint for development it had laid out.
A single Caribbean state, drawing on the resources of tourism, financial services, agriculture, bauxite, gold, diamonds, oil, gas and the capacity of its tertiary educated people (75% of whom now live abroad) would have been far more viable today. It is time, the Caribbean learns from its own history and stop repeating its mistakes.

The writer is a Consultant and former Caribbean Diplomat.
Responses and previous commentaries at: www.sirronaldsanders.com

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15. November 2009 by admin.

PIGEON PEAS AND RICE; MACARONI PIE

ROAST POTATOES; MIXED VEGETABLES

PASTA, GRILLED VEGETABLES & GRILLED CHICKEN

BAKED PORK; BAKED CHICKEN

BBQ SPARERIBS; BBQ PIG TAILS

FRIED STEAK FISH; GRILLED STEAK FISH

BEEF STEW; FISH GRAVY

STEAMED VEGETABLES; TOSSED SALAD

COLE SLAW

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15. November 2009 by admin.

Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
Ross

A leading international financial analyst

is expressing concern that Jamaica’s delay in concluding an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is hurting the country.

Dr Carl Ross of the international investment firm Oppenheimer says the length of time the Jamaican government is taking to complete the proposed US$1.2-billion agreement is unusual and worrying.

“From the international perspective, it is difficult for a lot of people outside the country, and even inside the country, to understand why is it taking so long,” Ross said at a recent function staged by Sterling Asset Management in New Kingston.

“You look at a country like the Dominican Republic that decided back in September that it should, probably for precautionary reasons, have an IMF programme in place. It took them about two weeks to negotiate it,” Ross added.

Jamaica has been in talks with the IMF for the better part of four months with the date for the signing of an agreement being a moving target.

no update

At the last announcement, Finance Minister Audley Shaw said he remained convinced that the deal would be done before the end of this month.

But Shaw has provided no update since last week when a four-member team left the island for Washington to continue the talks.

“There is an enormous amount of speculation right now and the government and the IMF are not able to give us an inside look into what’s happening because that would maybe defeat the purpose,” Ross said.

“The signal that it is giving people outside the country, including the rating agencies … (is that) because it is taking so long, there must be a problem.

“There must be a discussion of the debt restructuring …. the IMF must be going back and forth unable to balance the budget, unable to square the numbers no matter what the policy options are,” added Ross.

cheap money

He argued that given the conditions inherited by the Bruce Golding administration it had no option but to go after the cheap money from Washington.

According to Ross, while the country is not yet desperate to get the IMF agreement, the performance of its bonds and the confidence of the international financial community will remain shaky until the deal is signed.

“What I tell people outside the country is that there is no ticking time bomb here why you need this pot of gold from the IMF by next week … . There is not a lot of pressure on your net international reserves, we don’t see really any evidence of capital flight or panic,” said Ross.

However, he noted that this was not the first time that Jamaica was entering into a relationship with the IMF, so there was no ready excuse for the delay.

Ross later told The Sunday Gleaner that Jamaica’s bonds were trading down between five and 10 points since the latest downgrade by Standard & Poor’s and this would remain a problem until the IMF deal is signed.

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15. November 2009 by admin.

Avia Collinder, Business Reporter
Principal of the Mona campus, University of the West Indies, Professor Gordon Shirley (right), greets three of the first batch of 20 students pursuing the newly introduced three-year BSc Electronic Engineering undergraduate degree programme, (from left) Matthew Myers, Kelton Edwards and Mesha-Ann McKenzie, at the launch of the course at the Mona Visitors’ Lodge and Conference Centre, Mona, St Andrew, November 9. - JIS Photo

The Mona campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) is now offering an undergraduate degree in electronic engineering, which the school says will provide graduates immediate employment in the telecommunications and manufacturing sector.

The tuition cost for the degree, which is being offered here in Kingston in the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences as an extension programme of the UWI, St Augustine Campus in Trinidad, is in the region of $180,000 per year, with 80 per cent subsidy from the government of Jamaica.

“We have started with that - electronic engineering - because we have a need to develop manufacturing,” says programme coordinator, Dr Ronald Aikin, a senior engineer.

“We are putting together other proposals for a master’s programme where the return for industry will be even greater in terms of design and innovation for the sector. We need to develop industries, and science and technology will take us out of the state we are in, which is using more than we are producing. If we can persuade students to pursue studies in science and technology and engineering, our future will be a better one,” the engineer said.

improved access

The number of Jamaicans who do engineering programmes in Trinidad has been falling and so the offering of the full degree in Kingston should improve access, Aikin said.

The programme is designed so that Jamaicans can do the first year of the course and then transfer to St Augustine, which does a wider range of engineering programmes, but not one in electronics.

To qualify for the programme, Jamaican students will need mathematics and physics passes at CAPE or GCE Advanced level, or equivalent qualification.

undergraduate enrolment

At Mona, students who have passed mathematics and physics at ordinary level, or CSEC, will be able to do a preliminary year in the faculty of Natural Sciences in order to qualify for enrolment in the engineering degree.

In 2007-2008, the undergraduate enrolment in the Faculty of Engineering in Trinidad was 1,419, with only 53 of the students being Jamaican.

Only 12 new Jamaican students were registered in 2007. This suggests that St Augustine is not seen as an effective option for Jamaican students seeking tertiary engineering education, information supplied by the UWI revealed last week.

The school also noted that the expansion into electronic engineering follows on discussions with the Jamaica Institution of Engineers, the conduct of a needs survey, and the university’s examination of the Government of Jamaica’s document on critical-skills needs in the public sector.

emerging disciplines

Apart from the need for traditional engineers in areas such as civil and electronic engineering, there was also a demand for emerging disciplines, such as biomedical engineering, environmental engineering and energy engineering, which are currently underserved.

The three-year Bachelor of Science

in electronic engineering, a first effort to meet these needs, is offered through the Electronics Unit in collaboration with the Department of Physics at Mona.

Areas of study cover engineering physics, computer science and mathematics, electronics and electrical circuits, engineering management

, accounting systems, new-venture creation and entrepreneurship, as well as telecommunications or industrial instrumentation.

It is proposed that on graduation, UWI students will be technically qualified for immediate employment in the fields of telecommunications and industrial instrumentation, and also have capabilities to design, develop and test electronic equipment and instruments.

They should also be able to use modern engineering techniques and tools to identify, formulate, and solve electronic engineering problems and be able to adapt to future changes in the discipline.

Graduates are also expected to apply newly learnt theories and skills to the technological and industrial development of Jamaica and the Caribbean region, demonstrating an understanding of ethical, societal, and professional responsibility, the UWI said in its description of the new programme. (Jamaica Gleaner)

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15. November 2009 by admin.

Avia Collinder, Business Reporter

To limit exposure to the bad-loan losses in the current economic climate, commercial banks reined in their credit-card lending, the result of which has been a major slowdown in the sector that limited growth to one-eighth the levels seen last year.

Credit-card receivables, the measure used to track the sector, inched up by less than three per cent in 2009, as banks retreated, even in the face of consumer demand to sell more credit.

“There is just as much demand for cards,” Bruce Bowen, the chief executive officer of Scotia Group said. But: “We are putting out fewer cards,” said the banker, whose institution has the largest portfolio of issued credit and is also No. 1 in deposits.

Bank of Jamaica statistics show that credit-card receivables for the financial sector at August 2009 stood at $17.3 billion, but that reflected only a $500 million or 2.9 per cent increase over the $16.8 billion of receivables outstanding at August 2008.

Indeed, at that date last year, receivables were up by $4 billion, or eight times the pace at which credit consumption increased this year.

The central bank data show that July and March were the months of lowest spending, whereas the peak was in August, possibly associated with back-to-school expenditure.

Credit-card subscriptions come at a heavy price, ranging from 29 per cent to 52 per cent, but mostly hovering in the mid-40 per cent range on JMD-denominated plastic. Those that are USD-denominated start at 17.5 per cent.

A Sunday Business survey among local banks identified 24 varieties of consumer credit cards, with limits as low as $5,000, and as high as $900,000 for Jamaican-currency-denominated cards.

Not only have the banks been less willing to issue new cards, they have also been turning down requests, say well-placed sources, to increase credit limits.

third-quarter financials

Elena Villafana-Sylvester, who had her last day on the job Friday as a former Scotiabank vice-president for electronic financial services and retail banking, said in an earlier interview that consumers remained interested in applying for and using credit cards, but declined to say how the bank had responded to these requests.

As reported in its third-quarter financials this year, Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) was saddled with bad loans totalling $3.67 billion up to the end of July this year, an increase of more than $1 billion over the amount at July 31 last year, and $102 million above the second-quarter 2009 figure.

Bowen is playing down any attempts by his bank to put the squeeze on credit-card holders.

“We have not really tightened our policy, but we are making fewer exceptions,” he said.

“Also, as income is reduced, fewer people will qualify.”

An official at First Global Bank, who declined to be named, said this year, the bank approved fewer cards than in 2008.

New issues amounting to 774 cards were 514 fewer, or 40 per cent less than last year’s 1,288.

Despite this, First Global said it saw increased spending of up to 25 per cent more in 2009 over 2008 on its Jamaican dollar credit cards, flowing from a 46 per cent increase in the number of transactions.

National Commercial Bank (NCB), which recently reported another year of bumper profits, a record $10.2 billion, has also admitted to tightening up on credit in general.

credit losses

For the financial year ended September 30, 2009, NCB’s provision for credit losses totalled $1.028 billion compared with $468 million for the year-prior period ended September 30, 2008.

BNS says it will be more aggressive in its credit-card policies and marketing activities next year.

“In 2010, there will be a more aggressive approach, not to loosen policy, but to find those who can afford the product,” said Bowen.(Jamaica Gleaner)

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15. November 2009 by admin.

Athaliah Reynolds, Staff Reporter
These are some of the skin-lightening products bought in downtown Kingston, without legally required prescriptions, as many women strive to become ‘brownings’. - Photo by Fabian Ledgister

You see them everywhere - uptown, downtown and even in the small rural communities of Jamaica - clutching their umbrellas and sporting socks, stockings, scarves, ‘hoodies’, long-sleeved shirts and long pants in the blazing sun.

They have seemingly created their own tribe, identifiable by the pale, pink and sometimes orange undertones of their complexion, contrasted against the ebony tones of their lips, knuckles, ears and neck.

Skin-bleaching - certainly not a new phenomenon to Jamaica - has continued to attract scores of young men and women throughout the island.

Despite impassioned warnings by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and various doctors regarding the serious health risks, including skin cancer, the practice has grown from a once-taboo fad into a full-blown way of life for many Jamaicans.

In 2007, the MOH launched a major anti-skin-bleaching campaign to discourage the practice, as well as placed a ban on the sale of skin-bleaching creams. However, the campaign seemed futile, as any visitor to downtown Kingston will find a large quantity of the products being sold in the open - chemicals, all promising to ‘make you whiter than snow’.

Karlene Gaylea 40-year-old vendor who The Sunday Gleaner met in Spanish Town, St Catherine, confessed that she has been bleaching for years - longer than she can actually remember.

The evidence is there all over her face, arms and legs. Gayle, though, is one of the less-sophisticated bleachers as the colour of her lips, elbows and knees are a dead giveaway to her true complexion.

15-year-old son

She also admitted that she buys bleaching cream for her 15-year-old son who attends high school. “Him did likkle bit too dark. A now him cute, and the likkle schoolgirl them nuh stop rush him now that him a browning,” she says, flashing a smile. “Mi nuh see nutten wrong with it. Mi haffi tek care a mi pickney.”

Apart from the traditional skin lightening creams, which include Movate, Lemon Gel, Fair and White and the most popular Neoprosone, some Jamaicans use toothpaste, curry powder, milk powder, household bleach, aloe vera and cornmeal as part of their skin-lightening routine.

the routine

Twenty-five-year-old Keisha Tulloch, who says she has been bleaching since she was 18, explains that her skin-lightening routine involves applying Neo-prosone gel and Dermo-Gel three times a day.

“Mi put it on day and night and ‘batten’ down - put on mi socks, mi pants and stockings, cause it come more faster when you cloak up yourself,” she says. Tulloch also says she applies the creams to her face while her skin is wet as her pores are open and will more readily absorb the chemical.

Although she says she doesn’t use curry powder, Tulloch explains that many people mix it with the cream to give them a “more natural complexion”.

“The curry mek yuh look more natural, like a real pretty browning,” she says.

She admits that since she has started bleaching, she gets more attention from the opposite sex. “It mek yuh look nicer cause most man go after browning. You get rich man when yuh bleach, cause dem see money print pon yuh.”

When asked if she wasn’t concerned about the medical effects of skin-bleaching, Tulloch was quick to point out that she didn’t bleach continuously.

“Me nuh normally do it straight,” she says. “Mi do it only like when mi a go a one big dance and mi know seh mi have three weeks fi bleach and then from the dance cut, mi just stop bleach.”

Tulloch says she is not embarrassed or ashamed of the fact that she uses skin lighteners. “Mi nuh feel nuh way cause di in-thing and everybody a bleach,” she declares.

From the reaction of Gayle and Tulloch and many others, it appears that gone are the days when using skin lighteners was something to hide or to be embarrassed about.

badge of honour

It has almost become a badge of honour in many communities across Jamaica, with both men and women admitting to feeling better about themselves since they started bleaching.

Those sentiments are echoed in the lyrics of the recently released song, Proud A Mi Bleaching, by Lisa Hype, a member of the controversial Portmore Empire or Gaza clan. The group is led by well-known DJ Vybez Kartel.

In the song, Lisa Hype glorifies the practice of skin-bleaching, declaring, “mi proud a mi bleaching, cause mi cream it dare.”

She continues: “Mi nah hide and rub on my Maxi Clear. Look how mi face it pretty and a bare man a stare.”

Throughout the song, the DJ advises women on what to use and how to use it to get the desired “whiteness.”

Names changed.

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15. November 2009 by admin.

Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
Robinson

Government officials are expressing concern about recent pronouncements from Britain aimed at further tightening its immigration policies.

“We are very, very worried because it is going in a direction that we are not necessarily comfor-table with,” asserts Senator Dr Ronald Robinson, junior minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade.

Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown has argued that immigration to the UK will fall when the new rules are implemented.

In clamping down on migrants to the country, Brown signalled that the right to stay permanently in England after living for a certain number of years would be rescinded.

“Instead, we have said that after living here for five years, migrants will have to apply to become probationary citizens and at that point, they will have to pass a points-based test,” Brown said.

He also announced a review of the granting of work permits and student visas. The review team will consider whether visas should be granted only to foreign students on degree and postgraduate courses, and stopped for those seeking to take shorter courses leading to lower-level qualifications.

In addition, the prime minister promised that local workers will be given additional opportunities to secure available jobs, with the extension from two to four weeks of the period for which they must be advertised in job centres before employers seek to recruit overseas.

fair approach

Brown said his Labour government favours “a tough, but fair approach (to immigration), rigid in a point system under which we decide what categories of skills are to be allowed into this country”.

On Friday, Senator Robinson said there is a strong Jamaican lobby in the UK now with respect to immigration issues.

However, he noted that some of the mischief Britain is aiming to address had their making in dishonest persons trying to beat the system.

Robinson conceded that the issue of student visa and studying was being abused. “A lot of persons enter the country under that premise and eventually their status became illegal. We have contributed to it because we have really abused their systems there,” Robinson told The Sunday Gleaner.

Brown has said his Labour government has made mistakes on immigration even as he defends the benefits of workers coming from overseas. Statistics released in Britain indicate that in the year before the Labour Party came to power, British citizenship was granted to 37,000 foreign nationals.

In the first nine months of this year, 118,000 people born overseas have already been issued with British passports. Since 1997, more than 1.3 million grants of citizenship have been made.

It was not immediately clear how many Jamaicans have been issued British passports. Conservative estimates put the number of Jamaicans living in Britain at 500,000.

While Senator Robinson says the Jamaican Government and the diaspora group in England are lobbying the British Government on its immigration policies, Percival La Touche, president of the Association for the Resettlement of Returning Residents (ARRR), is in general agreement with the British move.

“I am not too worried about the direction England is heading with their immigration policy,” La Touche told The Sunday Gleaner.

La Touche said he supports the policy to ensure that British nationals are first employed before migrants are considered.

“Britain must look after their own first. They must make sure that persons coming from outside must possess the type of expertise that is not available in England,” La Touche said.

The ARRR head also said that new Jamaican migrants were forcing Britain to change its immigration policies.(Jamaica Gleaner)

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15. November 2009 by admin.

Carolyn Kissoon South Bureau

A man drowned at the Le Raffine Beach in Moruga yesterday while trying to rescue his two young children. Up to late evening, divers were still searching for the body of 38-year-old Nigel Stoute. Stoute, a labourer, was spending the day at the beach with his family when the incident happened around midday. His two children, a nine-year-old girl and five-year-old boy, were playing in the water when they began screaming out for help, police said. Stoute, who lived at Preau Village, Moruga, ran into the water to save his children. But he, too, got into difficulty and went under, police said. A man who witnessed the ordeal grabbed a bamboo rod and attached an old fishing net to rescue the two frightened children, but he was unable to save their father. The Coast Guard was called in to search for Stoute. Cpl Ramdeen of the Moruga Police Station is continuing investigations. (Trinidad Express)

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15. November 2009 by admin.

Rickie Ramdass rramdass@trinidadexpress.com

No tax: A section of Congress of the People supporters display their placards of protest during the party’s “Axe the Tax” public meeting at Woodford Square, Port of Spain, yesterday. -Photo: ANISTO ALVES HUNDREDS of supporters of the Congress of the People’s Axe the Tax initiative gathered at Woodford Square, Port of Spain, yesterday afternoon as the political party hosted a public meeting to protest the implementation of the new property tax bill as outlined in the 2009/ 2010 Budget presentation. A number of speakers, including general secretary of the National Trade Union Centre (Natuc) Vincent Cabrera and deputy political leader of the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) Nyahuma Obika, voiced their dissatisfaction with Government’s decision to increase the property taxes, with the crowd in full support. MP for Mayaro, Winston ’Gypsy’ Peters performed one of his songs- ’The Sinking Ship’ and later condemned Government’s decision regarding the tax. ’Our country is under siege. We are faced with a Government that some of you here, I am sure, voted into power, believing that they had what it takes to take us out of the trouble, any trouble we may find ourselves in. But behold, what we got was them paying us back with ungratefulness for our gratefulness,’ Peters said. The Axe the Tax initiative has been ongoing for sometime now, with COP members embarking on meet-the people initiatives throughout the country. COP’s deputy political leader Prakash Ramadhar said it was the goal of the political party to collect more than 200,000 signatures to protest the bill. In her 2009 Budget presentation, Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira announced that residential, commercial and agricultural properties will attract taxes of three per cent, five per cent and one per cent respectively on the annual rateable value of the property while industrial properties would attract a six per cent tax of the annual taxable value (which is based on six per cent of the installed cost of plant, machinery and associated buildings).(Trinidad Express)

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