6. December 2009 by admin.

RICE AND PIGEON PEAS; SWEET POTATO PIE

MACARONI PIE; SAUTEED CASSAVA

BAKED CHICKEN; BAKED PORK

BBQ SPARERIBS; BBQ PIG TAIL

FRIED SNAPPER; FRIED STEAK FISH

GRILLED STEAK FISH; STEAMED FISH

LAMB STEW; TURKEY STEW

MIXED VEGETABLES; TOSSED SALAD

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6. December 2009 by admin.

Ria Taitt Political Editor

Government has refused to provide any explanation or information with respect to those persons against whom Prime Minister Patrick Manning exercised his veto, blocking their proposed appointments. Attorney General John Jeremie, in providing reasons for Government’s decision yesterday, told Parliament that ’unwarranted intrusions into these processes carry with them the potential to destabilise and to undermine the decision-making process’. He also stated the privacy rights of people were involved, and that Government did not have the permission of the persons involved to reveal their names and identities. ’This is not to say that there will never be cases in which such intrusions are acceptable. It is only to say that this is not considered to be one of those cases,’ Jeremie said. Jeremie was responding to questions filed on the Order Paper by Caroni MP Dr Hamza Rafeeq. Rafeeq had asked the number of times Prime Minister Patrick Manning had vetoed appointments recommended by the Judicial and Legal Services Commission for the positions of solicitor general, chief parliamentary counsel and Director of Public Prosecutions, as well as the names of the persons to whom the prime minister objected and the reasons for his objection in each case. Jeremie said the exercise of the veto in Trinidad and Tobago was an integral part of the internal decision-making process. Quoting Section 11 (2) of the Constitution, which provides that before the JLSC makes any appointment to the offices of SG, CPC, DPP among others, it shall consult with the prime minister, the attorney general stated it was ’important to guard against the erosion of the confidentiality which ought to attend these internal decision-making processes’. He said the individual applicants for these posts were not beneficiaries of public resources but were simply applicants for positions in the public service. He said the questions asked ’involves the disclosure of information that was personal’. ’They (the persons) are entitled to the full privacy rights set out in the Constitution. To reveal…the personal details of applicants…is to do them a grave disservice,’ he said, adding: ’The executive ought not to override the rights of these individuals with respect for their private life as set out in Section 4 of the Constitution.’ In that, he said, the executive, as the potential employer of these applicants, ought not unilaterally to disclose their names and identities ’without the express consent being given by these persons in advance to such public disclosure, especially in circumstances where the applicants have not, in fact, been appointed. Such permission has not been given in this case’. However, Jeremie did respond to the queries on the dates that these posts became vacant. Rafeeq asked Jeremie whether he was aware if any person was vetoed. Jeremie said he only became aware through the newspapers-if one is to believe what is in the media, he added. Fyzabad MP Chandresh Sharma asked whether the information was available through the Freedom of Information Act, but House Speaker Barry Sinanan told Jeremie he did not have to answer that question.(Trinidad Express)

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6. December 2009 by admin.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning appears to be considering going back to the polls, sources say. The question however is when and what poll-local, general or both. The Political Leader of the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) Patrick Manning summoned his troops-constituency members, area managers, constituency executives-to a meeting at El Dorado East Secondary yesterday. The meeting, which was well attended, saw hundreds of persons from all 41 constituencies. Sources said party Chairman, Conrad Enill ended the party with an exhortation to all present to get ready so that whenever the opportunity presents itself the Political Leader can call an election. The next meeting is carded for January 16. This is the second such meeting, the first was held at Cascadia hotel earlier this year. Manning delivered an address in which he contended that issues such as government’s construction programme which its mega-projects, UDeCOTT and the property tax, which engaged the attention of the media, were not areas of major public concern. Rather it was the provision of basic needs such as water, drains and the need for homes, which occupied the mind of the electorate. The PM also set out ground rules such as how to raise funds, how the area managers should perform among other matters. Also addressing the meeting was former Culture Minister and Ambassador Plenipotentary Joan Yuille Williams. Manning called a snap poll once before-in 1995. But the PNM lost office. On that occasion the PNM faced a single, united opposition. This is not the case today-the Opposition is fragmented and the official Opposition, is facing an important internal election. -RT (Trinidad Express)

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6. December 2009 by admin.

Camini Marajh Investigative Desk

executive: Lawrence Duprey In a stunning deal that put the future of the entire Home Mortgage Bank (HMB) at risk, its former chairman and single largest shareholder, Andre Louis Monteil, guaranteed the bank’s balance sheet on a US$627 million transaction it was incapable of financing. The veteran deal-maker and former group financial director of Lawrence Duprey’s financially stricken CL Financial conglomerate engineered a complex acquisition structure for CL’s majority ownership of Jamaican conglomerate Lascelles de Mercado that made good use of his connections and huge profits for himself and HMB, a statutory-owned corporation created by Parliament in 1985. The Monteil-engineered deal which saw CL Financial pay a high premium for the Lascelles stock-more than double the listed value-also earned Clico Investment Bank (CIB), of which he was chairman, some very fat US million dollar fees. But Monteil’s behind-the-scenes dealing and packaging of the Lascelles acquisition has raised concerns about the conduct of the Central Bank-supervised mortgage company and the payout of US millions of dollars in fees to related parties, a Sunday Express investigation has found. Monteil, former chairman of the finance and audit committees on the board of rum and bitters giant Angostura Holdings Ltd and former party treasurer of the ruling People’s National Movement government, did not immediately answer questions about the Lascelles transaction or the rich payout of fees to related parties including former Clico director and consultant to CL Financial attorney Geoffrey Leid. Messages left on Monteil’s voicemail were unreturned. But Sunday Express investigations found that there are several issues related to the legality of the 12-page engagement letter signed on December 14, 2007, between CL Financial and HMB and the accounting processes used to clinch the US$627 million deal that took Duprey one step closer to his dream of building a global drinks empire. The December 2007 agreement, which gave the mortgage company the coveted role of financial sponsor and guarantor of the US$627 million transaction is set on plain paper, there is no HMB letterhead, the font and terminology change after the first three pages to what appears to be a standard boiler-plate financial agreement, and one of the four parties named in the agreement did not sign the document. Also, there appears to be a significant discrepancy of US$100 million between the first two pages of the HMB agreement. On Page One of the agreement, there is an undertaking by financial sponsor HMB to ’negotiate and arrange financing to acquire the issued and outstanding preference and ordinary shares of Lascelles de Mercado pursuant to which the financial sponsor will act as financial sponsor in respect of short-, medium- and long-term financing facilities and/or loans to company parties (CL Financial and Angostura), in aggregate, amounting to US$727 million equivalent the total financing amount’. Page Two of the agreement, under the heading ’Scope of Engagement’ 1(c): the document talks of providing an effective guarantee for two tranches of US$313.5 million at two separate dates. In a short telephone interview, Leid explained that the US$727 figure represented the full cost of the Lascelles acquisition. He had no explanation for the lucky coincidence of the drafters of the agreement getting the exact numbers right for the US$627 million price subsequently paid for the 86.87 per cent interest, right down to the last finite share, days before the formal offer was made to Lascelles shareholders. No explanation was forthcoming either for what appears to be a cut-and-paste document, which contained early references to ’financial sponsor’ and later descriptions of a ’financial adviser’. Leid, who received his own windfall of fees in the sum of US$1,079,615 or TT$6,801,578 on the sponsorship agreement defended the arrangement as a ’good deal’ for HMB and for the CL Financial Group. He fired back sharply at criticism that HMB did not have the capital to undertake a transaction of that size, countering that the use of HMB’s balance sheet-all of TT$200 million in equity-in fact made the deal happen. He said it was now a matter of public record that ’the transaction was consummated’. He dismissed suggestions that HMB was set up as a conduit to pass fees through to close related parties or that the bank did not have the capacity to make good on its guarantee for US$627 million. ’I would say that they did sponsor the deal,’ he said. An attorney by training, Leid said he was not the architect of the agreement but was retained by HBM to handle the M&A (mergers and acquisitions) part of the transaction. He confirmed receipt of the US million-dollar fees but declined to discuss the details of the transaction, saying only that the 1.25 per cent fee on the US$627 million deal paid out to HMB was in line with investment transaction fees. He said prior to the questions raised by this reporter, he has not heard of any concerns or criticism made about HMB’s sponsorship agreement, which turned out to be one of the richest corporate paydays ever for the mortgage bank. HMB earned fees of US$4,478,661 million or TT$27,202,504, more than half of the bank’s the bank’s 2007 profit of TT$45.1 million. And while Leid describes the transaction as ’standard’ and ’above board’, the lack of proper paper trails and supporting documents have led to a delay in the release of HMB’s 2008 financial statements. The Sunday Express understands that auditors Ernst & Young has queried the sponsorship transaction with CL Financial and has expressed concern about the absence of formal arrangements with unnamed consultants who may have benefitted from the transaction or the quantum of fees paid out. Leid for instance, was paid by CIB and not HMB. And in another anomaly, he is named on HMB’s record as ’Lone Star Capital’, one of several privately owned Leid companies. The payment out of CIB, however, was made to another Leid company called Gelco Realty Consultants. Adding to the complexity of the deal, there is no supporting paperwork at CIB on the US million-dollar payout to Leid’s company. Also, there is no explanation for the early payment of success fees paid out in April 2008, months before CL Financial closed on the transaction. The deal was closed in July 2008 at a total cost of US$676 million, which included, stamp duty costs, finance and legal fees, among other charges. There are also huge conflict of interest issues with Monteil and Leid straddling several positions within the financial sponsorship structure. Leid countered, however, that it is only a conflict if the parties don’t know. And according to his account of events, all the parties knew the game plan. Just what that game plan was or whether all the players were on board with the deal that was in play is now the subject of some dispute. Michael Carballo, who took over the mantle of group financial director from Monteil in April 2008, and one of the four partners to the December 14, 2007 agreement, told the Sunday Express that he had deep reservations about the structure of the deal. And while his name appears on the document, he said he did not sign off on the agreement. Carballo said he was opposed to HMB being paid a 1.25 per cent fee on the full transaction of US$627 million since in his view, the bank did nothing to earn those fees. He said he had serious concerns as to whether CL Financial needed a sponsorship or guarantee from any other bank. The way he explains it, there appears to have been some duplicity of roles. He said Duprey’s former right hand man, Andre Monteil and himself used the financial clout of CL Financial’s name to arrange most of the financing on the first tranche. The mortgage bank, he said, brought only US$47.9 million to the table and provided security cover for US$22 million of the US$80.4 million put up by Republic Bank. The rest of the funds on the first tranche, he said, were pulled internally from within the CL Financial Group. Monteil used HMB as a front to gain access to the additional US$22 million from Republic Bank to get round the hurdle of Republic Bank using its own shares. He took CIB-owned Republic Bank shares, pledged it to HMB and HMB in turn provided a US$22 million guarantee to CL Financial. Carballo said he was not paid any fees on the HMB-related transaction and only learned about the payout of fees to HMB, CIB and others earlier this year when Central Bank called him in to query the transaction. Asked whether the fees should be repaid to CL Financial, he said only: ’I would decline comment at this time.’ The other signatories to the now controversial agreement is the then group chairman Lawrence Duprey, Monteil and Peter Johnson, the then chief executive officer of HMB signed on behalf of the mortgage bank.(Trinidad Express)

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6. December 2009 by admin.

David Jessop, Contributor Writing about the threat that soaring levels of crime pose to Caribbean stability, in a week in which most columnists are offering their opinion on rising sea levels may seem perverse.

However, unlike climate change and the very public exchanges just beginning in Copenhagen, crime, despite its insidious nature, is an issue that is being allowed to fester.

For the last two and a half decades, the incidence of murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, organised crime, narcotics trafficking, the sale and smuggling of arms, piracy, money laundering, people trafficking, extortion and corruption have emerged in almost every nation in the Caribbean. So much so that statistics produced by some international agencies suggest that the region is, on a per capita basis, in certain categories, one of the most crime-prone in the world.

Key transit point

Why levels of crime should have risen so rapidly is the subject of debate, but primary among the causes is the manner in which the narcotics-trafficking networks and those that support them have exploited urban deprivation and middle-class greed.

The consequence is that not only has the Caribbean become a key transit point for a commodity that vastly exceeds in value the entire legal economy of the region, but such sums have made it increasingly possible to suborn youth at one end of the spectrum, to judicial systems, police forces, politicians and legitimate business at the other.

What is certain is that beyond those who suffer as victims, crime is in danger of becoming embedded in Caribbean society, changing the quality of Caribbean life and engendering a fear, albeit suppressed into a kind of silent complicity, that will in time enable those involved to challenge legitimate economic growth and development.

While no nation has been immune from crime and violence, events this year in some countries have taken on particularly grim characteristics.

In Guyana there has been a spate of largely unexplained murders, bombings, arson, and levels of lawlessness by a small group using high-powered weapons.

In Jamaica, where the murder rate and policing failures continue to multiply, many are watching to see how Government handles an extradition request by the United States.

This involves a well-known Jamaican figure variously described as a west Kingston businessman or by the United States as a narcotics and gun trafficker, who, it is said, controls a politically important ‘garrison’ in Kingston.

In the Dominican Republic, month after month, senior members of the armed forces, the police and others involved in supporting narcotics trafficking continue to find ways to escape justice.

And in Curaçao, persons arrested on narcotics-trafficking charges have been linked to criminal networks financing Hezbollah through Middle Eastern banks and traced to the shipment of arms to South America.

If all of this and offences against Caribbean citizens was not bad enough, there are indications of a trend towards serious crime against visitors.

The most recent incident to be reported was an attack on 18 passengers from a cruise ship who were held at gunpoint and robbed in Nassau.

Sadly, this may be the tip of an iceberg. Diplomats suggest that while incidents like this are still small in number, there has been an increase in crimes, such as rape, that go unreported as the visitors concerned wish to return home rapidly, often with the support of the authorities who are scared that the attendant publicity would damage their tourism product.

While all of this needs to be kept in perspective and for it to be stated and restated that such events are rare, most Caribbean governments still have not understood the need for a timely, joined up, carefully crafted and honest response to all such events for both a domestic and overseas audience.

An element of present problems revolves around seriously under-resourced, undertrained and sometimes corrupt individuals in police forces that are simply not equipped - in every sense of the word - to address the growing range of crimes against nationals and foreigners that cause actual and reputational damage.

Inadequate number of uniformed police

Recent reports from the United Nations and others indicate that in many Caribbean nations, the numbers of uniformed police are inadequate to have a substantial influence on deterrence, and their response to emergency calls is too slow.

Much the same message about the inadequacies of Caribbean policing is now appearing in the media, whether it relates to unsolved homophobic murders in Jamaica, tourists talking about police failings in The Bahamas on YouTube, or the New York Times writing about the inadequacy of the police response to crime in the Caribbean.

But policing is of course just a part of the problem. Alarmingly, in some states, organised crime has been able to develop political influence and deliver social and other programmes in a manner that suggests the emergence of a state within a state.

This, and the failure of governments to find ways of isolating or legally removing those engaged in criminal activity, threatens to have an impact on the support offered by the region’s external partners. So much so that in the region’s closest allies serious questions are being asked about aspects of their security and other forms of cooperation.

There are few easy answers to the burgeoning problem of crime. Moreover, addressing these issues during an economic downturn and rising unemployment is far from easy.

While those beyond the region have to do more to reduce demand for the narcotics trafficking that fuels criminality in the Caribbean, perhaps the only real answer lies in the public demonstration of moral leadership by those in politics, the Church, the media and business who can see the longer-term consequence of inaction.

David Jessop is director of the Caribbean Council. Email: david.jessop@caribbean-council.org

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6. December 2009 by admin.

Could you be playing ostrich with regard to your spending habits? Making a budget, possibly for one-yearperiods, is a good reality check.It can help you to see clearly if your spending patterns today will land you in trouble tomorrow.

With a budget as a tool of survival, and, with surgical cuts when necessary, individuals can get the space they need to breathe when disposable income grows less.

For those who are using lines of credit, credit cards, credit-union loans, company loans and salary advances to make up monthly shortfalls, it is time to budget.

Creating a budget serves to identify and properly plan your expenses in relation to your income, life goals and objectives.

Account for even the smallest expenses and do not ignore one-time annual expenses, such as car and home insurance, says Dave Dixon, branch manager with Scotia DBG Investments Limited.

Dixon states that when one constructs a budget and the expenses are higher than income, one really should consider these three options:

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6. December 2009 by admin.

Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter

At least one group of realtors is predicting that Jamaica may be overrun by gated communities should the Government fail to get crime under control.

“Most of the developments going forward are going to be gated communities. People feel more secure in these properties. The price for these units is much higher, but they sell faster,” said Edwin Wint, president of the Realtors’ Association of Jamaica.

Gated communities have sprung up across the island like daisies within the past five years, as residents try to keep out non-residents.

“It is the fear of crime that has caused people to put up walls, gates and burglar bars,” Assistant Commissioner of Police John McLean said.

Reflects badly on police

McLean, who is head of the police Community and Security Branch, said while the erection of physical barriers might reflect badly on the Jamaica Constabulary Force, it went way beyond the police’s ability to deliver service.

“You are dealing with a social problem,” McLean said.

The senior police officer commented that people had a legitimate right to protect their properties, and that people would employ whatever tools they could to make them feel more secure, whether it was the use of burglar bars, private security or closed-circuit television.

And it is this need for security that has Jamaicans being more than willing to pay big bucks for some properties. Wint said gated community units may start as low as $9 million for sale, or $70,000 monthly for rent. He said this price outstrips that which persons may pay for non-gated units.

“The price differential can be as much as 20 per cent gated as opposed to non-gated, but people want to feel secure in their properties, and they pay to live in these communities,” Wint said.

Dr Carol Archer, dean of the Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of Technology, agrees that the movement towards the building of gated communities is a response to criminality. She, however, said the change was also directly related to land availability.

“Gated communities address the whole question of density, which is a land-use change,” Archer said.

Meanwhile, Wint said that gated communities did not separate the rich from the not-so-rich in society.

“It is not a very discriminatory situation because you have lower middle-income communities that are also gated, even though it is the norm for the upper-level ones to be gated,” said Wint.

He added: “People prefer to invest in them because they see it as a better investment, and some people will not live in anything that is not secured. Everything goes right back to the high crime rate. Ten years ago you could hardly find a gated community in Montego Bay. They had a fairly low crime rate then. The crime rate has escalated there, and now you find that they are going more and more into gated communities,” Wint added.

Archer said that while these communities represent a pragmatic approach to solving housing needs, they have some serious drawbacks.

“One of the downsides to gated communities is that people may get isolated. A group of people of like mind, like socio-economic background - almost like in breeding.

“From a planning perspective, the ideal community is one that has a mixture of persons of varying income and racial group and varying social, occupational and educational class, and it allows for that level of interaction that fosters positive growth and development rather than being an elitist-type community,” Archer said.(Jamaica Gleaner)

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6. December 2009 by admin.

A HIGH-LEVEL MEETING on security between the Caribbean and the United States has been postponed and may be held in January.

Attorneys general from CARICOM member states held an extraordinary meeting at the Savannah Hotel last week, and chairman of the committee Martin Joseph said the aim was to complete all matters relevant to the meeting by the end of the day.

“At the end of the day, we now have to report to the heads either directly or indirectly. Heads have to sign off on the CARICOM position before dialogue takes place with the United States,” Joseph said.

He said CARICOM would be pushing to have the dialogue with the United States before the end of next January.

During his brief opening remarks, ambassador Colin Grandison told the gathering that the United States had requested a postponement of the December 10 to 11 meeting because their affairs had not yet been completed and they would not have enough time to have the document translated into Spanish.

The upcoming 2020 tournament in April and May next year in Guyana, St Lucia, Barbados and St Kitts was among other issues on the CARICOM agenda.

Joseph said they would want to discuss the policy decisions to be taken in that regard. (YB) (Nation News)

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6. December 2009 by admin.

THERE SHOULD BE no poultry or egg shortages for Christmas this year.

Furthermore, said chief executive officer of the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS), James Paul, the available poultry will save a “tremendous amount” of foreign exchange.

“We do not expect any shortages this year as we expect to meet poultry demands,” he said, speaking to the SUNDAY SUN yesterday during a telephone interview.

As for chicken and turkey wings, Paul said the BAS did not deal with those commodities directly, but advised shoppers those items were competitively priced and it was up to them to find the best deals.

The BAS chief also spoke on an upcoming project in partnership with the Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC) to increase local onion production.

“Right now we produce less than 20 per cent of the onions we consume; so we want to increase that to at least 50 per cent over a period of time,” he said.

Paul said the BAS would accomplish this by encouraging and supporting onion farmers to grow more onions by controlling imports.

“I think the BADMC should be given sole importing status over onions - then we can make sure we don’t have large imports which would disadvantage local onion growers.

“If we don’t import onions during the local production phase we will help local farmers and this will act as an incentive to increase local production,” he said.

Paul said this was something which would need approval from Government, but added it was nothing new the BAS was proposing as this was being done in other countries.

He said the local onion industry was under-performing when it was possible for Barbados to supply local needs, and export as well.

“With the correct management we can increase production, generate employment and save foreign exchange. We are underestimating the ability of Barbados to export onions, but we can carve out an export niche to CARICOM countries. We just need to work on consistency,” he said. (CA) (Nation News)

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6. December 2009 by admin.

Donville Inniss

by TREVOR YEARWOOD

GOVERNMENT may sell or lease the long-closed St Joseph Hospital.

Minister of Health Donville Inniss said yesterday it would take millions of dollars to bring the property up to scratch and he was not going to recommend Government foot the bill.

But whatever happens, the property will remain a health care institution.

Inniss was speaking to the SUNDAY SUN after addressing the opening session of a seminar on managing and coping with pain, sponsored by the Hope Foundation at Amaryllis Beach Resort in Hastings, Christ Church.

“The Cabinet has agreed in principle to the sale, lease or rental of the property known as the St Joseph Hospital,” he said.

“What we have agreed to is that the St Joseph Hospital should be brought back into use in a health care setting, but not necessarily by the Government.”

Investors interested

According to Inniss, several local and foreign investors have expressed an interest in using the property.

“The options for use include health and wellness tourism,” Inniss said. “There are also those who expressed an interest in using it for specialised surgical work.

“Some people have expressed an interest even in terms of having an offshore medical school and an interest in elderly care facilities.”

He said Invest Barbados is to be asked to assist in the promotion of the property “to see how we can attract the best kind of investor and put the property to some good use”.

Inniss made the comments against the backdrop of a recent structural assessment of the property.

The report “shows that the place is in dire need of repairs”, he admitted.

“We would like it to remain within the health care setting,” he said.

“But one thing I must stress is that you will not see Government reopening a St Joseph Hospital owned and operated by Government.

According to Inniss, at this point, “it would be foolhardy for us to go and look for millions of dollars of state funds to pump into the St Joseph Hospital”.

In terms of tertiary care, Government needs to focus on developing the Queen Elizabeth Hospital as an institution, he said. (Nation News)

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