Moontown

Caribbean governments grouped in the 15-nation CARICOM have reacted with concern to an international campaign against banking secrecy by G20 leaders which has included increased scrutiny of a string of Caribbean offshore financial centers.

This scrutiny has included many Caribbean jurisdictions being put on an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development “grey list” of states viewed as not fully compliant with international tax information standards.

“There is no doubt there is much pressure on the offshore financial services sector, but there is still an opportunity for the region,” Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, CARICOM Assistant Secretary-General for Trade and Economic Integration, said in a live webcast news conference broadcast from Guyana.

The G20 and OECD demands for improved financial transparency and regulation have piled pressure on small Caribbean states, many of whom are struggling to cope with the global economic downturn that has badly battered offshore finance and tourism — the pillars of their fragile economies.

Edwin Carrington, CARICOM Secretary General

At the news conference, CARICOM Secretary-General Edwin Carrington recalled that it was industrialized countries and the international financial institutions they dominate which had originally advised Caribbean states to move out of their old sugar and banana industries into financial services.

“We answered many of the criticisms years ago about whether we were tax havens, and financial services being guilty of that role,” Carrington said.

“It is surprising that this pressure is now being brought on us when in fact many of the rules outlined for us to follow are not even followed by enterprises and areas of the developed countries themselves,” he added.

Caribbean leaders argue that the G20/OECD focus on their countries is unfair and discriminatory and say there are offshore financial jurisdictions within the United States, Britain and Europe which fail to fully apply the same transparency standards being demanded of their nations.

Nevertheless, several Caribbean territories and states have scrambled to sign the 12 bilateral tax information exchange agreements required by the OECD to get off its “grey list”.

CARICOM members, most of them former British territories, are also lobbying Britain to modify an air passenger duty imposed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government to tax aviation’s carbon emissions, which they say unfairly discriminates against Caribbean tourism destinations.

They say the way the duty is applied means British tourists who fly to US destinations, including far-off Hawaii, pay less duty that those traveling to the Caribbean and they fear this will hurt the recession-hit regional industry. (Caribnet)

PHILIPSBURG, St Maarten – Chatting happily with new friends around the bar at Boleros, the Latin music and dance spot on the Oasis of the Seas, Bonnie Simpson is having a good time. The ship is hours outside of the port of Philipsburg, St Maarten, but the party continues on the decks well into the night.

Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas cruise ship is pictured at the STX Europe shipyard in Turku. AFP PHOTO

On board Royal Caribbean International’s Oasis of the Seas for its inaugural voyage with some 4,000 other passengers, Simpson and husband Gary are making the most of their 39th cruise. The retired Florida couple has been to The Bahamas 12 times, but still anticipate their arrival in Nassau when the world’s largest cruise ship docks at the port for the first time on Friday.

“I like the local people,” said Simpson, who is impressed with what the Oasis has to offer. “I love the Oasis. What I like about this is there’s so many areas that you can relax or party,” she said.

Her sentiments are ones that keep Royal Caribbean International executives searching for new ways to enhance the cruise line’s offerings to its guests, some of whom have sailed with them over 100 times.

“When you’re part of a company for 20-plus years, you sort of internalize the never ending quest to create new products and services that haven’t been seen before, create more options and choices for the guest,” said Adam Goldstein, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International in an interview with the press this week.

The motivation, which the executive said had propelled the company throughout the six-year planning stage for the new Genesis Class ships, has been contagious for the ports of call on this maiden voyage to the Eastern Caribbean.

The Bahamas government has spent $44 million thus far to prepare the harbor for the world’s newest and largest class of vessel. St Maarten officials reported that $100 million was spent on building a new pier and making onshore upgrades to receive the Oasis. Dredging to accommodate the Oasis at Charlotte Amalie in St Thomas cost that government over half a million dollars, according to officials.

Goldstein said that the governments of all three ports expressed early interest in making preparations to receive the ship. The executive expressed the company’s partnerships with its destinations to ensure a quality experience for its guests.

“Everybody knows that we are very committed to progress in a variety of areas that are crucial for our guests,” he said. “That includes safety … and medical and public health so those are … areas where we have to be really state-of-the-art and where we expect, through our partnerships with the destination, that our guests will be always very well looked after.”

The expectations are ones that the Bahamas Government has demonstrated a multimillion dollar commitment to meeting, in its aim to retain the billion-dollar cruise ship industry.

“It’s important to continue to do those things that will keep us as the number one cruise destination of the region,” said Vernice Walkine, Director General of the Ministry of Tourism.

“Clearly the government has invested a lot of money to dredge that harbor and the government would not have done that had it not been important for us to be able to accommodate this new class of vessel - the Genesis Class - which is the largest class of vessels in the world.

“We intend to have that investment pay for itself,” said Walkine of accommodating a class of vessel that has the capacity to inject millions into the economy with each month of weekly arrivals.

The Oasis of the Seas carries up to 5,400 passengers, more than twice the capacity capability of the cruise line’s other ships.

While the average cruise ship passenger to the Caribbean is expected to spend $88 in port, passengers spend an average of $100 when docked in Nassau. Average passenger expenditure in St Maarten increases to $148. St Thomas holds the record for the highest amount of dollars spent on average by passengers in port at $149 per passenger.

Said Walkine, “The cruise passenger business is very important to certain stakeholder groups in The Bahamas - the downtown merchants, taxi drivers, straw vendors, hair braiders, surrey drivers, ferry boat operators - these people depend on cruise passengers primarily, and so its very important for us to continue to ensure that we grow that business.” (Caribnet)

Aretha Welch awelch@trinidadexpress.com

So you’re drinking Slim-Fast like water, getting your Carnival body on, but what you didn’t know is you may be just a few sips away from an involuntary purge.

It has been found that the 180 calorie meal drinks may be contaminated with the Bacillus Cereus bacteria. This bacteria has been known to cause excessive vomiting and diarrhoea once it enters the system.

The canned drinks which are a popular choice among persons trying to lose weight were voluntarily recalled late last week by its makers, Unilever.

Representatives for the local distributor of the product, Smith Robinson and Company Ltd, said when they were alerted last Friday, they got busy contacting the various supermarkets and pharmacies which bulk purchase the product for resale to local consumers.

In a release which Smith Robinson forwarded to the Express it was stated, ’Unilever United States, Inc, in cooperation with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is conducting a nationwide voluntary recall of all Slim-Fast ready-to-drink products in cans, due to the possibility of contamination with Bacillus cereus, a micro-organism, which may cause diarrhoea and possibly nausea and/or vomiting.’

Smith Robinson said by last Saturday the word was out to the companies that buy the product wholesale and the product was pulled from shelves over the weekend.

All persons who currently have Slim-Fast meal drinks at their homes are asked to discard them immediately and contact the retail outlet where it was purchased.

The recall involves all Slim-Fast (RTD) products in cans, regardless of flavour, best-by date, lot code or UPC number.

However, the producers of Slim-Fast say no other Slim-Fast products are subjected to this recall. Powdered shakes, meal bars and snack bars are also products currently being sold in the Slim-Fast range of low calorie goods.

The release which was sent to Smith Robinson by Unilever US also said, ’The company is in the process of identifying and correcting the production issue, and will resume production and shipment of the product when the issue has been addressed and corrected.’ (Trinidad Express)

A NUMBER of police officers from the Traffic Branch and the nine police divisions yesterday began a series of training programmes in the laws governing the use of the breathalyser, to meet international best practice standards.

This was revealed in a press release issued by the Office of the Commissioner of Police yesterday.

According to the release, Deputy Commissioner of Police Maurice Piggott, who spoke at the first seminar, said he expected all police officers to be trained as breathalyser technicians, while only selected officers will be specifically trained as trainers in the use of breath-testing devices.

’The legislation governing breathalyser testing is expected to change drinking and driving habits of the local community and, in effect, discourage persons from driving under the influence of alcohol. Police officers will also be targeting drivers who have alcohol in their possession while driving,’ the release said.

The use of the breathalyser is expected to begin on Christmas Eve. (Trinidad Express)

Juhel Browne jbrowne@trinidadexpress.com

GIVING INFO: Karen Nunez-Tesheira speaks to the media at the post-Cabinet meeting yesterday. -Photo: CURTIS CHASE

Several thousand property owners who receive senior citizens, social disability and public assistance grants will be exempt from the proposed new property tax regime, Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira said yesterday.

She made the announcement at yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s. Legislation for the new tax system is to be laid in the Parliament today.

In a brief telephone interview last evening, Social Development Minister Dr Amery Browne said 110,000 persons are now receiving all these grants, but was unable to say exactly how many of them are property owners.

’There are 70,000 receiving the Senior Citizens Grant, just about 20,000 each receiving the public assistance and disability grants,’ Browne said.

It is expected that several thousand of those persons own properties, and are to be included in an expanded exemption list that will also include the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) and other State-owned or managed tertiary education institutions.

Nunez-Tesheira announced these and other changes to the Property Tax Bill, 2009, which will now allow the Social Development Ministry’s mean test to determine who receives the grants and which property owners in that group will qualify for a deferral of the tax.

’This act, clause 23 of the act, makes provision for deferral, a relief by deferral of the tax and it sets out the classifications of persons who would qualify on the basis of financial hardship. Those are persons who are on disability grant, those persons who are recipients of senior citizens grants … public assistance grant or anyone who would satisfy the Ministry of Social Development in using the means test that they apply in social development as a basis for that deferral,’ Nunez-Tesheira said.

She also said the deferrals would be passed on to those who inherit properties, once they qualify as persons suffering financial difficulty. In a brief interview by phone last evening, Nunez-Tesheira explained that the deferrals will be continuously assessed and will only end upon either the death of the persons receiving them, or if their financial circumstances have improved significantly.

The list of exemptions originally in the bill had included lands used by the University of the West Indies ’or its servants’, churches, religious organisations, schools as defined by the Education Act, incorporated charitable organisations, public hospitals, asylums and cemeteries.

’We have included those again, but we have included other categories. For example, we have the Council of Legal Education, we have COSTTAAT, we have UTT and we also have any tertiary institution managed or supported by the Government,’ Nunez-Tesheira had said during the post-Cabinet new conference.

She added that the Government expects that the new property tax regime will lead to an average residential property rate of $81 a month, which equates to $972 per year and dismissed critics who say the new tax will lead to more hardship for many.

Under the new legislation, the valuation of properties will now take place every five years as opposed to every three years under the existing law.

The age of the valuations of properties that had led to the existing property tax rates, where some residential property owners pay $200 a year for example, was what Nunez-Tesheira said, had to be addressed. She said many property owners pay a seven and a half per cent but ’don’t feel it’ because the valuations have not been kept up to date with the existing property values.