Moontown

St Lucia’s Opposition Leader Kenny Anthony has been handing out some sound advice to the government of Grenada. Advice he may well put into practice and pass around to those within his camp and politicians in St Lucia as a whole. Speaking in Grenada as a guest of the National Democratic Congress’ annual convention Dr Anthony, according to a report on the SpiceIslander’s website, praised the government of Prime Minister Tillman Thomas, saying that the achievements of the NDC administration have been “remarkable.”

“What your government has been able to do in the last two years is phenomenal in the face of the global economic crisis,’’ Dr Anthony told a rally at Grenada’s SAASS playing field. “You need to feel good about yourselves and your government.’’

The website quoted Dr Anthony as saying that he admired the Grenada PM and our opposition leader also reportedly commended the Grenada Government for its fiscal management and political morality.

The website said Dr Anthony, however, warned the NDC to avoid the mistake he made of getting “the economy right but the politics wrong,’’ and losing power as he did in St Lucia.
Dr Anthony suggested dialoguing with people and consoling the unemployed and dispossessed.
“Politics is about people,’’ he said. “It cannot be managed remotely from behind a desk.’’ (St. Lucia Star)

By Tameika Malone

“It’s wonderful news,” was the response from the then Cable & Wireless workers who were made redundant in 2001, describing their victory at the Privy Council against the telecommunications giant.

More than 15 workers turned up to the Antigua & Barbuda Workers Union (ABWU) office to receive word on the ruling which was handed down on Monday in London after a nine-year court battle.

“As far as I’m concerned, they can keep the monies for another five years, because this yah real sweet,” one of the former workers said.

In 2001, the company made over 20 workers redundant and the affected employees, represented by ABWU took the matter to the Industrial Court and then to the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal. The company lost both appeals.

Cable & Wireless had agreed to pay each employee four weeks for each year of service. However, the union and the affected employees disagreed, demanding at least six weeks for each year worked.

Former Cable & Wireless operator Conrad Tonge, now deceased, lead the fight that began in the Industrial Court.

According to ABWU General Secretary David Massiah, Tonge played an integral role in the negotiations which resulted in a ruling stipulating that the workers will receive the additional two weeks for each year plus 10 per cent for each year the money was withheld.

Massiah said, “We have to remember Connie at this time because he died last year. This is a struggle that he has been waging for a long time and this is why the victory is so sweet.”

Regionally, other workers’ unions have been calling the ABWU to offer congratulations on the big win against the telecommunications giant.

“Just the bare thought of going against them, other unions are frightened, but that did not daunt us. We felt that defending workers rights is important to us,” Massiah added. (Antigua Observer)

The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) is reporting that it has now erected the first of four wind turbines at its Wind Power Plant in Munro, St Elizabeth.

The light and power company said by September the other three turbines should be in place.

The $800 million wind energy project will add three megawatts of power to the national grid.

JPS corporate communication officer Audrey Williams said the project will help to improve electricity supply to customers and reduce the reliance on fuel.

She said the turbines at the Munro Wind Power Plant have been designed to withstand up to a category 5 hurricane. (Jamaica Gleaner)

Prime Minister Bruce Golding. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer

Edmond Campbell, Senior Staff Reporter

THE MANATT, Phelps & Phillips saga has been brought back to life with news surfacing yesterday, by way of United States publication AM Law Daily, that the law firm was paid an additional US$15,000 by local attorney-at-law Harold Brady on March 19 this year.

The money was reportedly disbursed a month after Manatt claimed it had severed ties with the Jamaican Government.

The latest development has strengthened the resolve of the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) that nothing less than a commission of enquiry can unearth the facts in the Manatt maze.

“If we are to bring closure to this question, and if we are to be able to chart an effective path to a different set of governance structures with different levels of accountability, and if we are to revive public trust, then the Government cannot do anything less than appoint a full commission of enquiry,” declared Dr Peter Phillips, chairman of the PNP’s communication commission.

Face the reality

Phillips told The Gleaner yesterday that the Opposition would continue to press for an effective response from the Government.

“The Government just needs to simply face the reality that there is going to be a continuing insistence by not only the Opposition, but by many other civic organisations who are going to be insisting that closure be brought to this issue,” he said.

When contacted for a response, Information Minister Daryl Vaz said he was in a meeting. Subsequent calls to his cellphone went to voice mail.

According to the AM Law Daily, in a new Foreign Agents Regis-tration Act (FARA) filing with the US Justice Department, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips reported that it got US$15,000 more for lobbying work done on behalf of the Government of Jamaica.

AM Law Daily reported that, in a 24-page supplemental filing dated June 30, 2010, the activities performed under the firm’s agreement with Jamaica included discussions with Molly Warlow, director of the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, about extradition issues.

Manatt lawyers met with Warlow on December 17, 2009 to discuss “extradition treaty process requirements”, the filing stated.

The US law firm continues to distance itself from claims that it was hired by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) to lobby US government officials on the Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke extradition dispute.

“It’s important to note that the reason the filing has no mention of anything done for Christopher Coke is that Manatt did not represent Mr Coke, and we were not retained to lobby the US government in connection with the Coke matter,” wrote Manatt spokesman, Lawrence Martinez, in an email response to the AM Law Daily.

In May, under pressure from civil society and sector groups to resign as a result of his handling of the Manatt and Dudus extradition issues, a seemingly remorseful Prime Minister Bruce Golding apologised to Jamaicans for how the “entire affair” was dealt with.

Coke has since been extradited to the US, after bloody gun battles that left more that 70 people dead.

Golding, who is leader of the JLP had also conceded that he should have divulged his party’s initiative to engage the services of Manatt, when he denied in Parliament that the Government had engaged the US law firm.

In September last year, the JLP paid Manatt US$50,000 for its lobbying effort.

Manatt’s initial FARA filing suggested that its contract with the Jamaican Government attracted a sum of US$400,000 over a one-year period.

However, Golding has repeatedly shot down claims that Manatt was hired by the Jamaican Government. (JamaicaGleaner)

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com

Queen’s Counsel Allan Newman has been retained by the government to look into the 26-storey Broadgate Place building project in downtown Port of Spain.

Attorney General Anand Ramlogan called on former public administration minister Kennedy Swaratsingh and former prime minister Patrick Manning to explain details of the Broadgate building which was scheduled to be built at South Quay.

Speaking at a press conference at his St Vincent St, Port of Spain, office yesterday, Ramlogan said the Broadgate transaction was one of “national concern”.

He said the deal for the Broadgate retail space involved a US$20 million debt owed to the Unit Trust Corporation and then another loan from First Caribbean International Bank to the Transcorp and Broadgate Place Property companies involved in the project.

The former PNM administration approved the deal and guaranteed repayment of the loan.

But this has exposed the current administration to a $1 billion debt, Ramlogan said.

He told reporters this was a matter of the previous government guaranteeing a loan for a private developer and he was seeking Newman’s advice on if there was a possible case for fraud in the project. —CR (Trinidad Express)

By Curtis Rampersad Business Editor

Foreign attorneys and one international forensic investigator have been retained by Attorney General Anand Ramlogan in the State’s probe into CL Financial and its subsidiary, insurance giant, CLICO.

But local lawyers who were working on the matter involving the billion-dollar empire once controlled by businessman Lawrence Duprey, have submitted their legal briefs to Ramlogan.

He said he “took the hard decision” the accept their briefs because he was attempting to streamline the number of legal advisers attached to State agencies working on the CLICO matter.

Ramlogan was speaking at a press conference yesterday at his St Vincent St, Port of Spain, office. He called the briefing following an Express lead story on Monday which stated all attorneys involved in the CLICO matter had been terminated.

Ramlogan said he thanked the local attorneys (Douglas Mendes SC, Frederick Gilkes, Michael Quamina and Stuart Young) for their service in the CLICO matter and accepted the return of their briefs because at this time, there were no requests for work from them by the foreign attorneys.

Their services therefore were not required, Ramlogan said, adding that work continued across various jurisdictions by the foreign attorneys in the CLICO matter.

US attorney Ed Davis, Canadian forensic investigator Bob Lindquist and UK Queen’s Counsel James Lewis are continuing to work on the matter, Ramlogan said.

Davis was present at the press briefing yesterday and said that work in the CLICO matter was ongoing.

He would not give details of how advanced the investigation was.

Ramlogan said there was no need for a local legal team now and if this situation changed in the future, local attorneys would be retained again.

Ramlogan said the decision to streamline legal efforts was meant to ensure that the “State gets the best value for money and the hole that is bored in the coffers means that the candle does not cost more than the funeral”.

He said all angles would be pursued in the CLICO matter. (Trinidad Express)

Govt gets security brief on offshore vessels

By by Ria Taitt

The annual operating cost for the three offshore patrol vessels (OPVs), in a deal with which the current People’s Partnership Government is still considering whether to go ahead, is estimated at $67 million. Some $178 million has also already been “sunk” into the project, over and above the cost of the vessels (which is $1.5 billion).

This $178 million, which went into the training of sailors to man the vessels and other costs, is not recoverable.

The three sets of costs were presented to an inter-ministerial committee on Tuesday. This inter-ministerial committee which has been established, in part, to make an evaluation of the situation involving the OPVs has been meeting for the greater part of this week. The committee has been deliberating on the issue and has received several presentations to assist in the evaluation.

The committee is expected to present a report to National Security Minister John Sandy who, in turn, is due to report to Prime Minister Kamla Per- sad-Bissessar on the matter.

The Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force made a presentation, in which an overview was given of the concept of the offshore patrol surveillance and a justification of the Offshore Patrol programme. The presentation talked, among other things, about the role, function, financial cost and areas of surveillance of the OPVs. It also looked at other marine security assets and this country’s national, regional and international obligations.

The committee was told the boats would allow for interdiction, search and rescue, maritime preservation, fisheries protection and critical energy infrastructure protection. The areas of surveillance would be the exclusive economic zone, North coast, South coast, Tobago and the “first line of defence”, the Caribbean Sea, the committee was informed.

The committee is also looking at all the country’s military assets, with a view to determining whether the OPVs are necessary, one source said. Sources said much of the concept behind the OPVs was predicated in UN reports, which have talked consistently about Trinidad and Tobago’s vulnerability to guns and drugs and the need to make the coastline more resilient to such incursions.

In May 2007, the government of Trinidad and Tobago entered into a three-way agreement and commercial contract with the government of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland and VT International (VTI), a commercial shipbuilding firm.

Apart from the $1.5 billion cost of the vessels, there were other contracts relating to the training ($84 million) and maintenance of the vessels ($463 million). As part of the maintenance and support programme, 180 sailors from Trinidad and Tobago were to be trained in the UK.

Some of the officers sent on training have already been brought back home. The Express reported yesterday 65 sailors were six weeks away from being able to command the OPV Port of Spain when the training was stopped, pending a Government decision whether to accept the vessel.

The first OPV was due to be delivered last year. To date, however, nothing has been delivered. The repeated pushing back of the delivery date has caused some grave concern within the Government, coupled with the huge costs associated with this project.

Persad-Bissessar said, on Tuesday, Government does not have any more money to sink into a “black hole…so we are reviewing”. She raised the issue of the manufacturer paying liquidated damages.

“There’s a decision we have to take as to whether we take our liquidated damages and run or give them some more time.”

Yesterday, sources said there was a liquidated damages clause in the contract, which imposes a financial penalty on the manufacturer if he fails to deliver the vessels on time. Sources, however, said this was not an exit clause which would allow the Government to get out of the contract.

“It would not be easy for them to get out of the contract,” one source noted.  (Trinidad Express)