Black Immigrant Daily News

Dominica’s 2022/ 2023 budget has been signed and sealed; Prime minister Roosevelt Skerrit will deliver it today, Tuesday, 26 July at the parliament building on Victoria Street in Roseau.

So, nothing we say here will change the content of the budget presentation but that doesn’t stop most of us from suggesting that Dominica, more than ever before, has to make tough choices to halt our economic decline and put us on the road from crisis to recovery. We have concluded that many times and for many years during the presentation of the annual budget. Covid -19 and the current world economic situation makes that suggestion a no-brainer.

So, we hope and pray that this new budget will recognise the precarious social and economic position that Dominica is in today. But to make these fundamental changes require courageous leadership and the Prime Minister has to be willing to risk the loss of political capital in the process.

The unwillingness and, or inability of our current government and the government of the past two decades, to take these risks may explain why the nation seems to be stuck in neutral gear, unable to embrace new ideas that might disturb their political comfort zone.

For many years the enormous potential of our people to be creative, productive and strong has been crying out to be released. We hope and pray that the government has heard their cry this time and makes a genuine effort to halt our economic decline and set the country on a new path towards real development. Talking alone will not get us there; policies that only guarantee election victories will not get us there; only bold, and maybe unpopular, decisions will get us there.

Undoubtedly, the presentation of a country’s annual budget is an important event because it gives citizens an indication of the policies and programmes that their government intends to implement over a financial year. But unfortunately, budgetary debates and other discussions on the management of the country’s finances have become opportunities for political parties to score points.
On this occasion, we hope that the verbal diarrhoea that passes for substantial debate in parliament is abandoned and discarded. This is not the time to play politics, not the time to fiddle while the nation decays, not the time to turn brother against brother, neighbour against neighbour, one political party against another political party. These precarious times require statesmanship, require putting the country before the party and self, require honesty and transparency and building better together-blue and green and red.

We also hope too that the prime minister will banish the barren boast that his government was proud of its achievements and that the current government had demonstrated a certain level of disciplined economic management characterized by prudence and fiscal responsibility. He said these same words many times in the past. But one look at the size of the Cabinet of ministers, for instance, and you will know that this description, of prudent fiscal responsibility, is misleading, to put it mildly.

There’s no doubt about it: Dominica has one of the most bloated Cabinets in the Eastern Caribbean. And now that our economic survival is at stake, maybe the best time to make that bold move – cut the Cabinet by 50 per cent.

This year, we expect the same pronouncement. We also anticipate that the Prime Minister will list some of the same projects that he did last year under the Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP). Last year too, we expressed the view that the budget that Prime Minister Skerrit presented to the people of Dominica did not contain the innovative programmes that could haul Dominica out of the precipice of economic stagnation into which the country has plunged.

As we said then, given the overwhelming 18-3 mandate that Mr. Skerrit received from the Dominican voters at the December 2019 general election, we expected much bolder, more daring budgets that would serve as a catalyst for action as Dominicans grapple with problems of the Covid-19 pandemic, the hurricane of 2017, unemployment, shrinking production and productivity and the debilitating effects of the migration of some of our brightest and best.

In budget presentations over the past years, it has been obvious that government adopts unimaginative approaches to solving the country’s problems. Consequently, there have not been any dramatic improvements in the economy-in tourism, agriculture and manufacturing- over the past two decades, at least.

A bolder budget, coupled with the removal of our current self-delusion, could set the stage for Dominica to be economically free, at last.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The Bulgin family is still trying to come to terms with the devastating loss of two brothers, 26-year-old Tavaris and 21-year-old Tavaughn Bulgin, in a tragic drowning incident in the US two days ago.

“Two boys one time, Oh God,” the boys’ father, Reverend Keith Bulgin, who is also the pastor at the Palmers Cross New Testament Church of God, told Loop News on Wednesday.

“I do everything for them. They were my boys, and they were so helpful. Tavaughn played keyboard in our praise and worship in the church, and Tavaris (the older brother) was the Sunday School superintendent, he was like a technological genius; he did the structure for the whole church….everything,” Reverend Bulgin said.

The brothers were part of a group that jumped off the infamous ‘Jaws Bridge that connects Edgartown to Oak Bluffs around 11pm on Sunday. Tavaris’ body was retrieved soon after, while the search is still on for the younger brother, who is presumed dead.

Jaws Bridge is said to be a popular tourist attraction on the island, and many people jump from it during the summer, despite a sign warning people against it.

The brothers were from Clarendon, Jamaica, and were working at a restaurant on Martha’s Vineyard as part of the popular summer work-and-travel programme, which provides employment opportunities for hundreds of university-age students from Jamaica each year.

They have two sisters.

On Tuesday morning, divers and other police units resumed the search for Tavaughn’s body, focusing on the side of the bridge bordering the inlet and pond, a state police spokesman told the Boston Globe. Police deployed side-scanning sonar technology Tuesday, which allows searchers to map the seafloor.

After failing to find Tavaughn Bulgin’s body Tuesday morning, crews worked their way back over to the bridge’s ocean side. But poor weather caused dangerous conditions, the spokesman said, and Tuesday’s search was suspended at 1 pm.

Going forward, weather conditions will be assessed on a day-by-day basis to determine whether it is safe to resume the search, an article in the Boston Globe reported a few hours ago.

By Claude Mills

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Black Immigrant Daily News

A man who got into the grounds of Windsor Castle armed with a crossbow told police he wanted to “kill the queen,” prosecutors said during a court hearing Wednesday.

Jaswant Singh Chail, 20, is charged under the Treason Act with intending to “injure the person of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, or to alarm her Majesty.” He has also been charged with threats to kill and possession of an offensive weapon.

Chail was arrested at the royal residence west of London on Christmas Day 2021 when the queen was staying there.

Prosecutors allege the former supermarket worker from Southampton in southern England was wearing a hood and a mask and carrying a loaded crossbow with the safety catch off.

They say he told a police officer “I am here to kill the Queen,” before he was handcuffed and arrested.

Prosecutor Kathryn Selby said the Supersonic X-Bow weapon allegedly carried by Chail had the potential to cause “serious or fatal injuries.”

Prosecution lawyers maintain Chail wanted revenge on the British establishment for its treatment of Indians and sent a video to about 20 people claiming he was going to assassinate the queen.

To get close to the royal family, he had tried to join the British Army and the Ministry of Defense Police, prosecutors allege.

Chail appeared remotely for Wednesday’s hearing at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court from Broadmoor, a high-security psychiatric hospital.

He was not asked to enter a plea, and was ordered detained until his next court appearance on September 14.

The allegations against him are not being treated as a “terrorism offense,” Selby said.

Charges under the Treason Act of 1842 are rare. In 1981, Marcus Sarjeant was charged under the act after firing blank shots at the queen as she rode on horseback in the Trooping the Color parade in London. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison.

The last person to be convicted under the separate and more serious Treason Act of 1351 was William Joyce, a World War II Nazi propaganda broadcaster known as Lord Haw-Haw. He was hanged for high treason in 1946.

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Minister of Trade and Industry Paula Gopee-Scoon. – Photo by Ayanna Kinsale

Minister of Trade and Industry Paula Gopee-Scoon said the wood and wood-product manufacturing apprenticeship programme launched on Tuesday will breathe new life into a dying industry.

She was speaking at the Ministry of Trade at Nicholas Towers, Port of Spain.

“We consider this to be a dying sector,” Gopee-Scoon said. “We want to revive it because of the potential to supply hotels, restaurants, etc. with furniture, but also to export to neighbouring communities where there are a number of hotels and so on. So I think that the approach is a good one.”

She added that the industry would also be useful in other fields such as ship repair.

Gopee-Scoon explained that, according to Central Statistical Office statistics, the wood and wood products subsector contributed about 0.02 per cent to GDP in 2020, and exports were estimated at about $24 million.

The industry employs about 4,000 people, with 14 companies registered with the TTMA.

TTMA president Tricia Coosal said the non-energy manufacturing sector, of which the wood and wood products industry is a subsector, is the third largest contributor to TT’s GDP. The sector employs 52,000 people overall.

MIC Institute of Technology chairman Clement Imbert said that before the launch of the programme, interest in the industry was limited because of a lack of demand. He said with government incentive and support, the wood and wood product industry will get a boost in human capital.

“There are not very many (students), because a lot of products, they now come down in what you call the CKD form. You buy a piece of furniture, you have to screw it up together. So we had (fewer) than 20 students who enrolled in this programme, but with the incentive we have now to bring them up to the modern use of technology, we expect to get a very good response,” Imbert said.

The programme which will be overseen by the MIC Institute of Technology and developed by the ministry, will enrol 50 students in a two-year, three-phase programme. The first phase, in the first nine months, will teach technical courses such as design, production and reading of workshop drawings, and practical courses such as life skills and maths.

The second phase, six months long, will include furniture restoration, entrepreneurship and innovation in woodworking.

The third phase, of nine months, will require students to specialise in furniture production, “antique” furniture production, cabinet-making or upholstering.

Trainees will be required to be over 17 and have completed the building construction level 1 or level 2 programme in either HYPE or MUST.

They should also have equivalent-level certification at another training institution such as NESC or YTEPP.

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In this undated photo, the Harbour Master is docked at Scotland Bay as a crew of volunteers disemback to clean up the area for International Coastal Cleanup Day.

Four Trinidadian crew members of the Harbour Master have been fined approximately $14,000 (EC$5,500) each after pleading guilty to causing grievous harm to Anderson Peters and harm to Kiddon Peters. The charges are to be paid immediately or they will face prison sentences.

Peters, world champion javelin thrower and a sporting icon in Grenada, was thrown overboard last week from the Harbour Master, a party boat owned by Trinidadian businessman Adrian Scoon, the son of Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon.

The men, John Alexander, 55, a deckhand from Arima; Mikhail John, 35, a sailor from San Juan; captain Noel Cooper, 42; and Sheon Jack, 28, a sailor from Cocorite, pleaded guilty in the St George’s Magistrate Court.

The Now Grenada website reported that each man was fined $8,792.53 (EC$3,500) on the charge of causing grievous harm,with a one-year prison sentence if found in default.

They were also each fined $5,024.30 (EC$2,000) on the charge of causing harm, with a six-month prison sentence if found in default.

They will remain in custody until the fines are paid.

Lance Wiggins, 45, a sailor from Cocorite, was charged with the same offences but pleaded not guilty and was allowed to leave the court. Another man, policeman Abiola Benjamin, 40, of Maraval, was also initially arrested and charged but the charges against him were dropped before he went to court.

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