Black Immigrant Daily News

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, October 05, 2022 (SKNIS):  Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education the Honourable Dr. Geoffrey Hanley, said that the Ministry is ready to begin work on the New Basseterre High School and Joshua Obadiah Williams Primary School. The announcement was made during a meeting with the management and staff of the Joshua Obadiah Williams Primary School on October 04, 2022.

“I know it has been a sacrifice having lost your school, I know it is always better at home. Nonetheless, I think you guys have an amazing working environment but it is still not a school. And, we have been working vigorously to ensure that the Joshua Obadiah Williams Primary School is built,” said Minister Dr. Hanley. “It is going to be a state-of-the-art primary school. I saw the drawing that Public Works did and we indicated to them some of the things that we want to see included. So, you will have one of the modern primary schools when it comes to renovation. It is our intention as a government, as a ministry to do much work that is needed on our schools,”

The Joshua Obadiah Williams Primary School suffered a massive loss due to a fire earlier this year and since then students and staff alike have been hosting classes at an alternative location.

As previously announced by Minister Dr. Hanley, the Ministry of Education will be moving forward with building the New Basseterre High School. He said that “It is our intention to use the two-year period while the new Basseterre High School is being built and completed to bring all of our schools up to a better standard.” Minister Dr. Hanley stated that tenders for the demolition of the old structure of the Basseterre High School will be made public by the end of October.

Equally important, the Ministry of Education has embarked on an island wide school rehabilitation project.

“We have embarked on phase one where we are rebuilding all of our bathrooms in all of our primary and secondary schools, starting of course, on a priority basis since some of our schools’ bathrooms are very deplorable. But I must say, however, that the majority of the bathrooms that I have visited in the rural areas are not only clean but they are also well-kept and that must be commended… We will also be looking at the upgrades of electricity in a number of our schools. A very costly venture but we need to put the money where it needs to be spent,” said Minister Dr. Hanley.

Minister Dr. Hanley further indicated that at the end of the rehabilitation project all the schools on the island would be in much better condition.

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The Cayman Islands will consider the implementation of a dynamic tax regime during the quieter shoulder months in a bid to lower the cost of travelling to the country.

Kenneth Bryan, Minister of Tourism, said on Monday that the suggestion of dynamic taxes from Nicola Madden-Greig, President of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association, is one that he will also take to the members of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO). Bryan is the new Chairman of the CTO.

“It is a strategy that I think should be introduced across the region. As chairman of the CTO, I want to see if there is a better analysis of each country’s taxation and work with economists to see if we can manoeuvre the taxes to move it away from the flights,” he said, speaking on a private/public partnership panel discussion at the Caribbean Travel Forum.

The forum was a new element of the CHTA’s annual Travel Marketplace, which was held in Puerto Rico.

Bryan was addressing the topic of inter-regional travel, which remained a major theme throughout the event.

CHTA President Nicola Madden-Greig

In her opening address at the forum, Madden-Greig said while travel to the Caribbean has increased more than any other region in the world, intra-regional travel is lagging with only 14 per cent of business coming from that area.

Business, she said, is the top reason for intra-regional travel with leisure/vacation, conferences and meetings, events and festivals, and shopping as other motivators.

She cited travel restrictions, testing and quarantines as top obstacles to recovery and noted the difference in growth since most islands dropped all of their COVID-19 entry protocols.

She said while 70 per cent of the region’s tourism boards proactively promote intra-regional travel, visitors are prone to visit one destination instead of two or more because of connectivity issues.

Stating that the Caribbean must be seen as a multi-destination similar to Europe, Madden-Greig repeated a suggestion made at the IATA conference in the Cayman Islands last month for dynamic taxation.

She suggested that instead of each island doing away with their taxes completely, they could adopt a seasonal approach to airline taxation with a two or three-tiered system. Taxes, she said, could be applied in the low, peak, or shoulder months.

Edmund Bartlett, Minister of Tourism, Jamaica

Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, called for an air service agreement that would allow open skies so airlines from anywhere in the world can fly into the region.

He said there is no need for an airline owned by the Caribbean as there will be connectivity once access is created.

Bartlett also supported the call for multi-destination marketing for the region, stating that the Caribbean needs to be marketed as a product instead of simply a geographical space.

He also advocated for the harmonisation of protocols in the region.

“That is a political ambition that we have to get. The leaders of Caricom have to come together to provide that political ambition that puts aside nationalism for a minute and sovereignty for a second. We need the harmonisation of airspace to allow for air connectivity across the Caribbean,” he said.

He also advocated for a common visa regime, which would allow people to visit all the islands in the way that the Schengen visa operates in Europe.

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Brazil will go to this year’s World Cup as the top-rated team after extending its lead over second-place Belgium in the latest FIFA rankings released Thursday.

Brazil won its two warmup games in September — against Ghana and Tunisia — while Belgium lost to the Netherlands in one of its two Nations League games.

Argentina stayed at No 3 and 2018 World Cup champion France is still at No 4.

The World Cup in Qatar starts on November 20.

Host Qatar will be the 50th-ranked team, just ahead of No 51 Saudi Arabia. Ghana will be the lowest ranked team at No 61.

Group B at the World Cup is the strongest by rankings with all four teams in the top 20 — No 5 England, No 16 United States, No 19 Wales and No 20 Iran.

Italy rose one place to No 6 and is the highest-ranked team that failed to qualify for the World Cup, missing back-to-back editions. Spain fell one place to No 7, with Netherlands, Portugal and Denmark unchanged to complete the top 10.

Germany, the 2014 champion, is No 11, just ahead of 2018 finalist Croatia.

Also, Russia rose two places to No 33 despite not playing a recognised game in 2022 because the national team was suspended following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

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A 48-hour curfew has been imposed in sections of Seaview Gardens in the St. Andrew South Division.

The curfew began at 6:00 pm., on Monday, October 03, and will remain in effect until 6:00 pm, on Wednesday, October 05.

The boundaries of the curfew are as follows: NORTH: Along Lelond Avenue from White Sea Drive to Yellow Sea Drive, EAST: Along Yellow Sea Drive from Lelond Avenue to Imaginary Line ‘A’ (that runs parallel to the gully), SOUTH: Along Imaginary Line ‘A’ from Yellow Sea Drive to White Sea Drive, WEST.

Along White Sea Drive from Imaginary Line ‘A’ to Lelond Avenue.

Persons within the boundaries of the curfew are reminded that during the hours of the curfew, they are required to remain within their premises unless otherwise authorized in writing by the ground commander.

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Banking In Antigua Is Killing Business

Here is a true story about the two local banks in Antigua.

A client at ECAB who has been with the bank from the day the bank opened and  owned by a local man, then throughout the Stanford ownership, and now as Eastern Caribbean Amalgamated Bank.

Operating a small business account in both EC & US Dollars the client had one U.S. client for more than 25 years which kept the U.S. account open, transferring the small amount to the EC operating account each month for all those years.

Suddenly the bank started to deposit the U.S. Transfer into the EC account causing the U.S. account to be closed to lack of activity. When discovered and attempts made to correct the situation the bank refused to take responsibility and further returned two transfers sent from the U.S. The client then tried to have their U.S. account restored as it was the bank’s error (?) to no avail, their bank-for-life ECAB continued to fail them.

The client them contracted its sister company to manage the U.S. account on behalf of the smaller company and had their U.S. Client reformat bank transfers to the company’s other local Bank, ACB. This other local bank ACB, failed to communicate on receipt of the transfer, and also twice sent the transfer back to the U.S. without communicating with the local client.  Two local banks sending back money without even trying to communicate with their client. This is the failure of small island penny banks when they have grown into handling millions of dollars, and when their officers have lost their willingness to serve. Five months stringing out their local business with attitude.

The Customer Service of local banks is very, very local, in that the cultural contempt which small islanders have for each other comes to the surface, even as their politics which is worn on their sleeves. Making the cultural shift to offering international banking services after 55 years in operation, suggests that the cultural contempt for each other, grown on the plantations, is too great to overcome without international exposure.

We have seen the Canadian banks when operating in Antigua produce professional bankers with confidential Managers & Supervisors, trained in Know Your Customer (KYC). These persons are of the same background as our current crop of bank officers operating in our indigenous banks, they receive the same education and training, and the only difference is the ultimate management (white) whose wrath they dared not provoke.

The regulatory pressure put on the Caribbean has more to do with the new investors who are attracted to our Criminal Investment Program (CIP) and the on-the-edge business trends which leaders of our region tend attract. There is no good reason why small business and local people are now bearing the brunt of the banking failure of our local banks and their inadequacies. Clearly we had no choice but to try to buy out the Canadian banks, but it may have been a better option to bring in Republic or some additional bank to pick up the slack from exiting Canada.

Whether we like it or not, the local banks just cannot hack it, and to quote the vibe of the Prime Minister, ‘dem just don’t care how dem talk to people’ and worse they don’t care period about locals.

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