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A search on Thursday in one of the remand blocks at the Bordelais Correctional Facility (BCF) yielded more ‘cell made’  inmate weapons and other items some two weeks after a similar operation resulted in an unprecedented contraband haul.

Some of the items Special Operations Response Team (SORT) officers seized during their latest search included 19 weapons, 37 mobile telephones, 23 telephone batteries, 35 telephone chargers, eight scissors, and 20 USB flash drives.

The search for the contraband lasted about two hours.

In a previous search earlier this month, Correctional Officers seized 45 phones, 43 batteries, 22 chargers, 31 weapons, 60 portions of cannabis, six scissors, one hacksaw, an SD card, an MP3 player, and two lighters – among other items.

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The BCF said that was an unprecedented contraband seizure.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

If you invest in stocks, you may have noticed that some companies opted not to declare a dividend over the last few quarters.

According to the Governor of the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ), Richard Byles, based on the volatility of the prevailing financial times, this is a sign of maturity on the part of local companies.

For instance, NCB Financial Group (NCBFG), despite reporting consolidated net profits of $39.9 billion for its financial year ending September 30, 2022, opted not the pay dividends to shareholders, citing “strong heads” in the future.

JMMB Group, which posted $3.63 billion in net profit, recently declined to pay dividends to its shareholders. The company said its business lines had been adversely impacted by the prevailing high inflationary and high-interest rate environment.

For the NCBFG, the directors said it is more prudent, at this time, to continue bolstering the group’s capital in light of the Russia/Ukraine war, the “central bank rate increases – which could impact our capital – along with new insurance accounting rules and the implementation of Basel III.”

Many shareholders have been pressing for companies to pay out, as dividends form part of their income, especially in retirement.

However, speaking at the central bank’s Quarterly Monetary Policy Press Conference last week, Governor Byles outlined: “It is quite mature of them to be taking these decisions” to not pay dividends at this time.”

“I think that over the years, especially since the mid-90s coming up, our financial institutions have not only matured but [have] also strengthened their capital, their risk management and compliance and as a result of that, they are automatically taking these prudent decisions without the supervisor coming in and saying ‘guys your capital is too low you can’t pay out dividends,’” Byles said.

He continued: “They are themselves making these assessments, and it speaks to the growth in the maturity of the financial sector.”

Deputy governor Dr Jide Lewis also sees the move to halt the payout of dividends as prudent, especially given the transition from credit risk to market risk since the pandemic, “where you [had] a sudden stop of economic activity…impairing how borrowers could repay their loans,”

The central bank, therefore, expects licensees to be “forward-looking in their assessment of risk,” Lewis said.

“So far, our financial intuitions have been very prudent which is to take the buffer profits that they have made in previous periods and use that to bolster their capital instead of paying out a dividend to ensure that they have enough in their storehouses to deal with the headwinds that are ahead,” Lewis said.

He said the central bank is observing the market “very carefully” and is “so far we are comfortable with the actions that they are taking in their own best interest.”

Marian Ross, executive director of Sterling Asset Management

Financial leaders all seem to be on the same page, but who explains this strategy to the shareholders? What does this mean for their investments?

Sterling Asset Management’s Marian Ross explained to Loop News that there is really quite a lot to consider.

“It is not so simple,” Ross said.

For one, “I think what shareholders have to realise is that there is a trade-off. The more dividends you [the company] pay, the less growth you’re going to experience in the future, in theory,” she said.

“Just like you and I, if you are paid $100 for the month and you say I am going to spend $80 and save $20, whether you save $20 or $40 will affect your life in the future because the person who saves $40 is likely going to be able to retire earlier, have a bigger investment portfolio and will enjoy the fruits of the labour further on,” she reasoned.

She suggested that investors who want a guaranteed stream of income instead look to bonds.

Investors should also remember that if the company does well, they will also eventually benefit, she said.

“You buy into the growth of the company… companies are custodians of capital…they can’t just go and spend off [pay out] the money because they have it,” Ross explained.

Other reasons she posited are that financial institutions have to preserve more capital because accounting rules have changed in a way to force them to take unrealised losses through their balance sheets as well as that the company may be planning an acquisition and needs the capital.

“So, as a shareholder, you have to take a long [term] view,” she suggested.

What seems to have been lacking, therefore, is the effort on the part of some companies to explain the strategy of properly delaying the payment of dividends to shareholders.

For Byles, companies owe their shareholders an explanation either way.

“That explanation applies right across the market to everybody. I don’t think any institution should be shy about telling their shareholders what the situation is,” he said.

By Tameka Gordon

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Black Immigrant Daily News

By Sir Ronald Sanders 

(The writer is Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the United States of America and the Organization of American States.   He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London and Massey College in the University of Toronto) 

Call me a cynic, but years of participation in negotiations between developed and developing countries have schooled me to be cautious about grand announcements and promises.   The devil is usually in the detail. Experience has taught me to remain hopeful, but to be vigilant in ensuring the commitments, pledges and promises are kept.

That experience has been garnered in negotiations in the Commonwealth, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the Organization of American States, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Financial Action Task Force and in direct bargaining between European Union countries and the Caribbean.

In each of these fora, the countries of the developed North have sought advantage over the underdeveloped countries of the South.  By various stratagems, the developed countries have got their way, including by making commitments at major occasions such as COP27 which concluded on November 20.

In the words of Barbados’ Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, at the opening of COP27, “This world looks, still, too much like when it was part of an imperialistic empire”.

Therefore, while the leaders of small island states, including Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister, Gaston Browne, who, for years, as the Chair of the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) has been advancing the argument for a fund to pay for loss and damage caused by Climate Change, are to be applauded for gaining acceptance by developed nations that such a fund should be created, the game is not yet over.

The negotiated text has recognized the need for financial support from a variety of sources, but no decisions have been reached on who should pay into the fund, where the money will come from, and which countries will benefit.

When COP27 had to be extended into the weekend of 19 and 20 November to address the loss and damage issue, Ministerial negotiators for many small island states had already departed Egypt.

It was left to Antigua and Barbuda’s Environment Minister, Sir Molwyn Joseph, and the Environment Minister of the Maldives, Shauna Aminath, with their technical teams, to ensure that the concerns of small island states were adequately met.

Much work remains to ensure that the loss and damage fund is established and adequately resourced.   Further, it has to be clear that new money will finance the Fund, and not a shifting of monies already pledged for other purposes which, regrettably, happens far too often.

It should be recalled that wealthy nations still have not fulfilled an outstanding pledge to provide $100 billion to help vulnerable countries adapt to the impact of Climate Change that they have been suffering for decades.

It is critically important for small island states and other developing countries to monitor, and participate actively in, the work of the ‘transitional committee’ which was established at COP27.

That committee is tasked with “making recommendations” on how to operationalize the loss and damage Fund, including new funding arrangements to resource it.

That committee is expected to meet before the end of March 2023, but its “recommendations” won’t be considered until COP28 in Dubai in November-December 2023.  Note the committee will make “recommendations”.

We can be quite certain that the bargaining within the ‘transitional committee’ will be intense and that many developed nations will seek to avoid or minimize their obligations.

So, while praise must be given to the leaders of small island and other developing states for finally getting ‘loss and damage’ on the COP agenda, there are still hurdles to be jumped before they can realistically say that the problem has been functionally and effectively addressed.

A credible Fund will require sufficient money.  Adapting to the impact of Climate Change will require a comprehensive approach, including building sea walls and creating drought-resistant crops.

 This could cost developing countries anywhere from US$160-US$340 billion annually by 2030. The number could rise to US$565 billion by 2050 if Climate Change accelerates.

 That’s the estimate of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in its 2022 Adaptation Gap Report.

These numbers have been made convincing by the fact that not enough was done at COP27, or by any of the previous COPs,  to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for the climate crisis.

The final agreement mentioned “the urgent need for deep, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions” to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

However, a UNEP report, released just before COP27, painted a worrying picture for small island states and low-lying countries, such as Bangladesh.  The report was clear “there is no credible pathway to a 1.5°C future”.

What is more, the report points out that “for each fraction of a degree that temperatures rise, storms, droughts and other extreme weather events become more severe”.

This is why, as Prime Minister Gaston Browne, pointed out at COP27, the worst emitters, including China and India, must begin to act beyond their own interest to include the interests of the world.  The development of a few countries should not happen at the expense of many others.

It is more than likely that both the initiative by Vanuatu to seek an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice on the rights to be protected from climate change, and the establishment by Antigua and Barbuda, Tuvalu, Palau and Niue of a Commission of Small Island States (COSIS), backed by 17 international legal experts, to seek a similar opinion from the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, sufficiently worried major developed countries to encourage them to consider a loss and damage fund at COP27.

They can influence the latter, while cases before international courts are beyond their control.   It was a case of better the devil you know.

In the fight against the present damage and clear danger to their existence, all Caribbean Island States should join in using the international legal system to preserve their rights against the world’s major emitters of greenhouse gases.

All small island states should actively back the Vanuatu initiative and join COSIS.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that emissions must decline by 45% to limit global warming to 1.5°C if the already ravaged world is to be saved.  There isn’t a moment to waste.

Responses and previous commentaries: www.sirronaldsanders.com 

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UTC executive director Nigel Edwards gives the feature address at TTPBA’s 16th annual dinner and awards for media excellence at the Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain on Tuesday evening. – Photo by Angelo Marcelle

Unit Trust Corporation executive director Nigel Edwards, in his keynote address at the TTPBA’s media awards, urged media practitioners, publishers, and broadcasters to continue to be educators, to think about their value to companies and redefining their business model to be responsible and unearth the truth, and retaining and training talent.

The TT Publishers and Broadcasters’ Association (TTPBA) held its 16th annual media award ceremony on November at the Hyatt, Port of Spain.

ROOTS Foundation founder Mtima Solwazi on left and his son De Shawn Parkinson, receive a TTPBA award from First Citizens Manager Communications and PR Camille Atkinson at TTPBA’s annual dinner and awards for media excellence, at the Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain on Tuesday evening. On right is TTPBA Director Anthony Seegobin. – Photo by Angelo Marcelle

Edwards said, “If I were to reduce it to a question, it would be: what value does the media add? Companies must see an inherent value created by the media, because otherwise, nobody would spend a cent on advertising. And so even if we rather simplistically start with this measure of value, digging deeper, that sense of value that companies perceive comes from your ability to reach into the homes of their customers. That reach is through you accurately communicating on matters of interest in a way that creates public interest. That’s the goal,” he said.

He said a large part of the media’s value is their ability to unearth the truth. Calling the media “a critical institution of democracy,” Edwards said the public relies on the media to give “the unvarnished truth” about issues of public interest in spite of resistance from political or economic entities.

“Facts can lie, but the media must not. I’m reminded of a classic Japanese movie called Rashomon that examined the murder of a wayfarer from multiple factual perspectives, but not one of the individual perspective was the truth, and it’s a tough job, but we rely on you to examine facts that may seem odd or even contradictory and to give us the truth. That’s the job.”

He added that digital media were making more money by drawing in more advertisers and larger audiences, but described the media as a “validating voice.” He said the media now have to find a way to merge with the speed and dynamics of social media to remain relevant.

“You owe us all a way to ensure that as we enjoy the speed with which reporting is made available on social media, that it comes with the accuracy that we have come to expect from the traditional media.”

TTPBA president Douglas Wilson welcomes everyone to TTPBA’s 16th annual dinner and awards for media excellence, at the Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain, on Tuesday evening. – Photo by Angelo Marcelle

He suggested media professionals learn lessons from social media influencers, but still maintain a level of journalistic objectivity so they can guide the audience to making up their own minds.

“We need you continuing to deliver with the level of quality and consistency that we have become accustomed to. We want you standing between us and lies; we want you standing between us and societal mischief; we want you between us and the chaos that would exist without responsible reporting.”

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