Black Immigrant Daily News

The Association of Christian Communicators and Media (ACCM) has expressed concern about what it says is a renewed push by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) activists and others to force changes to the Jamaican Constitution as it relates to the buggery law and the prohibition of abortion.

The Christian advocacy group, which compromises media workers and owners from across the region, asserted that repeal of the buggery law and legalisation of abortion in Jamaica will undermine the family, endanger the nation’s children and attack “godliness”.

The ACCM will be hosting an information forum on Good Friday, April 7, under the theme: ‘Man + Woman = God’s Perfect Plan’.

The forum will be held at 4:00 pm at the Freedom Come Tent on the Spanish Town Bypass in St Catherine. The event will also be aired on MTM TV and streamed on online platforms.

According to ACCM First Vice-President Reverend Basil Hanson, it is now common for people who renounce or oppose the LGBTQI lifestyle to face backlash or be blacklisted.

He argued that the Christian community should remain resolute in its stance that homosexuality is an abnormal behaviour.

“God made man and woman, male and female, and that is what we are promoting and we stand by that,” said Hanson as he noted that there has been a growing acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle globally.

Jamaica is one of six countries in the Americas and the Caribbean which have not legitimised same-sex sexual activities and according to ACCM, the country has been coming under immense pressure from gay rights activists to repeal the buggery law, despite several polls indicating that Jamaicans are not in support of such a move.

The overwhelming majority of Jamaicans polled by Bill Johnson in the two latest polls commissioned by the Jamaica Observer said that the law making sex between two men punishable should not be changed.

Strong support for the buggery law emerged from the polls conducted March 12-15, 2020 and July 9-12, 2020 by the veteran pollster among 1,200 voting-age Jamaicans across the country.

The polls had a sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 per cent. The March poll was not published due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the island.

Section 76 of Jamaica’s Offences Against the Person Act makes buggery punishable across the board, with a penalty of imprisonment for up to 10 years, with hard labour.

When the pollsters asked Jamaicans to state whether the law should be changed or not, 93 per cent of respondents in both polls said no.

Support for amendments to the law totalled a mere three per cent in the March poll and five per cent in the July survey.

Against that background, the ACCM said, “We will not relent from our principled position that our children will not be coerced into accepting these practices as normal. Our very vulnerable education system is a prime target for this anti-God lifestyle. We are firm in our resolve that this must be resisted by the Christian Church through the power of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.”

Hanson believes the church community should be more vocal in asserting its stance, which is based on the Word of God. He is also concerned that more people of affluence and influence are adopting the secular view that an individual’s gender can be neutral.

“We have to save our children, because if we allow this to begin to permeate in the schools, we are in big trouble. We would have failed the next generation,” he stated.

He called on religious leaders to make their voices heard outside of the four walls of the church halls as the family comes under attack.

“Most people will not say anything, even though they do not agree with it, but the truth is, if you do not say anything, you are quietly supporting it, even though you are not,” said Hanson.

According to the ACCM, the forum is intended to provide vital information about the advance of the LGBTQI agenda and the efforts of foreign governments and international organisations to influence the policies of the Government of Jamaica. The organisation will also celebrate the family as the divinely created order established by the Creator.

The forum will also address the issue of abortion, which remains illegal in Jamaica except in some cases of medical emergency.

According to Section 72 of the Offences Against the Person Act, anyone found guilty of having or facilitating an abortion could be arrested. However, there have been calls in recent times for the abortion laws to be relaxed.

The ACCM is calling on the Christian churches to be united and stand together for righteousness and the ultimate prosperity of the Jamaican people and the nation.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The Central bank of Trinidad and Tobago (CBTT) on Friday said the outlook for 2023 looks favorable, barring major external shocks.

In its Monetary Police Announcement for the month of March, the CBTT said domestic inflation moderated in January and that figures released by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) showed that headline inflation decelerated to 8.3 per cent in January 2023 year-on-year compared with 8.7 per cent a month earlier.

It said food inflation remained unchanged at 17.3 per cent, with slower price increases for fish, bread and cereals. Core inflation, which excludes food items, slowed to 6.1 per cent from 6.7 per cent, as price increases eased for housing, communication and furnishings.

The CBTT said the rate of price increases for building materials also decelerated.

“In terms of economic activity in Trinidad and Tobago, latest estimates put growth in 2022 at around 2.5 per cent. This reflected a relatively favorable performance in the energy sector alongside a gradual revival in non-energy production,” the CBTT said, adding that “there is some early evidence of improving labor market conditions based on observed increases in labor force participation in the third quarter of 2022 and the decline in the number of persons retrenched during the second half of 2022.

“The outlook for 2023 looks favorable, barring major external shocks. With respect to financial indicators, liquidity remains ample and credit buoyant, while interest differentials widened,” the Central Bank said.

It said commercial banks’ excess reserves at the Central Bank fell by around TT$400 million (One TT dollar=US$0.16 cents), from TT$6.7 billion at the end of December 2022 to TT$6.2 billion at March 28, this year.

The CBTT said contributing to the decline were more extensive open market operations, including net treasury bill sales of around one billion dollars, and US$300 million in foreign exchange interventions by the Central Bank.

Financial system lending to businesses expanded by 9.8 per cent in December 2022. Credit growth to the construction and manufacturing sectors was recorded at 18 and 11 per cent respectively and “were particularly robust, while consumer credit gathered momentum”.

The CBTT said that the differential between interest rates on three-month treasures in Trinidad and Tobago and the United States moved to minus 429 basis points in February 2023.

“This compares to minus 392 basis points at the end of December 2022 in the context of US Fed tightening. There is evidence of a slight upward movement in domestic interest rates in recent months; the rise in average rates on loans exceeded those on deposits resulting in an expansion in the loan/deposit spread by five basis points to 6.36 per cent.”

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Black Immigrant Daily News

By Scott B. MacDonald

In January 2023, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali visited India, meeting India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two leaders discussed a broad range of economic opportunities, but the major topic was oil.

Guyana, which has emerged as the newest petro-state, has plenty of oil; India, one of the world’s largest economies, lacks oil. Indeed, India is one of the world’s largest importers of oil, ranking third behind China and the United States. The tempo of Guyanese-Indian relations have accelerated over the past two years and are likely to deepen, a development which has geopolitical implications for Guyana, the Southern Caribbean Energy Matrix, and the U.S.

India has long had relations with the Caribbean, with many people from the South Asian nation arriving in the region to work on sugar estates in the early nineteenth century. King Sugar has long been dead, but oil is the newest king, pumping up the Guyanese economy, helping to revitalize Trinidad and Tobago’s economy (more on the natural gas side) and holding out hope for Suriname. India began buying Guyanese oil in 2021.

The January Ali-Modi meeting demonstrated that there is a mutual interest in further developing relations between the two countries, with oil the key issue. However, other areas of potential cooperation were discussed including agriculture, infrastructure development, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, technology, and defense cooperation. President Ali also met with India’s President Droupadi Murmu and his itinerary included visits to Delhi (the country’s capital territory), Kanpur (a major industrial center), Bangalore (India’s tech capital) and Mumbai (the business and financial capital).

In February Guyana’s Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo arrived in India and met with President Murmu. One of the results of the meeting was a Memorandum of Understanding (pending approval of respective governments) over future oil sales. Additionally, it was reported that there was potential for Indian investment in Guyana’s oil sector.

Guyana has indicated that it plans to auction 14 offshore oil blocks, while taking back 20 percent of the Stabroek offshore oil block from ExxonMobil which could be sold to Indian oil companies.

The Jagdeo visit also discussed tapping Indian skilled workers to help develop Guyana’s emerging gas industry as well as help in several other sectors, including agriculture. Guyana also indicated an interest in defense cooperation (including potential fast patrol boat purchases from India) and improved transportation linkages between the two countries, which is expected to be backed by an air services agreement (ASA).

This would allow airlines from both countries to travel back and forth. Currently travel must transit through New York or London.

The main driver from the Indian side is energy. Despite efforts to develop clean energy, India remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Coal is the South Asian country’s leading energy source, accounting for 46 percent of total energy in 2021, followed by oil (23 percent), biomass (21 percent), natural gas (6 percent) and primary electricity defined as hydro, nuclear, water and wind (4 percent).

Although New Delhi understands the need to reduce its carbon footprint, it is not likely to make a radical shift away from fossil fuels anytime soon. Prime Minister Modi announced in 2021 that his country would zero out its greenhouse gas emissions by 2070.

This means that while India will work on developing clean energy alternatives, it will continue to be a major buyer of oil and gas over the medium term.

India’s energy picture has been further complicated by the Russo-Ukrainian War, which commenced in February 2022 and resulted in Western economic sanctions on the sale of Russian oil and natural gas. To mitigate its lost Western markets, Russia significantly increased its oil exports to “friendly” countries, like China, India, and Turkey.

In late 2022, Russia passed Saudi Arabia as India’s largest source of oil and in January 2023, the South Asian country’s Russian oil imports rose to a record 1.4 million barrels per day, up 9.2 percent from December.

While cheap Russian oil is being soaked up by India’s refiners, New Delhi is under pressure from the United States on this issue. New Delhi needs U.S. support to counterbalance China, with which it fought bloody border disputes in the Himalayas in 2021 and 2022. In this context, positive U.S.-India relations are key to balancing China. Enter Guyana.

Although Guyana is far from India, it offers a friendly and less controversial oil source than Russia or, for that matter, Venezuela which had earlier been an important supplier. Guyana is also friends with the United States; Indo-Guyanese constitute the country’s largest ethnic group (around 40 percent of the total population); and the two countries share a parliamentary form of government. Indian and Guyana also share faiths in Hinduism and Islam and similar experiences as British colonies.

For Guyana, deeper relations with India offers an opportunity to diversify its trade and investment partners. While the U.S. has positive relations with Guyana and remains its major economic relationship, especially considering the presence of U.S. energy companies like ExxonMobil and Hess, Indian involvement could broaden the investment base. A fulsome Indian economic engagement could also help contain the influence of China, which is active in trade, the oil industry and infrastructure development.

There are limits as to what India can offer Guyana and vice versa. It is easy to take a cynical view and opine that Guyana is after fast Indian money and that the Ali government is pandering to its Indo-Guyanese base. Moreover, India’s trade with Guyana, while on the upswing, remains relatively small; according to the International Monetary Fund’s Direction of Trade statistics for 2022, India was Guyana’s 9th largest source of imports and 28th in terms of exports.

Looking ahead, Guyana’s national interests are to maintain its independent role in the global economy, not become a satellite of a large power, and not fall victim to the Dutch disease (which afflicts oil producing countries). For India, Guyana could serve as a friendly source of oil and, over time, natural gas.

A more developed relationship with Guyana could also help India develop a larger role in nearby Suriname, which has yet to start exporting oil. Indeed, Suriname’s President Chan Santokhi also met with India’s Prime Minister Modi in January 2023. A more developed Indian role would broaden the set of economic relationships that have emerged with the Southern Caribbean Energy Matrix. A deeper Indian engagement in Guyana could help counterbalance China’s influence in the Caribbean and Latin America, something that plays well to Washington’s strategic concerns.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

In its latest report on the economic health of St. Kitts and Nevis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that the Federation’s economy continues to rebound despite global hiccups post-COVID-19.

“St. Kitts and Nevis’ economic growth rebounded strongly in 2022 despite global headwinds. GDP is estimated to have grown by 9 percent in 2022 after contracting 14.5 percent in 2020 and 0.9 percent in 2021,” the Executive Board of the IMF reported after concluding the Article IV consultation with St. Kitts and Nevis on March 15, 2023.

The report said that the lifting of the COVID-19 restrictions played a significant role in boosting a lagging economy.

“The lifting of all COVID-related travel restrictions in August 2022 sparked a strong rebound in the tourism sector and across the economy. The authorities’ proactive policy response, facilitated by the fiscal buffers accumulated from a decade of prudent fiscal policy, helped shelter domestic prices from high global energy and food prices,” the multi-lateral agency said.

“These measures nonetheless took a heavy toll on fiscal accounts in 2022. The primary balance ex-CBI revenue and land buybacks, an indicator of the underlying fiscal stance, deteriorated to a deficit of 17 percent of GDP (vs. 15 percent in 2021). Large CBI inflows in 2022 helped finance this expansion, keeping public debt below the ECCU regional target of 60 percent of GDP,” the report concluded.

With the strong rebound in the economy, the IMF said that the country can see a return to pre-pandemic levels next year.

“Return to the pre-pandemic activity level is expected by end-2024, and beyond that, growth should converge towards its medium-term path. The budget is expected to be broadly balanced through 2025 and then go into deficits–predicated on current policies. Risks to the outlook are tilted to the downside in the short term, but with some upside potential in the medium term,” the report stated. “Downside risks primarily stem from a global slowdown, particularly in the United States, global inflation, and sustained commodity price volatility from lingering geopolitical uncertainty.”

The Report critiqued the CBI programme and hinted at economic diversification such as a transition to renewable energy.

“The growing dependence on volatile and uncertain CBI revenue is a major source of vulnerability. But prospects for an acceleration of the transition to renewable energy and increased investment in resilience by the broader public sector could represent a material upside risk,” the IMF said.

However, the Executive Board said that the government authorities are “committed to maintaining a prudent fiscal stance going forward. Small budget surpluses are planned for the next three years, supported by the phasing-out of electricity price subsidies and streamlining of income support measures. They reiterated their intention to undertake structural fiscal policy changes to reduce dependency on CBI revenues over the medium term. They also remain committed to investing in natural disaster resilience and climate change adaptation”.

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