Black Immigrant Daily News

Alric Lindsay, who serves as a member of the Grand Cayman Liquor Licensing Board, Utility Regulation and Competition Office (“OfReg”) and National Roads Authority (“NRA”) confirmed that he has resigned from those roles, effective this fourth quarter.

Lindsay explained to Loop that, “although board resignations are sometimes accompanied by some form of controversy, there was no quarrel in this case.”

He further explained: “My time on these boards was rewarding because of the opportunity it gave me to serve the public interest. In doing so, I realized that I had to balance the perception of members of the public that board members should be doing more and the reality that there are limitations under the Public Authorities Act as to what government boards are permitted to do. In any event, I enjoyed helping the boards implement what they could within the boundaries of the Act.”

During his time, in particular as chairman of the NRA, Lindsay encouraged full transparency, accountability and worked to improve public engagement.

Going forward as a non-board member, he said that he “hoped that this transparency would continue and ultimately, revisions would be made to the Public Authorities Act to allow all agreements between government entities and third parties to be published so that members of the public could understand how public funds are being spent and whether value for money is being obtained.”

Lindsay, whose non-governmental board job has always been as a director of Cayman-based investment funds, said he will now turn his focus to more volunteer activities in the community, including with non-profit organisations where he currently delivers meals weekly to the elderly and shut-ins.

His resignations from government boards are effective on the following dates:

Grand Cayman Liquor Licensing Board: October 31, 2022OfReg: October 31, 2022NRA: November 30, 2022

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Police seeking to clamp down on players in the deadly child trafficking scheme, which continues to leave families across the island devastated, say they have apprehended two women who they believe are facilitators in the underground ring.

Police say the women are in their 30s and were apprehended in a recent operation.

Details of the clampdown are yet to be provided by law enforcement officers but in a post on their social media pages, police identified the women as Nicola Brissett, a 33-year-old resident of Lucea, Hanover, and Nicola Johnson, a 39-year-old resident of St Thomas.

The women were apprehended by members of the JCF’s Anti Trafficking Vice Squad in early October.

Police said the women were charged with trafficking three girls, all under the age of 16 years old.

The information has triggered shock and anger among social media users.

“Women are the biggest facilitators in child trafficking in terms of getting people to trust them,” said one user.

The police say they will provide more information on the case as their probe into the matter intensifies.

The Ministry of National Security in August of this year said it was collaborating with the Ministry of Education and Youth to inform children about human trafficking.

Director of Children and Family Programmes at the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA), Warren Thompson, said the initiative was necessary, as children are vulnerable to human trafficking.

“There is the inclusion of the trafficking in persons content in the Home Family Life Education curriculum in schools, where we want children and teachers to be sensitive and have an awareness to the issue,” Thompson said.

He continued, “they have an internal committee and a plan of action, aimed at basically doing some preventative work in schools across the island, so a number of things are happening in the education sector”.

Manager of the Trafficking in Persons Secretariat in the Ministry of National Security, Audrey Budhi, said following the creation of Anti-Trafficking in Persons (ATIP) clubs in schools in 2019, the National Taskforce Against Trafficking in Persons had further dialogue on engagement.

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As the National Solid Wasted Management Authority’s (NSWMA) Western Parks and Markets (WPM) Waste Management Limited faces challenges relative to garbage collection, residents of St James have turned to burning or illegally dumping their garbage in rivers and drains.

The disclosure was made by Public Cleansing Manager at WPM, Mark Jones, during the monthly meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation (STJMC) on Thursday.

Jones told councillors that there are not enough garbage trucks to collect waste from the 334 districts in the parish.

“For the month of September, the WPM Waste Management continued to experience backlog within a number of districts,” he outlined.

“The WPM notes that when the waste collection is inconsistent, people choose to burn or dump their waste in nearby drains or rivers.

“The main reason for this is owing to the resource constraints that the company has been facing. Both the Government and supplementary (garbage collection) units are not sufficient to clean the 334 districts in the parish,” Jones stated.

Like St James, several other parishes have been plagued by inadequate garbage collection, resulting in solid waste being littered across various communities and town centres.

Two Thursdays ago, Local Government and Rural Development Minister, Desmond McKenzie, urged citizens to be patient, as the Government had acquired 50 new garbage trucks which are on the way to the island.

Jones told the STJMC that despite the resource constraints, “efforts are continuously being made to have the waste removed in a timely manner.”

Among the efforts by the WPM Waste Management Limited are the use of “six Government units and five supplementary units,” which “worked in the parish on average during the period.

“Additionally, the team swept the town centres, village squares and main roads,” said Jones.

However, he noted that there were other challenges that continued to exist, affecting the increase in the amount of waste in the parish.

Frequent downtime of both supplementary and Government-owned units were among the factors contributing to the amount of uncollected waste in the parish, Jones indicated.

In addition, “both residential and commercial customers use improper disposal practices, such as refusing to bag their waste and creation of illegal dump sites,” he reported.

“During the month of August, there were 42 communities in backlog (relative to garbage collection).

“September saw an increase, with 76 backlog communities,” stated Jones.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

An atmosphere of chaos on board the MV Trade Wind Passion preceded its collision into the Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB), as the Master of Ship shouted to the ship’s pilot to drop anchor and the bridge frantically signalled the pilot to stop – all to no avail, as the ship went on to ram into the bridge, causing billions in damages and rendering the bridge inoperable for three days.

In an exclusive interview with this publication, Public Works Minister Juan Edghill explained that after considering all the Board of Inquiry (BoI) has uncovered following a week of investigating the MV Trade Wind Passion’s collision with the bridge, he is contemplating submitting it to the Commissioner of Police for a criminal investigation.

“This is an accident that could have been avoided, had they listened to instructions. The investigators went so far, to send the pilot for an eye test, a hearing test, colour (blind) test. It’s part of the report. Because if people telling you something and you’re not responding… what does that suggest?”Edghill pointed out that not only was the pilot in good health, but persons on and off the ship were giving him instructions that he failed to heed, to avert the collision.

Additionally, both the pilot and the ship have gone through the retracted bridge multiple times before while transporting oil, thus ruling out inexperience.

“All the lights and navigational aids at the Harbour Bridge were functional and working. All the other vessels that passed through, said that everything was ok. The Harbour Bridge man calling and telling you to stop, you’re out of alignment. You’re not responding,” Edghill further related.

“The master of the ship, which is the foreign captain, gave us a statement that he told the pilot to drop anchor and he wasn’t following instructions. He could hear, he could see… he has gone through the bridge hundreds of times… it’s not a first-time voyage for either him or the ship.”

Damages to the Demerara Harbour Bridge following the October 8 collision

So far, the ongoing repairs to the DHB following the collision have already racked up a bill of over $1 billion – money that Edghill has already made clear that the company which owns the vessel will be held financially liable for, to pay for the extensive works being carried out.

According to the Minister on Thursday, they have already done all the necessary legal paperwork. “The ship is meanwhile legally under arrest, because the State has filed all the necessary paperwork,” he related.

During the retraction for marine traffic in the wee hours of October 8, the fuel ship, which was transporting fuel to the Guyana Oil Company (GuyOil), crashed into the bridge. The damage to the critical structure was extensive with at least four spans and a pontoon affected.

At the time, the vessel was heading south and was the last of five vessels to cross through the bridge, which had to be out of commission over the weekend and opened on Monday to light vehicular traffic.

A scheduled arrangement was subsequently put in place for vehicles carrying less than 18 tonnes as works continue on the bridge.

Following the accident, local authorities conducted drug and alcohol tests on the boat’s pilot and the results were negative. Reports that the crew was sleeping at the time of the accident had also been debunked.

24 months’ suspensionIn the meantime, the Panamanian fuel ship remains in Port Georgetown pending the outcome of the investigation and the completion of repairs to the bridge. It is meanwhile known that the Board of Inquiry has recommended in its report that the river pilot’s licence be suspended for 24 months.

The River Pilot, Kenneth Cort, who has over two decades of experience, is among six Guyanese who are contracted, through an association, to navigate vessels traversing local channels.

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PARAMARIBO — Veertig procent van de woningen die gefinancierd worden onder het  Affordable Housing Project (AHP) zullen worden toegewezen aan alleenstaande moeders. Dat meldt CDS in een

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