12 facing charges in airport probe

PORT-OF-SPAIN — The Director of Public Prosecutions, Mark Mohammed, is currently going through a report from the Police Anti-Corruption Squad into Trinidad and Tobago’s posh international airport that could lead to some 12 people facing charges for criminal offence.

Among the suspects identified in the investigations being headed by Bob Linquist are businessmen and former government officials, according to a report in yesterday’s Trinidad Guardian.

An unnamed senior police officer has been quoted as saying that “this will be the biggest prosecution ever in the history of the country”.

The probe into the widespread overpricing of materials and alleged irregular practices in the construction of the airport started last year with an anti-corruption probe initially launched by then Attorney-General Ramesh Maharaj.

Meanwhile, on the industrial relations front, doctors at state-run hospitals were yesterday scheduled to begin a three-day “sick out” in support of their demands for outstanding pay hikes and improved working conditions.

Negotiations on behalf of the doctors have been going on since January 2000 between the government and the Public Service Association and the doctors feel that it was time to reach a satisfactory solution.

Black Barbadians low on’economic ladder’

BRIDGETOWN — Less than three per cent of Barbados’ working predominantly Black population are on the top scale of the social-economic ladder in this Eastern Caribbean state.

This compares to 22 per cent of the White Barbadians in the upper class bracket; 11 per cent East Indian and 10 per cent ‘mixed’.

According to a recent survey conducted for the Nation Publishing Company by three lecturers of the University of the West Indies, the lower class of the society is made up largely of Black and mixed racial groups.

The study on “Social Stratification in Barbados: Analysis of the State of the Black Middle Class” was conducted by UWI lecturers Andrew Downes, Ian Boxill and Dillon Alleyne.

Their research has shown, in percentage terms of population, that between 1960 to 1990 thousands of Blacks moved up the social ladder resulting in an expanded and diverse middle class that now stands around 27.5 per mcent of the middle class population, compared to 60 per cent of the Whites and a similar percentage for the ‘mixed’ racial groups.

According to data from the Statistical Division, of an estimated population of 268,000, some 93 per cent are categorised as Blacks; 3.2 per cent Whites; Indian one per cent; Mixed 2.5 per cent, with Chinese and “others” comprising less than one per cent.

In relation to the size of their respective ethnic category, about two per cent of Blacks own small businesses, while Whites own 14.1 per cent; Indians 14.9 per cent and Chinese 17 per cent.

Terrorism high on OAS agenda

BRIDGETOWN — Combating terrorism in the Latin America-Caribbean region through joint and systematic co-operation will be high on the agenda for this year’s General Assembly of the Organisation of American States (OAS) scheduled for Barbados from June 2-4.

The Assembly is expected to adopt a ‘Convention on Terrorism’ which is currently being discussed at a meeting at the OAS headquarters in Washington.

Hemispheric security and modernisation of the inter-American system, in addition to the proposed focus on terrorism, will be among key agenda issues for the Assembly, the Observer was told yesterday.

Prior to the working sessions of the General Assembly, there is to be a high-level meeting on “Special Security Concerns of Small States” of the hemisphere, the second such event since the first was held in San Salvador in 1998.

Secretary-General of the OAS, Cesar Gaviria, who will be among those addressing the formal opening ceremony, will be on visits to some Caribbean states ahead of the start of the General Assembly.