Economic Stabilisation Fund for special CARICOM Summit

BRIDGETOWN — The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) are advancing proposals for the creation of a Regional Stabilisation Fund for consideration by heads of government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) when they meet later this month in St Lucia for their eighth special summit.

Both secretary-general of CARICOM, Edwin Carrington, and CDB President Compton Bourne, confirmed yesterday that the establishment of such a fund would be considered within the framework of an overall review of the state of the economy and the particular constraints facing member governments.

The special meeting of heads of government, to be hosted by Prime Minister Kenny Anthony of St Lucia, who has lead responsibility for governance and justice among CARICOM leaders, will take place on August 16.

It will be followed the next day by separate meetings of the Prime Ministerial Subcommittee on External Negotiations, headed by Prime Minister P J Patterson of Jamaica and the Prime Ministerial Subcommittee on the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Owen Arthur of Barbados.

At their 23rd regular annual summit in Guyana last month, CARICOM leaders agreed on the need for the special one-day meeting in St Lucia to focus specifically on the state of the region’s economy, faced with limited opportunities, due to their size and limited resources, at this period of “economic transition”.

The creation of a Stabilisation Fund would be “a very challenging problem”, as the Sunday Observer was informed yesterday, in view of the reality that most, if not all, the governments of the Community are currently “strapped for financial resources”. The role that extra-regional funding sources could play is among considerations to be pursued.

At the Georgetown Summit, both the CDB’s Bourne and governor of the ECCB, Dwight Venner, had made separate presentations on the economic challenges facing the region.

Secretary-General Carrington, who last week started his third consecutive five-year term as the 15-member Community’s chief public servant, said that the CARICOM leaders will pay particular attention to ideas on how to effectively promote “revival of the region’s economy” with a specific focus on immediate responses to member states like Dominica that are experiencing severe “cash-flow problems”.

Progress being made in advancing arrangements to operationalise the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) by the latter half of 2003, said Carrington, and coming international negotiations involving the European Union, World Trade Organisation and the Free Trade Area of the Americas will engage the attention of the two Prime Ministerial Subcommittees at their August 17 meetings.

“It is a source of great encouragement to know,” he said, “that finally we have three countries, St Lucia, Barbados and Guyana, that have ratified the instrument to bring the CCJ on board. We are now looking forward to ratification from the other member countries since the CCJ will have original jurisdiction for all participating states of the CSME.”

Yesterday Carrington accompanied President Bharrat Jagdeo to the construction site east of Georgetown where a new and ultra-modern headquarter complex for the CARICOM Secretariat with a Conference Centre is to take shape, with completion by early 2004 at a cost of some US$8 million.

The project, a gift of Guyana to CARICOM, has been on the drawing board for some years, but plans are now moving apace for it to become a reality. The Guyana Government is being assisted with a significant grant from Japan for the project at Liliendall, some four miles east of the capital, Georgetown.

BWIA, workers stand-off

PORT-OF-SPAIN — Fears of further delays and cancellations of flights by BWIA increased yesterday in the face of an intensified stand-off between the regional airline and its workers, including pilots.

Starting last month, there have been frequent delays and cancellation of flights resulting from an unofficial “go slow” or work-to-rule campaign by employees, with flight crews calling in to say they were unavailable due to illness or other causes.

While the airline’s management has been feverishly working to cushion the problem in order to meet its obligations to the travelling public, the Aviation, Communication and Allied Workers Union has blamed BWIA for failing to respond to the pressures on workers resulting directly from a staff reduction programme carried out by the company as part of a cost-cutting exercise.

Labour Minister Lawrence Achong and the pilot’s association, TALPA, have been discussing, as late as Friday, how to resolve the problem that could end the current go-slow.

Guyanese dad, two children killed in crash

GEORGETOWN — A four-member Guyanese family has been reduced to one following a head-on collision involving two motor cars at Land of Canaan on the East Bank Demerara Friday.

Dead are the father, 45-year-old Lochan Permanand, daughter Gaitree Permanand, 21 and his three-year-old son, Jadesh. The mother of the family, Vergie Permanand, 44, remained in critical condition at the Georgetown Public Hospital yesterday.

In what was described as one of the worst road accidents within recent times on the East Bank Demerara, at least four other persons had to be treated for injuries sustained. They include Naraine Jagbeer, 18, nephew of Vergie; Wayne Seecharran, 15, Lochan’s nephew; Kevin McRae, 23 and Garfield Tyrell, 23.