caribbean roundup

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) – A former Trinidad and Tobago finance minister appeared in court on Tuesday charged with committing fraudulent acts involving over $22 million.

Brian Kuei Tung who served as finance minister in the United National Congress government, was charged along with his partner Renee Pierre, two former Airports Authority chairmen Ameer Eddo and Tyrone Gopee and former chairman of the National Insurance Board Edward Bailey.

The five have been charged with fraudulently awarding of contracts to local and American companies involved in the construction of a terminal building at Piarco Airport in Trinidad be-tween 1997 and 2000.

The charges state that the process of tendering for the contracts was subverted with the companies being granted special favors.

In addition to the joint charges of grand fraud, the former minister is charged with receiving gifts from the contracting companies.

Among the gifts were US dollar payments to two of Kuei Tung’s credit card accounts and seven air condition units.

Kuei Tung and his partner are al-ready on other charges pertaining to the construction of the airport terminal.

The five are alleged to have conspired with another former government minister, Sadiq Baksh, and a known financier of the then governing United National Congress, businessman Ish Galbaransingh.

There are also allegations against the former ruling United National Con-gress, but it has not yet been charged.

The five who appeared in court this morning were granted bail of almost $1 million. The case was adjourned to May 20 and no evidence was heard.

One of the former officials who now works in Costa Rica was required to surrender his passport.

TRINIDAD TO HELP EASE ENERGY PRICES FOR

CARIBBEAN NATIONS

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) – With the price of oil at record highs, Trinidad will soon complete a plan to ease energy costs for countries in the Caribbean, the energy minister said.

Energy Minister Eric Williams would not specify a timeframe, but said the plan was "imminent.’’ He also would not comment on details of the plan since it is still being worked out.

Oil prices reached a record US$41 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Thursday amid strong global demand and tensions in the Middle East

Trinidad and Tobago is the largest oil and gas producer in the Caribbean. The state-owned oil company, Petro-trin, refines about 150,000 barrels of oil per day, exporting to other Carib-bean nations and the United States.

Its liquefied natural gas plant, At-lantic LNG, supplied the United States with more than 75 percent of its LNG imports last year. Trinidad and Jamaica are currently negotiating pricing arrange-ments that would lead to LNG being exported there.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) – An opposition party won’t cooperate with a newly formed commission charged with investigating allegations that Guyana’s interior minister headed a hit squad blamed for more than 40 slayings last year, officials said recently.

The People’s Movement for Justice will not present evidence gathered about the hit squad unless the three-member commission that President Bharrat Jagdeo appointed Friday is re-placed, party spokesman Desmond Trot-man said.

The independent commission, comprised of a sitting appeals court judge, a former army official and former po-lice official, is scheduled to begin hear-ings by early next month. They are expected to last about four months.

Trotman said the party had no say in picking the commission’s members the lesser opposition parties want international investigators on the commission to ensure its impartiality.

Government officials were not im-mediately available for comment.

For months, the government and In-terior Minister Ronald Gajraj have de-nied allegations of involvement in an extra-judicial hit squad the opposition has said was used to hunt down escaped convicts and criminal suspects in this South American country of 700,000.

Gajraj has acknowledged having had contact with three police officers charged before one of the shootings, saying the discussions were for intelligence gathering purposes only.

Gajraj has said he will step down temporarily when the independent in-quiry begins.

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent (AP) _ After agreeing to a common passport, leaders from the Organization of East-ern Caribbean States meet this week to discuss plans for a common currency.

Designs for the common passport will be submitted during the two-day meeting, said OECS spokesman Ken-dol Morgan. Much of the talks, however, will be dedicated to the adoption of a common currency and market.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves urged members last month to expedite measures to create a single economy by 2005 as small Caribbean nations prepare for tough competition that could come out of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Talks for the 34-nation FTAA, which would unite all countries in the Ameri-cas – except for Cuba – in the world’s largest trading zone, are bogged down and experts doubt a deal will be clinch-ed to form the bloc by the goal of 2005.

Small island nations have voiced fears that their size will make them less competitive.

Leaders of the nine member OECS also plan on discussing other regional issues, such as tourism, agriculture and security.

CASTRIES, St. Lucia (AP) – The St Lucia government has received a proposal from local manufacturers to monitor city streets with closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras.

With crime escalating on the island, supporters of the idea point to what they say is success that cities like Lon-don and Birmingham in the United Kingdom have had in reducing crime since the introduction of CCTV.

Laurie Barnard, president of the St Lucia Manufacturers Association, said in Birmingham, the use of CCTV cameras has been credited with cutting crime significantly.

Mr. Barnard said that private sector interests in the St. Lucian capital of Castries capital can work together to make the idea of watching the streets via security cameras work.

"With really quite careful planning, large areas can be covered and if we have the controls and the issues of technical support in place, we can get good coverage of our streets and see what’s going on."

Mr. Barnard’s company St. Lucia Dis-tillers Ltd, has already seen the benefit of installing security cameras.

The company has already installed 16 cameras and plans to install more.

When the company was recently rob-bed, employees were later able to track the bandit’s movements on film.

Unfortunately, poor lighting prevented him from being identified, but the company says it has learn from that mistake.

Senator Calixte George, the country’s Internal Security Minister who has met with local manufacturers to discuss their concerns about crime, supports the idea of security cameras mon-itoring certain areas of the city.

"What I can say is there’s need for electronic surveillance not only inside of buildings but outside of key buildings in town," he said.

"We are looking to develop a plan of action where a significant part of the city will be under electronic surveillance so that will deter the criminals."

Senator George and the local manufacturers believe that with good coordination and planning, security cameras on the streets can be a powerful tool in the battle against crime.

ROSEAU, Dominica (AP) – The struggling economy of Dominica ap-pears to be seeing improvement after nearly three years of decline.

The island is forecast to have economic growth of about 1 percent this year, the government said in a statement Wednesday, citing an estimate from Alejandro Santos, mission chief of the International Monetary Fund in the Caribbean country.

"Dominica is coming out of the deep recession of the last few years.’’ Santos was quoted as saying in the statement. "The economy has bottomed out and the recovery is underway.’’

The improved economic outlook stems from increased tourism – with nearly twice as many cruise ship passenger visits in the first quarter of 2004 than in the same period last year – and increased manufacturing and banana production, Santos said.

With a national debt of Eastern Caribbean $778 million (US$287 million), or three-fourths of gross domestic product, Dominica has been struggling to cut spending and since its two main industries – tourism and agriculture – declined severely in 2001-2002.

ST.

GEORGE’S, Grenada (AP) – Attor-neys for Grenada’s government are preparing a libel lawsuit against a Miami-based newsletter that accused the Caribbean nation’s leader of ac-cepting an improper payoff, an official said Wednesday.

The planned suit against the online newsletter OffshoreAlert is to focus on an April 30 article citing allegations that Prime Minister Keith Mitchell ac-cepted US$500,000 for appointing a German-born man to a diplomatic po-sition, government spokeswoman Nancy McGuire said.

OffshoreAlert is published by Miami-based KYC News. OffshoreAlert publisher David Marchant, who wrote the article, said he had yet to be contacted about it.

"I’m comfortable that I’ve done a fair and accurate job in the article,’’ he said.

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