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Opposition wants more details on oil license given to US businessman

CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC - Opposition Leader Stephenson King has written to Governor General Dame Pearlette Louisy seeking clarification on an exclusive license granted to a United States businessman, Jack Grynberg, to carry out oil exploration in St. Lucia waters. King wants to know whether Dame Pearlette had issued the license in keeping with the provisions of the Minerals (Vesting) Act or whether or not someone else had issued the license in violation of the constitution.

Spanish oil firm signs new agreement

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC –The Spanish oil exploration firm, REPSOL, Tuesday signed a new oil exploration concession offshore agreement with Guyana. President Donald Ramotar and REPSOL’s director, Jose A. Murillas signed the four year prospecting license for the 6,525 square kilometer concession located 100 miles seawards off the mouth of the Berbice River. The two sides also signed a production sharing agreement.

Guyana receives funds to develop gold mining sector

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is assisting Guyana in building capacity in environmental management of the gold mining sector. The WWF has provided a GUY$12 million (One Guyana Dollar = US$0.01 cents) cheque to the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment as part of a one- year project aimed at training miners and other stakeholders upgrade the codes of practice and assist in the distribution of mercury.

Gov’t could be left with multimillion-dollar AIDS fight

ST JOHN’S, Antigua – Permanent Secretary within the Ministry of Health Edson Joseph has suggested, as international agencies withdraw funding, the government will soon be left with a multi-million dollar bill to fight HIV and AIDS. “Most of the funding agencies, the Global Fund, Clinton Foundation, they are gradually withdrawing the assistance we got and probably within another four years, we will see HIV programmes will have to be sustained by the government,” Joseph said. The health permanent secretary said he expects costs to gradually increase for the government here.

St. Kitts-Nevis PM to chair Commonwealth group on debt

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, CMC – Prime Minister Dr. Denzil Douglas will chair a Commonwealth high level mission on small states debt as developing countries to seek to deal with the impact of the global economic and financial crisis, Commonwealth Secretary Gerneral Kamalesh Sharma announced Tuesday.
Sharma, who is ending a two-day visit to the twin-island Federation, told a news conference that the mission, whose other members were not disclosed, will meet in Washington in October for talks with officials of key international financial institutions and other stakeholders.

Bid for $1 billion more

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - For the fourth time in five years, Government has gone to Parliament seeking an increase in the amounts of Treasury bills and Tax Certificates it can issue. Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Chris Sinckler introduced a resolution at yesterday’s sitting of the House of Assembly to raise the limit from $1.75 billion to $2.75 billion Sinckler said the move was necessary “during this time of economic challenge”. In 2008 the limit was raised to $1 billion, in 2010 it went to $1.2 million and it was again increased to $1.75 billion in November of 2011.

Partnership with IMF ‘successful’

ST JOHN’S, Antigua – Coming to the end of the nation’s three-year stand-by-arrangement (SBA) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the minister of finance has deemed the partnership a “success.” “We knew what we had to do; we have done it. In June it is exit time and we believe it will place us on a footing to go forward. That is what we have done,” Minister Harold Lovell said in an OBSERVER AM interview yesterday. Last week, the IMF conducted its tenth and final review under the SBA, which was approved in 2010.

Jamaica: Searching for economic stabilization

GEORGETOWN, Guyana – At the beginning of this month, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved new funding arrangements to help stabilize the Jamaican economy and put it on a path to economic growth. The negotiation of the funds, a so-called Extended Fund Facility (EFF) up to US$923M has taken an extended period, lasting from the period of the recent Jamaica Labour Party governments of Bruce Golding and Andrew Holness, to that of the People’s National Party government of present Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller.

LIAT to present summary of legal opinion to Trinidad PM

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – Shareholder governments of the regional airline, LIAT, have agreed to provide a summary of a legal opinion to Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar regarding the "unfair” subsidy given to the state-owned Caribbean Airlines (CAL), Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said here Tuesday.

Watch those State funds

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Proper governance structures need to be in place at all enterprises funded by taxpayers, including one like Caribbean Airlines (CAL), to avoid situations where these companies have to write off major debts, business leaders have said. “In the private sector, you can’t be making mistakes that allow for these types of discrepancies for these mistakes. At the end of the day, management and the board of directors should be making wise decisions, especially with State funds. There shouldn’t be a situation where these sorts of significant losses are being incurred.

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