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New Ja-T&T trade war - Duties imposed on product after questions arise over origin

KINGSTON, Jamaica - JAMAICAN AUTHORITIES have imposed duties on the importation of lubricating oil from Trinidad and Tobago in another round of trade wars between the Caribbean territories. Industry Minister Anthony Hylton told legislators yesterday that he has exercised his ministerial authority to secure the transfer of $184 million to the Consolidated Fund. The money, Hylton said, represented duties charged by the Customs Department for the importation of a product over which there is question mark surrounding the rules of origin.

Renewing confidence in CARICOM

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - I F ALL goes well with the work programmes for two ministerial council meetings this week in Port of Spain, the people of the Caribbean Community should have a good idea of what to expect with top priority issues when the region’s Heads of Government gather in Trinidad and Tobago for their 34th summit in July. Yesterday the Community’s foreign ministers started their two-day meeting under the Council of Foreign and Community Relations at the Hilton.

CARICOM defends position on taking rum issue before WTO

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries say they will continue to oppose subsidies being granted to the UK-based Diageo, one of the world’s biggest producers of rum, because of the impact the subsidy is having on rum producers in the Caribbean.
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretary General Irwin La Rocque told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that while the trade ministers who met in Guyana last week had endorsed the stance being taken to have the matter aired at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

OAS urging helps focus on T&T party funding

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Trinidad and Tobago should not need the Secretary General of the Organisation of American States (OAS) to admonish this country about the dangers to good government and to democracy posed by political funding. Miguel Insulza has been the latest high official to mount a bully pulpit on the subject, addressed to political parties and ruling administrations in the Caribbean.

Rowley: Air Jamaica bleeding T&T ‘like a chop neck’

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley said yesterday Air Jamaica was bleeding Trinidad and Tobago “like a chop neck”. “Right now nobody knows what the Minister of Finance is doing by bankrolling CAL. All he is doing is giving them permission to go and borrow money short term. As of now we don’t know how much money they have borrowed and they writing off $200 million and the CAL board is having a generally good time as you see in the behaviour of (vice chairman) Mohan Jaikaran,” Rowley said. He said the airline was now “absolutely bankrupt”.

DON’T BLAME ME

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Former controversial Caribbean Airlines (CAL) chairman George Nicholas says he’s not to blame for the company’s present financial state.
The six-year-old airline, of which Nicholas was the chairman for 16 months, has been in the red for the past three years and has suffered millions in losses and write-offs during the same period.
Nicholas’s response was in a statement of case he filed in the High Court against publisher Maxie Cuffie, for a column Cuffie wrote in the Trinidad Guardian on April 21, 2013 titled “CAL Heads for Another Crash”.

Chairman defends board, blames ex-workers

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - CAL chairman Rabindra Moonan yesterday defended his board’s decisions in the midst of financial challenges. The six-year-old state company has found itself managing a billion-dollar debt and having to write off millions in losses owing to mismanagement of the company’s cargo revenues and credit card fraud. In a telephone interview with the Express yesterday, Moonan said the board had “settled down” and was trying to take the organisation forward.

CARICOM HEADS VEX OVER CAL

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Shareholder governments of the regional airline LIAT say the T&T Government’s subsidy to State-owned Caribbean Airlines (CAL) is a violation of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that governs CARICOM.
Dr Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, speaking at the end of a shareholders’ meeting of LIAT in Barbados, said the subsidy to CAL also violated the Common Air Services Agreement among CARICOM member countries and had resulted in substantial losses to LIAT.

Government to disclose financial position of Caribbean Airlines

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Finance Minister Larry Howai is expected to detail the financial position of the state-owned Caribbean Airlines (CAL) on Tuesday amid media reports that the airline has had to write off millions of dollars in losses owing to mismanagement and credit card fraud. Howai is due to inform the Senate on the airline’s finances over the period January to December 2012.

No-confidence motion debate on Monday

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Debate on the motion of no-confidence against Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and the People’s Partnership Government is set for next Monday. Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley who filed the motion, was not prepared to comment on the view that the motion was frivolous. “I will make my case on Monday,” he said, adding that a no-confidence motion was not about defeat or victory but about what is said in the debate.

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