US Pledges $77M for Caribbean Security

The Caribbean will receive an injection of $77 million in 2012 from the United States to develop anti-crime and anti-violence projects in the region, a number first announced by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Montego Bay, Jamaica earlier this year.

The CBSI, which is a shared security partnership between the Dominican Republic, CARICOM and the US, has identified three core objectives to focus on security threats: the reduction of illicit trafficking, advancing crime-fighting programmes like border protection, and the promotion of social justice through justice sector reform and tackling government corruption.

“We have encountered many challenges but we believe that the CBSI provides a useful and necessary framework for coordination and collaboration with our partners in the region,” said Julissa Reynoso, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central America, the Caribbean and Cuba with the US State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.

Reynoso, who co-chaired the CBSI meeting this week with St Kitts and Nevis, said her country would be delivering high-speed interdiction boats and relevant equipment to the Eastern Caribbean as part of the US Secure
Seas Effort.

The boats will complement similar vessels in the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Guyana and Suriname will also receive riverine patrol boats and equipment in 2012.

“We are proud of the accomplishments of the past year under the CBSI,” she said.

The US is also working with CBSI partners to promote the fight against financial crimes and money laundering, along with terror financing. Accordingly, preliminary assessments have been made in Trinidad and Guyana.

Caribbean states consider electronic monitoring for criminals

The Turks & Caicos Islands, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, and Virgin Islands are considering the use of electronic monitoring devices to increase supervision of low-risk criminal offenders.

Representatives of the four states were in the Cayman Islands last week to get first-hand knowledge of how the system works.

Officials in Grand Cayman said the magistrate, police sergeant, prison chief, and chief probation officer were Monitoring System fitted with the devices for 24 hours to assessment the system’s capability.

This was part of a three- day factfinding mission sponsored by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, FCO. “This visit to Grand Cayman was an excellent opportunity for officials from other Overseas Territories to look at the Cayman experience of setting up an offender electronic monitoring system,” said FCO Prison Reform Coordinator for the Overseas Territories, Steve Fradley, who helped coordinate the visit.

“All those who came to Cayman have been extremely impressed with everything they have seen and the visit has served to improve links and working relationships between the various agencies in the criminal justice field. Pilot projects on electronic monitoring will now take place in various territories over the next few months.”

The electronic monitoring system on the Grand Cayman is run jointly by the Department of Public Safety’s Electronic Monitoring Centre and The Security Centre Ltd.

Andrew Holness to be new JLP Leader

Andrew Holness

Education Minister, Andrew Holness, is set to become Jamaica’s next Prime Minister after his parliamentary colleagues put aside their own ambitions to endorse his candidacy to become leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

The announcement that the party leaders had reached a consensus on selecting Holness was made at a press conference on October 5.

However, the decision will have to be ratified by the JLP secretariat and delegates.

Holness accepted the endorsement and thanked his colleagues for putting their personal ambitions aside.

Holness noted that he has been preparing for this day for years, and stated that one of the important themes of his leadership would be unity.

The education minister also said he would be leading a government of equity and efficiency.

Continuity was also a major theme of the speech delivered by Holness, as he promised to continue the policies, programmes and anti-corruption stance on which the party was elected in 2007.

Holness also addressed the issue of youth which has been a subject of intense debate since Prime Minister Bruce Golding stated that it was time for younger leaders to take the helm.

Ratification of the decision by the delegates of the party will pave the way for Holness to become Jamaica’s ninth prime minister.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding has already indicated he will soon be stepping down from that position.

British Airways to cut Caribbean flights in 2012

British Airways

British Airways has announced plans to reduce flights to the Caribbean following a sharp rise in Air Passenger Duty (APD).

Blaming falling passenger numbers on the punitive tax, BA chief executive, Keith Williams, confirmed the news when delivering the keynote speech to over 200 tourism directors, ministers and practitioners in St Martin at the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO)’s first ever dedicated conference to tackle the state of the travel and tourism industry.

For the summer 2012 timetable Williams explained that BA will be forced to reduce capacity to the Caribbean by approximately six percent in a bid to focus on the most profitable routes.

Attributing the reduction to lower than- planned recovery of leisure travel demand, the BA chief linked the reduced demand to the UK government’s “destructive tax juggernaut” of Air Passenger Duty.

Williams said, “We continue to protest against the rises in APD and I hope the government’s recent consultation will lead to a more equitable banding system that does not penalise the Caribbean.”

Among the reductions in capacity to the Caribbean, British Airways is expected to cancel its two weekly flights from Gatwick to Montego Bay, Jamaica, next March. 

As a result, BA has decided to increase its service to Florida, a holiday destination that currently has a 20 per cent lower tax rate than the Caribbean islands.

Williams explained the tax increases the cost of a flight from London to the Caribbean for a family of four by $470. Consequently, fewer people are prepared to travel.

According to the Caribbean Tourism Organisation, arrivals from the UK to the Caribbean are already declining, while those from other source markets are increasing.

In November 2010, it was estimated that the average decline in UK arrivals to the Caribbean would be in the region of 15 percent, once the full impact of the latest rise in APD has taken effect.

During the first half of 2011, the impact was even greater at 20 percent on 2008 passenger levels. 

The World Travel and Tourism Council has also recently called on the British government to recalibrate the tax.

Time’s up! - FIFA’s 48-hour ultimatum to CFU runs out

Mohamed bin Hammam

Acting president of the embattled Caribbean Football Union (CFU), Jamaican Captain Horace Burrell, says he expects all members yet to cooperate with FIFA’s Ethics Committee investigations into bribery allegations to comply in time to meet a 48-hour ultimatum issued by the world governing body of the sport.

FIFA has given Caribbean football leaders a last chance to explain their part in a Trinidad meeting where Mohamed bin Hammam allegedly offered them bribes, or face the possibility of life bans from football.

“All members of the CFU have agreed that they will comply with the latest FIFA order, and I expect that they will,” said Burrell, who is also president of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF).

Football’s scandal-hit governing body sent letters Monday July 25 setting out a today deadline for CFU members to provide “truthful and complete” versions of events.

“Any person who has relevant information but does not come forward during this 48-hour period will be subject to the full range of sanctions,” FIFA said in a statement.

Of nine countries that are on record of co-operating with investigators, Burrell categorically stated that Jamaica was one of them.

“We (JFF) have co-operated with these investigations and were present at the Bahamas meetings conducted by former FBI director Louis Freeh, who is leading the investigation on behalf of FIFA. We spoke with Mr Freeh and the meeting was respectful from both sides,” said the CONCACAF Executive Committee member.

The CFU membership had refused to meet with Freeh and his team for interviews in Miami, but some complied when the venue was switched to the less prejudicial Bahamas last month. “Some members were not able to attend for various reasons,” Burrell said yesterday.

Last month as the story unravelled about the cash-for-vote that resulted in bin Hammam being banned for life by FIFA’s ethics committee on Saturday, Burrell had defended Jamaica by declaring that “we were neither offered nor received” any gifts. He has maintained that position.

The Qatari bin Hammam was accused of offering US$40,000 cash bribes to Caribbean officials to back his later-abandoned presidential bid to unseat Sepp Blatter.

In its letter to all 25 CFU members on Monday, FIFA asked “the associations, their presidents and any of their members... (for) knowledge of anything that transpired” in Trinidad at a May 10-11 conference, which bin Hammam acknowledges that he paid for.

“Following this 48-hour period, the ethics committee will be asked to open the necessary ethics proceedings,” the FIFA correspondent said. “Truthful and complete reporting will be considered in mitigation by the ethics committee when deciding on potential sanctions,” it added. With at least nine Caribbean countries said to have co-operated with FIFA’s investigation into the bribery claims, and a 10th — Cuba — was not present in Trinidad for the controversial meet.

Of the 15 remaining CFU members, 12 wrote testimonies denying the allegations
and supporting bin Hammam and Caribbean football powerbroker Jack Warner when they first appeared before FIFA’s ethics panel in May.

Those supporters were targeted in recent weeks by FIFA investigators, led by Freeh, but some did not cooperate or did not accept invitations to be quizzed in Miami and the Bahamas last month.

The sanctions threatened by FIFA could potentially remove the Caribbean’s most experienced football leaders.

Most are longtime allies of Warner, who avoided the ethics panel’s scrutiny by resigning from all his football positions last month, including his 28-year seat on FIFA’s executive committee, and his presidencies of the CONCACAF regional confederation and the CFU.

FIFA said Warner maintained a “presumption of innocence” as he returned to his job as a government minister in his native Trinidad and Tobago. Bin Hammam denies wrongdoing and has pledged to appeal his lifetime ban.

Two CFU staffers, Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester, got one-year bans from FIFA on Saturday for their part distributing the cash payments. Meanwhile, Burrell said he is anxious to see the ugly matter laid to rest and that the CFU can return to being a united family.

“It is important to remove this cloud and return to the business of getting the family back together and focused on the business of football... it is indeed a challenging time for Caribbean football and for me to take the reins at this time, but as leaders we have to expect this kind of thing,” he ended.