CARIBBEAN ROUNDUP
Bahamas
More than 30 Bahamian Immigration
officers have tested positive for
COVID-19. This was confirmed by Minister
of Immigration, Elsworth Johnson.
Director of Immigration,
Clarence
Russell last week confirmed
some 29 immigration
officers had to be quarantined
during the pandemic.
Deron Brooks, vice president of the
Bahamas Customs and Immigration
Allied Workers Union, reiterated concerns
over the safety of immigration
and customs workers on the frontlines.
Brooks said customs and immigration
officers were faced with a certain
level of risk and hazard during detention,
arrest, and interdiction exercises.
He said it is a certain level of occupational
hazard, which comes with the
territory.
He said there is a need to look at
increasing the officers’ insurance coverage
and increasing the level of PPE
(masks) available.
Brooks said the basic things that
immigration officers have do not seem
to be adequate at this time.
Barbados
Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley
recently re-shuffled her two-yearold
Cabinet to reflect what she termed
was the new reality facing Barbados
in light of the coronavirus (COVID-19)
pandemic and its impact on the socioeconomic
development of the island.
In a 25-minute
address to the nation,
Mottley announced
the removal of four
ministers and a parliamentary
secretary from the 26-member
Cabinet, replacing them with new
faces.
She said that their removal should
not be regarded as “dismissals.”
Mottley said she wanted to make it
clear that she is committed to ensuring
each former member of the Cabinet is
utilized in a manner or in the furtherance
of the work of the government.
The Barbadian prime minister said
she had met with Governor General Dane
Sandra Mason and a result removed
George Payne, minister of housing and
rural development, Edmund Hinkson,
minister of home affairs, among the
other ministers.
Mottley said she wanted to congratulate
the new additions to her cabinet
and that she was “looking forward to the
same ingenuity, tenacity and penchant
for hard work and success with respect
to all who are being re-appointed”.
She said the Cabinet reshuffle is the
first in a series of measures to reposition
“ourselves and to reposition as a
Caribbean L 6 ife, August 14-20, 2020
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Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley addresses the Climate Action Summit in the United Nations General
Assembly, at U.N. headquarters, Monday, Sept. 23, 2019. Associated Press / Jason DeCrow, File
result of the adjustment that I will be
making to ready Barbados for the challenges
of the new reality that confront
us as a nation”.
Guyana
The Guyana government recently
received US$3.6 million as part of the
second payment for the country’s oil
and gas royalties which has now been
deposited in the Natural Resources
Fund (NRF).
Former finance
minister Winston
Jordan said the payments
were received
on schedule and were
deposited in the Federal Reserve Bank
of New York account.
The second royalty payment will be
added to the over US$90 million already
in the NRF, he said, indicating that the
payments are for April, May and June’s
gross oil production.
Royalties are calculated monthly and
paid 30 days after every quarter of the
year. The country’s third royalty payment
is expected in October.
Guyana, which is emerging as a major
energy supplier following the discovery
of several gas and oil wells received its
first royalty payment in May 2020 along
with payments for crude shipments.
Exxon Mobil Corp, which has major
operations offshore in Guyana recently
reported a US$1.1 billion secondquarter
loss on sharply lower energy
demand and prices from the COVID-19
pandemic and confirmed plans to make
“significant” reduction to costs.
Grenada
Supporters of Grenada’s main opposition
National Democratic Congress
(NDC) recently staged a protest outside
Parliament building, as the party called
on the government to withdraw a controversial
piece of legislation which it
said would infringe upon the rights of
citizens.
The Keith Mitchel
administration has
withdrawn the coronavirus
disease (COVID-
19) Control Bill 2020
that was scheduled to be debate last
month. Instead it said there would be
further consultations with stakeholders
on the measures that the government
said were necessary to help stem the
spread of the virus that has affected 25
people on the island.
The ruling New National Party (NNP)
controls all 15 seats in Parliament.
NDP leader, Franka Bernardine told
reporters the proposed legislation “is
oppressive.”
The bill seeks to regulate the containment
of the spread of the coronavirus
there “in the interests of public safety,
public order and public health and for
the maintenance of a substantial portion
of the community and supplies and
services essential to the life of the community
of the state of Grenada.”
The proposed legislation would also
provide for a maximum penalty of
EC$25,000 in a magistrate’s court for
any person found guilty of violating any
section of the law.
A government statement said the legislation
had been drafted “after nearly
four months of managing the SARSCovid
2 national crisis, and the continuous
examination of the medical and
scientific information, as well as the
experience of the management of the
emergency on the ground.”
Jamaica
The Jamaica government has extended,
until Sept. 30, all the coronavirus
(COVID-19) measures within the Disaster
Risk Management Act that also
allow for a curfew that began recently.
The current measure
expired at the end
of August.
Prime Minister,
Andrew Holness said:
“As we seek to extend the measures, we
emphasize that we will continue to take
a risk-based management approach,
which I have always said is evidencebased,
proportionate, and situationally
appropriate.”
Jamaica has recorded 824 cases and
10 deaths to date.
The government said that under the
Act, summer camps will continue to
Continued on Page 16
THE NEWS FROM BACK HOME
Cabinet reshuffle in Barbados
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