Chaos In The Magistrates’ Courts

Caswell Franklyn, Head of Unity Workers Union

Some time ago, I read in the Nation newspaper that Attorney-at-law, Hal Gollop, had objected to the Chief Magistrate, Mr. Clyde Nicholls presiding over a case after he (Nicholls) went on pre-retirement leave and another person had been appointed to act in his post. As I understand it, Mr. Gollop argued that since someone had already been appointed to act in the post, Mr. Nicholls would be precluded from performing the functions of that office. In essence, Gollop was saying that two persons could not function as chief magistrate at the same time

I am not one to just accept anything, so I decided to research the point for myself, and came up with section 114 (2) of the Constitution which states:

‘Where by this Constitution a power is conferred upon any person or authority to make any appointment to any public office, a person may be appointed to that office notwithstanding that some other person may be holding that office when that other person is on leave of absence pending relinquishment of the office; and where two or more persons are holding the same office by reason of an appointment made in pursuance of this subsection, then for the purposes of any function conferred upon the holder of that office the person last appointed shall be deemed to be the sole holder of the office.’

Land Tax Valuation On The Rise In A Recession!

Submitted by Charles Knighton

 

Wayne Forde, Land Tax Commissioner

It is a shame Mr. Sanka Price “CRUEL crying out for relief” June 29th Nation, penned his comment before the Land Tax Department of the Ministry of Finance & Planning posted this year’s “Notice of Valuation”. Government seems utterly determined to undermine its citizen’s discretionary spending  which supports the entrepreneurial classes Mr. Price mentioned in order to support a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy which is rapidly becoming rapacious.

The only difference from last year’s valuation to this year’s is that both I as well as my home are one year more decrepit. Considering that, as well as the current economic malaise I found myself bemused to note an almost THIRTY PERCENT increase in the “improved value” of my property. My wife commented that as far as contemplated renovations were concerned we may have to either postpone or cancel, as now ” another shoe has fallen”.  In agreeing, I noted that since the current government came to power shoes have been falling as salt from a shaker, and they bruise when they hit.

Should government continue their confiscatory policies in an effort to sustain the unsustainable, they may expect a Pyrrhic victory.

The Chinese Are Coming!

Adrian Loveridge - Hotel Owner

Its easy to understand why so many people get carried away in the flood to try and ensure that ‘we’ get our share of the the outbound Chinese tourism market. You only have to read some of the headlines like:

‘The Chinese are coming. By their millions. As tourists. And it will change our economy in ways that we cannot even imagine’ according to Tim Hughes a director of Australian based, Value Capital Management.

‘Chinese outbound luxury tourism in growing by more than 25 per cent each year’ and in 2011, 60 million Chinese tourists will travel abroad and spend more than US$50 billion’. source: China Elite Focus website.

The World Tourism Organisation predicts that “China will have 100 million outbound travellers and become the world’s largest source of outbound travel in the world in 2020’.

In 2010 the US State Department of Commerce declared that ‘the average Chinese tourist spends US$7,000 per stay, more than any other nationality’.

I could go on, and on, but if only a small percentage of these predictions and statistics are, or become factual, its a market we cannot afford to ignore.

Our biggest challenge of course is geography.

Is Human Trafficking Taking Root?

Submitted by St. George’s Dragon

 

Hon Dr Esther Byer-Suckoo, Minister of Labour

The US Department of State has just issued a report about human trafficking around the world. It sounds worthy but boring but you should set aside your scepticism and get interested as it’s about modern-day slavery. The report is about the extent to which countries around the world buy (mostly) women and children for sex, forced labour etc.

Setting aside fancy language, this is to a large extent about importing prostitutes. Barbados does not look good in the report as it scores Tier 2 (Watch List). For comparison, this is the same as Afghanistan. Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, our Caribbean neighbours, are Tier 2, which is better.

Barbados has to get this under control, firstly, because morally we should as a country that was founded on slavery; secondly, because if we don’t it gives people the opportunity to take pot-shots at us. It may well be that Ester Byer-Suckoo, the Minister responsible for this, saw it coming as she has been reported in the papers for a while talking about the need for Barbados to address these issues.

If you want to read the report look at http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2011/index.htm

CARIBBEAN STOCK REPORT 20 June to 24June 2011

Compiled by the Department of Management Studies, UWI Cave Hill - Click image to read in PDF

Mia Mottley, Former Opposition Leader Poses Hard Questions To Prime Minister Freundel Stuart About CLICO …

The PEOPLE Crying Out For Justice From The Barbados Courts

Attorney General, Minister Adriel Brathwaite

Supposing any of you are widowed.

Supposing that you and your late husband had worked all your lives to accumulate a little nest egg to secure financial comfort in your golden years and that everything you own was in your husband’s name.

The funeral is over and you go to the lawyers and ask them to obtain probate in your husband’s estate so that you can continue to have the means to live (either in accordance with your husband’s Will or he may have died intestate, let us deal with the intestate part another time.)  The lawyers will enter the Will for probate.

There was a time in Barbados and in some other jurisdictions, the process of probate would have taken between 6 and 12 weeks from the time the lawyers filed the application.

Today, the Registry takes TWO (2) YEARS.

So what are your avenues for recourse? Remember, your husband’s assets are FROZEN until probate is granted. You rely on the charity of family and friends.

The Herbicide Glyphosate ROUNDUP Maybe Responsible For Birth Defects According To Study

In an earlier blog Food Security Not A National Priority BU touched on the issue of  genetically modified foods but of interest was the wide spread use of the herbicide Roundup in Barbados and its possible harmful effect on the environment. To quote the article: How many people are aware a company which calls itself Monsanto is the world’s largest manufacturer of genetically modified seed?   It maybe ironic to some Monsanto is also the world’s leading producer of the herbicide glyphosate, marketed as Roundup.

Like most developing countries we have no inclination to implement homegrown standards to protect our populations. We are happy to import every %&@! from overseas and gorge on it even if it is to the detriment of our health.

In the same way CLICO Barbadian policyholders would have depended on the financial regulator to warn about this failing institution if it was experiencing difficulty meeting its statutory reserve requirement. So too we rely on our government to ‘protect’ us from imported food items especially in the obvious cases.

Could We Be Hindering Our Child’s Inventiveness And Creativity?

From Dr. Malcom Grant’s Facebook Page

The concept of time, for as long as I can remember, has always amazed and fascinated me. For an hour flies when we are preoccupied and having fun, while it seems to take forever to pass when we are bored and there is little to distract us.

Has anyone ever noted that when we were children a year seemed like an eternity, however, today’s child is often heard to make observations like, “Christmas came around so quickly.” In other words, today’s child has an abbreviated perception of time, when compared to ours when we were children.

Do you realize that most of us are guilty of accelerating the passage of our children’s time? Our children are no longer allowed to pass their time almost wholly by their own design. Most of today’s children are provided with crutches to facilitate their passage of time. These crutches are almost exclusively of an electronic nature – a TV with multiple channels, a computer with a broad band link to the WWW or some type of gaming device.

Indar Weir’s Housing Exposé In St. Philip North