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President to unveil additional Gov’t interventions today to cushion impact of rising cost of living
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo will today unveil additional Government interventions to cushion the impact of rising food prices.
The measures will be announced at a news conference sometime today, according to Mr. Kwame McCoy, Press and Publicity Officer at the Office of the President.
These will be in addition to the several other specific measures – (and as part of an overall menu of measures) aimed at reducing the cost of living impact, especially among working class Guyanese.
Among the measures already in place are the ‘zero rating’ of a number of food items under the Value Added Tax (VAT) system, raising of the income tax threshold at the beginning of the year, and more recently – the launch of the ‘Grow More’ food initiative being spearheaded by the Ministry of Agriculture to encourage citizens to produce more food locally.
The Government has also removed all duties and taxes from diesel fuel, (which is) mainly used in production, while duties on gasolene have also been slashed.
Investments are being made in the Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) to ensure that only heavy fuel oil is used to generate power, thus keeping price for consumers down.
The government is also heavily subsidising the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) to prevent any increase in water tariffs.
As food prices continue to soar in CARICOM and other countries as a result of the rising cost of fuel due to increased demand and a switch in crops among other occurrences, Governments have been putting interim measures in place to cushion the effects.
High food and fuel prices have sparked protests and riots in poor countries across the world in the past few months. Many governments have introduced food subsidies or export restrictions to counter rising costs.
An adviser to the United Nations Secretary General on Monday said the United States and Europe should cut back on the production of biofuels because they are hurting food supply at a time of rising prices.
Biofuels derived from crops have come under attack in recent weeks on fears they compete with food for farming land and help to push up food prices, worsening a global crisis that is affecting millions of poor.
"We need to cut back significantly on our biofuels programs," said Jeffrey Sachs, a prominent U.S. academic who is a special adviser to Ban on anti-poverty goals.
"(They) were understandable at a time of much lower food prices and larger food stocks but do not make sense now in a global food scarcity condition," Sachs is quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.
"In the United States as much as one third of maize crop this year will go to gas tanks. This is a huge blow to the world food supply," Sachs said before talks in Brussels with EU lawmakers.
EU leaders pledged last year to increase the proportion of biofuels used in petrol -- and diesel-- consuming land transport to 10 percent by 2020 as part of measures to tackle climate change. Governments are now working on draft EU laws.
Faced with growing unease among EU states over food prices and the biofuels' green credentials, the European Commission has stuck to the target, but EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said last month it would be subject to strict conditions to prevent social harm.
Six-year-old girl crushed to death by falling wall
By Shirley Thomas
A six-year-old girl was yesterday crushed to death by a concrete wall which fell on her at a house under construction at Enterprise Squatting Area, East Coast Demerara, plunging the rural community into deep mourning.
Dead is Stephanie Roopdeo, the only child of her parents Narine and Vashti Roopdeo who live a short distance away at Enterprise Gardens.
She was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival around 17:30 h.
Her grandfather, Ramesh Roopdeo, who tried to save her from the falling wall, received slight injuries.
The grieving grandfather, who is overseeing the building for a family residing in Canada, told the Guyana Chronicle that he had tied a hammock on to the wall for resting under the breezy bottom house. He recalled that around 16:30 h, having just returned from his kitchen garden, when he saw Stephanie get into the hammock.
Suddenly, he saw the wall come tumbling down, along with a purpleheart panel door attached to it. Ramesh said he rushed to little Stephanie, and tried bracing the wall away from her. But he failed in this, and the girl was crushed.
The grandfather said he quickly raised an alarm and family members and neighbours came scurrying over to the scene. They were joined by Stephanie’s father, Narine, and with the help of her grandmother and other villagers, Ramesh secured a taxi and took the bleeding infant to the Accident and Emergency Unit of the GPH.
There was deep anguish as the news of little Stephanie’s death was broken to her father Narine and her grandparents. From the hospital a cellular call was made to her mother Vashti ,who was not at home at the time of the incident.
The 32-year-old woman arrived at the hospital soon after, and became hysterical when she saw the broken, bloody body of her only child.
Roger Khan case ‘heats up’ in the U.S.
THE United States government has alleged what has been whispered in the ‘underworld’ for some time now that indicted Guyanese businessman Shaheed Roger Khan, also known as ‘Shortman’, was responsible for the deaths of two persons -businessman Davendra Persaud and former boxing coach Donald Allison.
In a 19-page document filed in the Federal Court late Monday night, the Prosecution lawyers in the Roger Khan case are saying that the U.S. government wants to admit as trial evidence that Khan retaliated against Davendra Persaud by threatening his (Persaud’s) family, seizing his vehicle (a grey BMW) and ultimately Persaud’s murder at a restaurant in Georgetown.
The Prosecution is also contending that Roger Khan ordered the murder of Donald Allison. He was gunned down in Agricola after, according to the court documents, he insulted Khan in front of Khan’s co-conspirators.
The U.S. says that although the killings are not part of the current indictment, they point to and constitute direct proof of the charge of continuing criminal enterprise and narcotics conspiracy.
The Prosecution, in its background to the case, is maintaining that Khan was the leader of a violent drug trafficking organization and sent cocaine to New York.
The prosecution claimed that Khan used what the U.S. called a para-military organization, (and what the Guyanese called the ‘Phantom Squad’) to murder, threaten and intimidate others at his direction.
The U.S. government also contends that evidence at the trial will show that Roger Khan and his organization threatened Dave Persaud’s wife, Elisabeth, at her family’s home and business in Georgetown.
But the Feds were “tapping” the phones of Persaud and his wife, so when she called to complain to Davendra who was in New York at the time, the Feds were onto what was happening.
The court document went on to state that Persaud jumped bond and came back to Guyana.
According to other court documents, Persaud vanished on December 23, five years ago, from the New York home of a then BWIA airline employee who was an in-law of Persaud.
It is also alleged that while in Guyana, Persaud started to export cocaine in Ghee among other items and primarily used Universal Airlines including a flight attendant and several other unsuspecting couriers to be part of his narcotics business.
The current court documents indicate that Persaud was moving Khan’s narcotics and owed a debt for Khan.
In terms of the Donald Allison murder, the U.S. says that Allison also obtained cocaine from Khan’s organization and moved it to the U.S.
Some of Allison’s cocaine was seized in New York. From other court documents seen by the Guyana Chronicle source, Allison was in fact a relative of four individuals who were indicted for cocaine shipments, two have been convicted and the whereabouts of the other two are unknown.
Allison himself served time in the U.S. and was deported.
According to the current court documents, Allison refused to work with Khan, insulted him and was marked for death as a result.
Included in the U.S. governments’ argument is that the threats to Persaud and his family, the taking of Persaud’s car, the murder of Persaud and of Allison, while uncharged, are admissible as direct evidence of the charged continuing criminal enterprise and narcotics conspiracy.
The U.S. government, in seeking to build a strong case against Khan who is expected to go on trial in October, wants to admit all the evidence relating to Khan’s activities in Guyana and even ‘stuff’ from Vermont where the U.S. says he jumped bail because he was trading guns for marijuana, among other things.
The U.S. government has also, according to reports, been successful in its bid to get information from Suriname where Khan, when he fled Guyana following the posting of a wanted bulletin for him to present himself for questioning by law enforcement officials here, was held along with three of his alleged Guyanese bodyguards, Sean Belfield, Paul Rodrigues and Lloyd Roberts.
Surinamese police said the controversial businessman, the other three Guyanese and five Surinamese were held on June 15, 2006 in what they described as the result of a huge drug bust involving some 213 kilos of cocaine.
Khan was subsequently deported from Suriname on June 29, 2006, without being charged. He was placed on a flight to Trinidad from where he was nabbed by U.S. Federal agents and taken to the U.S.
His three alleged bodyguards, having spent more than five months under harsh conditions in separate jails in the former Dutch country and without bail, were also deported to Guyana but by way of the Corentyne River on November 22, 2006.
Teenager found dead at Tain, Corentyne
A LARGE crowd gathered to have a glimpse of the body of a young hotel employee, who was found dead around 07:00 hrs yesterday morning on a resident’s bridge at Tain, Corentyne.
Dead is eighteen-year-old Deokalie Peter, called ‘Tina’.
Police sources said the youth, formerly of Skeldon, moved to Hampshire Village, Berbice about a month ago, after leaving her parents home two years ago.
According to an eyewitness, she awoke and discovered the woman lying in a semi-unconscious state on her bridge.
She said based on information received, the young woman had earlier crawled from the opposite side of the main thoroughfare in the vicinity of the Guyana Business School.
The injured woman was first spotted by cane harvesters, who reportedly covered her with a shirt, as she was naked, prior to her creeping across the roadway to a resident’s home, where she was fitted with a pants moments before she grasped the last breath.
The resident said the body displayed marks of violence, inclusive of a slashed wrist and bruises on the nose.
Samantha Lester, whom the teenager lived with prior to her death, said Tina was last seen alive around 16:00 hrs Monday, when she left for work.
An autopsy will be preformed on the body today. (Jeune Bailey Van-Keric)
PPP urges farmers to boost production
THE ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) is urging farmers to boost production and enhance the capacity of Guyana to become a major exporter of food in light of rising food prices.
“We have an opportunity to advance our country,” Mr. Ramotar told the Chronicle yesterday, as fuel prices spiked to US$122 per barrel, creating further fears of an upward spiral in food prices.
He said while current farmers should seek to improve their production levels, new farmers should emerge and seek to capitalise on the hungry Caribbean market, which might have already seen a food import bill skyrocketing to some $6B.
Mr. Ramotar said the government is doing “the best it can” to stave off the effects of further increases, but with more agricultural production, food demands could be comfortably met at home and also eat up a chunk of Caribbean demands.
The party has recognised that in a short period, the prices of many staples have shot up, creating difficulties for lower income families.
The Government has removed all duties and taxes from diesel fuel, (which is) mainly used in production, while duties on gasolene have also been slashed.
Investments are being made in the Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) to ensure that only heavy fuel oil is used to generate power, thus keeping prices for consumers down.
The government is also heavily subsidising Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) to prevent an increase in water tariffs. (Neil Marks)
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