Even before the first Caricom-Africa Summit was hosted virtually by Kenya back in September 2021, Africa had designated its diaspora – of which it declared the Caribbean to be part – as its SIXTH region.
During the Summit, local Caricom leaders had reaffirmed that designation, with Mottley of Barbados and Rowley of T&T echoing Nkrumah to affirm: “I am not African because I was born in Africa, but because Africa was born in me!”
And it wasn’t just empty rhetoric. Within a couple of years, the Board of Directors of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) – which is a member of the AU – had approved a US$1.5 billion funding facility to enable member states of Caricom to develop economic ventures between the two blocks. This has now been doubled to US$3 billion! Afreximbank opened a branch in Barbados, and, in March of this year, made its first facility disbursement. This is a US$6 million Education Rehabilitation Climate-linked Sovereign Term Loan Facility to the Government of St. Lucia!! Might be small, but it’s from small acorns that mighty oaks grow!!
Now, to show this wasn’t a one-shot affair, last year we hosted the second AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF23), and secured a US$500M Afreximbank loan to support the acceleration of our transformative infrastructural development.
Now Afreximbank has worked with the Bahamas to host its 31st Annual Meetings (AAM) – and the third edition of the AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF). The AAM’s gonna be held in Nassau from June 12 to 14. Expect more loans!!
Most positively, Afreximbank has announced it’ll make US$500 million available for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It had announced from the beginning that its loans wouldn’t be confined only to governments, since it’s seeking to promote airlinks, tourism, technology transfer, financial stability, food security, industrialization, and cultural ties.
And this is where your Eyewitness becomes very ecstatic – since the loans would be intermediated through the New Hayven Bank, which is headed by a local African-Guyanese banker.
This last nugget is of tremendous import for our domestic politics, since, for years, there have been complaints from African- Guyanese that they’re discriminated against by local banks because of their race. But here we have it: the US$500M is for SMEs – of which, from the complaints – there’s no shortage in the African-Guyanese community; just lack of funding. And here’s where African-Guyanese organizations come in: they can beat the bush for those who’d been turned away from banks and line them up at New Hayven Bank.
This is gonna allow us to judge whether the accusations were factual – since banks of whatever colour would look at loan requests through criteria based on the likelihood of being repaid – with their interest, of course!!
…for GuySuCo
Your Eyewitness was struck by the news snippet that translators are needed for the Cubans who’ve come as advisors to GuySuCo in its thrust for sustainability – and hopefully, generating profits at some point down the road! He figures that this decision must’ve followed the Cubans recommending that canes grown from 5000 hectares at Skeldon be transported on trucks to Albion – forty miles away for “grinding” and processing into brown sugar!! Surely, the Cubans couldn’t have understood the Guyanese who’d described to them the logistical challenges of that transportation proposal!! Something lost in (self) translation?
Your Eyewitness knows firsthand of these challenges, having been forced to communicate with Cuban doctors and nurses not only at the Big Hospital, but at several private ones. Your Eyewitness gets it that we need these professionals, but are they of any use when they’re basically working in the dark with Guyanese patients?? This is literally on matters of “life and death”!!
But then, we’re all gonna be learning Spanish, aren’t we?
…and pleasure
One fella wrote that it’s a sign of the Government mismanaging the economy that two bars for the Yuppy crowd – Cosmos and Outside Bar – had to be shuttered!! Don’t the Government know there’s a protected “right to drink in style”?
