…in Caricom?
With a Caricom Heads of Government (Caricom HoGs) meeting scheduled here next week, a reporter followed up a GTimes editorial and asked Pressie as to whether Jamaica’s trade grouses with Trinidad may lead it to pull out of Caricom. Pressie however, assured: “there’s no threat to Caricom” and the trade issue will be dealt with.
Your Eyewitness just thinks these might be “famous last words” in light of Britain and Brexit. The politicians boiled down the Referendum on Britain’s status in the EU to economic issues. And by these criteria it was a no-brainer that Britain should remain in the union. Larger markets and greater leverage in global power relations alone should’ve clinched the deal.
But nobody considered the old Biblical maxim: “Man does not live by bread alone.” Most of the Brits who voted to leave just couldn’t see the benefits of millions of “new immigrants coming in and taking their jobs and committing all kinds of unspeakable crimes!” It undermined their sense of “Britishness”. Most of the politicians, businessmen, bankers and financiers saw the economic benefits. But how many of the latter are there, compared to “ordinary folks”??
Now while this might’ve been an unfortunate caricature of the actual situation – most of the immigrants were holding down jobs that even poorer Brits didn’t want – their emotional angst jumped off the grid. And this Eyewitness sees present Caricom leaders going down the same path of obliviousness to the sense and sensibilities of the ordinary fella’s and felines in the Caribbean.
Do they know what it is for Guyanese made to sit on a “Guyanese Bench” at Grantley Adams Airport in Barbados, and subjected to the most extreme humiliations? And worse in Trinidad? Well multiply whatever answer you come up with by a thousand and you might get a glimmer of what Jamaicans have to undergo when they visit other countries in Caricom.
And imagine what happened when you combine this kind of mass sentiment with that of Jamaican businessmen, politicians and financiers with their KNOWLEDGE – not suspicion – that the economic deck of Trinidad is loaded against them. One example:
Electricity in TT’s US5 cents per KwH…in Jamaica its US23 cents and Guyana US26 cents. And this discrepancy is because Trinidad subsidises electricity for the entire country.
Imagine the advantage TT’s manufacturers have! But TT gets away under the fig leaf that it’s not subsidising PARTICULAR industries.
But this is a distinction in search of a difference, when Jamaica can’t match TT’s prices and has a massive deficit with that country.
When sentiment and emotions coincide, Jamexit then becomes more than a possibility.
…on TIP
The US decided so much progress was made in Trafficking in Persons (TIP), they took us off their “TIP Tier 2 watch list”. Now, dear readers, you’ll know the previous administration was dragged over the coals and then some, but just couldn’t satisfy the Americans they were serious about TIP.
And in less than a year – remember the report goes back to the end of last December – APNU/AFC was able to pull it off. How’d they do it? The report explained: “the government reported investigating (in 2016) 15 trafficking cases…which resulted in seven prosecutions and one sex trafficking conviction, compared with seven investigations, four prosecutions, and one conviction the previous reporting year (2015)”.
So all it took was to have eight investigations and 3 prosecutions more!!??? Because when it comes to convictions, both years had just ONE!! But what the heck? Maybe, like beauty, TIP lies in the eyes of the beholder.
After all your Eyewitness still doesn’t think those working girls dragged from Bartica were being trafficked.
…in CPL
Never let it be said your humble Eyewitness is bashful about saying “I told you so!” How about them Warriors, eh? OK?..they did concede some more runs than they should’ve . But how about that last over?
Go Warriors!!
