Secret Withdrawal Of Bribery Charges Against Barbados Cop Stinks Of Corruption At The Highest Levels

 Director of Public Prosecutions Charles Leacock has been in the news again lately – so we’ve revisited this past story of his corruption and unethical behaviours like using the police to threaten and extort a woman who owed him a private debt – and then withdrawing corruption charges against his same police friend.

Unlike the mainstream Barbados news media, the blogs don’t let unresolved news stories fade away. We’ll keep bringing this back into memory until this place cleans itself up… and until our corrupt DPP resigns.

I love my Barbados – but I hate the corrupt and incestuous cartel that seems to run everything.

Sheri Veronica – As school children in Barbados we were taught to hate Jamaicans

 “Respect Jamaicans”

by Sheri Veronica

THE TRUTH IS, we were taught to hate JAMAICANS.  As a little girl in primary school, our teacher taught us that Barbados was the jewel of the Caribbean.  We were taught that any mad/crazy slave or any slave who could not take instructions, were shipped off to Jamaica.  This was the mandate, I supposed in my little head (or was that taught to me also), of every Caribbean island.  Send the mad and **aggressive slaves to Jamaica.  Then as time passed and you start to see clearer, meet people and question things, you soon realize that the insurgent slaves were the brave ones.  They were the men and women who could not be broken…

… continue with a good read at Sheri Veronica’s blog

DOUBLE STANDARD: Another corrupt Barbados lawyer and politician walks free after paying back the money he stole

Who loaned Speaker of the House Michael Carrington the money to pay back what he purloined from his trust account?

Why should thieving lawyers be able to walk free once caught – if they pay back the money they took?

Citizens demand transparency!

When ordinary folk get caught stealing, they can’t just hand back the money, automobile or whatever they stole and walk free, so why should Barbados lawyers and politicians have that privilege?

Barbados lawyers and politicians have something like a gentleman’s agreement between themselves that it is best for the profession if misdeeds are covered up. So the Barbados Bar Association and the political parties talk about integrity and accountability – but they don’t really want to see any of their good ‘ol boys network behind bars.

They also know that it is dangerous to put others in jail who may have as much on you and you do on them! We’ve covered this story time and time again here at BFP.

Old boy network covers for a corrupt politician and lawyer

No surprise that after lawyer and Speaker of the House Michael Carrington was unable to pay a court order to return almost $250,000 he stole from a client 14 years ago, that the old boy network came up with the money to replace what Carrington illegally took from his trust account. (But after the court and news media said it was almost a quarter million dollars, why did Carrington yesterday pay only just over $200,000?)

It only took 14 years of lawsuit, tears and a life destroyed for a 78 year old senior in a wheelchair, John Griffiths, to receive the money his aunt left him in the year 2000! Michael Carrington was supposed to surrender the money to Griffiths 14 years ago, but kept it for himself and then couldn’t pay it.

Carrington’s trust account has the evidence but the Barbados Bar Association isn’t going to go there. As Speaker of the House, Carrington is part of the elites and is as untouchable as lawyer and former Prime Minister David Thompson who money laundered millions for his friend Leroy Parris. Nothing changes on this rock no matter which group of political elites is in power.  And the lapdog piss-itself Barbados news media won’t come close to asking the right questions in this story. Bet on that too.

Report: Seven Barbados police officers arrested in drug racket

Good for the cops for cleaning up their own mess. Will the officers ever come to trial? The record of similar arrests fading into nothing doesn’t make me an optimist…

AS MANY AS SEVEN police officers ranging in rank from special constable to sergeant, were being questioned up to late last night in connection with a suspected illegal drugs racket.

According to sources, the breakthrough started after investigators, acting on a tip-off, discovered a quantity of marijuana in the possession of one of the officers, who was subsequently taken into custody over the weekend.

Only seven years for child sex assault to come to trial – Barbados Child Care Board worker found “not guilty” by jury

Child sex assault took only seven years to get to trial

At least we’re making progress. I guess. But maybe no progress because the Pastor Jippy Doyle child rape trial took seven years to start and that was years ago with nothing getting better.

Bajans have seen child sex charges delayed for ten and eleven years, and then binned for lack of timely trials. (See Another child rapist goes free and No trial for ten years) We’ve seen a dangerous driving death charge take eleven years to come to trial, with the accused ZR driver having 197 prior driving convictions! Or how about a condo dispute taking nineteen years in courts.

Today’s story is about an accused who did not come to trial for seven years on child sex charges. Any way you look at it, that’s not proper justice for anybody… 

THE MAN WHO had pleaded his innocence for the past seven years was freed of an indecent assault charge this evening.

Clifton Wycliffe Mottley, a 52-year-old general worker of the Child Care Board, was accused of indecently assaulting a seven-year-old girl, by slapping her on her buttocks and rubbing her vagina at a flea market of the Church Village New Testament Church of God in St Philip, on October 27, 2007.

The girl, along with her mother and three other Crown witnesses had testified against Mottley, while evidence and his own statement from the dock showed that he had insisted on his innocence from the day after the alleged incident until today. When the jury returned a verdict of “not guilty” after deliberating for 90 minutes, Justice Margaret Reifer told the Chapel Land, St Philip man, “a jury of your peers has acquitted you.You are free to go.”

Encouraging reports about British tourism bookings

According to a recent TravelMole article, British travel agents are reporting ‘exceptional’ days of trading so far this month. Some say forward bookings are up as much as ‘30-50 percent’ over the same period last year and that a third of summer holidays currently being offered in 2015 will be sold during January and February.

Based on early indications the most popular long haul destinations are within the Caribbean and in particular – Costa Rica, Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Others far flung choices include Mauritius and the Maldives.

On the downside, the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) reported that short haul holidays are being boosted by the low value of the Euro against Sterling, making the Mediterranean much more affordable.

But conversely, the abolition of the dreaded Air Passenger Tax (APD) for children below 12 years is driving demand for destinations further afield. There is also a continuing trend for travellers booking further in advance. As a former tour operator for 12 years, I can tell you just how helpful that is in the overall scheme of things.

And especially, bearing in mind the new Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc (BTMI) quoted intent to attract a higher percentage of younger people to our shores, this early booking trend is being led by them – with 51 per cent of 15-24 years and 44 per cent 25-34 year olds choosing their holiday earlier in 2014. There is every indication these percentages will rise this year.

If we are ever going to maximise the use of marketing dollars, researched information like this is critical to achieving best results. Each year ABTA publishes a consumer report that reflects any trends that will help its members exactly how they are going to drive additional business and hopefully retain existing clientele. Bearing in mind it is based on a representative UK sample and in the particular case of the 2014 report, 2008 consumers took part.

Among some of the findings were: Package holidays continue to grow in popularity with just over half (51 per cent) of the population booking an overseas package holiday last year.

Of all overseas holidays offered in the UK, 20 percent were booked with a ‘High Street’ travel agent, 25 per cent with a travel agent online, 21 per cent directly with a tour operator and by far the single largest percentage 34 per cent, directly with the service providers (airline and/or hotel).

While fully understanding the desire or even need to attract a younger demographic, our tourism policy planners might like to read another conclusion in this report. ‘Younger holidaymakers are the most eager to try new destinations with almost half (49 per cent) saying this is quite likely. ‘Meanwhile older consumers are more conservative – over half (56 per cent) of over 65 years and (51 per cent) of 55-64 year olds said they would definitely not or would be unlikely to visit a country they had never been to’.  It’s a very fine balancing act.

Barbados must regulate, tax and ensure the standard of all tourism accommodations

I would imagine (and hope) that one of the imperatives of the newly formed Barbados Tourism Product Authority (BTPA) in the new year will be to indentify and register all currently unlicensed tourism accommodation offerings.

Frankly I have never understood how you can ever successfully market any product, in this case the destination, without knowing what ‘our’ room inventory consists of.

I will be quick to point out that I am in no way advocating imposing any overtly deterrent restrictions on persons wishing to mount the first rungs on a tourism ladder.

It should also not be a big stick approach implying potential threats and intimidation. My initial thoughts would be to build an online enrollment site, which could be entirely self-funding through a small license fee. This surely should not be a challenge as the BTPA has yet to launch a functioning website.

It’s all about protecting our quality, and making a level playing field

Any portal should allow for registering critical quality assurance evidence like fire, health and swimming pool certificates and public liability insurance together with the capability of paying the annual fee online and revalidating participation each year.

Accommodation providers initially would be given a grace period to submit their documentation and if they did not comply then clearly they would not be eligible for any marketing support and/or concessions.

Like many other holiday destinations approved properties would be given a unique identity number and allowed to use approved signage guaranteeing some form of quality assurance standards.

With the advent of websites like Airbnb and Homeaway it has now become a minefield for the potential visitor who presently has absolutely no idea if the thousands of lodging options comply with minimum standards and this obviously does not enhance our reputation.

If anyone is lured into thinking this ‘non-hotel’ element forms a miniscule part of our tourism sector, then understand at the time of writing this column, Airbnb had a choice of 556 alternative Barbadian accommodation possibilities on offer and Homeaway a mind boggling 1,277.

Many excellent examples of quality assurance framework websites are already in operation on which to model ours and I found the Failte Ireland one particularly impressive. Their words, to me, seem to exactly define the intended purpose ‘working with you, we will ensure that these standards meet consumer expectations, help your marketing efforts and support product development’.

Barbados Government behind two years in paying VAT refunds!

I also believe that it would identify a new source of revenue (especially VAT) that is not currently collected and paid into Government coffers, possibly helping to level a playing field where currently those complying with the rules are in many cases severely disadvantaged. This might even allow the administration to recover sufficient monies to repay small businesses like ours who have not received agreed and due VAT refunds for up to nearly two years.

Government has to realise there is a consequence to this policy. Hotels largely upgrade, maintain and enhance their properties in the quieter summer months, when cash flow is acutely stretched. If the owners feel that do not stand a realistic chance of reclaiming the VAT element payable upfront will be repaid on-time, then they simply won’t embark on those improvements. Plus with our current reduced national credit rating, it is almost inhibitive to borrow money at commercially available interest rates.

While many accept we have a largely ‘tired’ hotel plant it is almost entirely fallacious, especially when the means to correct the problem is being at least partially withheld by the people making that observation.

Kick Starter staff picks new project by Permaculture Research Institute of Barbados

 by Lorraine Ciarallo

The Permaculture Research Institute (CPRI) of Barbados has been in the making since 2012 and I am proud to finally announce that our project has started.

A couple days ago CPRI launched its KickStarter crowdfunding video campaign which I would like to share with you. The purpose of our project is to set up a permaculture school in Barbados to teach, educate and demonstrate through the principles of permaculture how to grow food, repair landscapes & build community. Permaculture is a design science, inspired by nature and guided by ethics. Its purpose is to meet the needs of humanity while benefiting the environment. To this end, it empowers individuals, local communities and the larger public to build sustainable & environmentally friendly:

• Food and Land Systems
• Social and community systems
• Shelter and home systems
• Livelihood and business systems

I hope you will take the time to watch the video. If this campaign is successful, it will help ensure the life of this project, a project which I am committed to for the next 3 years. It is super exciting for me to share it with you and I hope, you find it exciting too! 

Please watch this 3 minute video before reading further. (Above or at Kickstarter here)

Now…can you see why I am excited? Would you like to help me roll out this amazing campaign? If so, I would be indebted to you if you could do the following:

1. Claim a reward by donating Any amount

NOTE 1:
Pledges can be as low as $1.00 Canadian and the quantum of your pledge will NOT be displayed, just your name as a “backer”.

NOTE 2:

Should you decide to pledge choosing a donate tab of your choice, it will prompt you to sign in with your Facebook account, or sign up with KickStarter. Please take the time to complete this important short step that is secured by KickStarter, thank you.

2. Share this campaign with your family members and friends, and ask them to do the same.

3. Post and share the campaign on your Facebook page, twitter and with others you know who would love to help us reach our goal. Thank you so much for your help!

For your convenience, the following is a short version that you can use to email family and friends and/or post on social media outlets.

“A Crowdfunding community initiative that I personally support has been started to assist in launching the Caribbean Permaculture Research Institute of Barbados. Through the support of many people, rather than relying solely on, and chasing grants, we kindly ask you to watch this 3 minute video. Should you decide to support this project on KickStarter, pledges can be as low as $ 1.00 CDN and the quantum of your pledge is NOT displayed, just your name as a “backer”. By choosing a donate tab, it will prompt you to sign in with FB, or sign in with KickStarter. Please complete this important step secured by KickStarter. Thank you. 

Here is the link to the 3 minute video https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1413679591/caribbean-permaculture-research-institute-of-barba “.

Thank you for your consideration and cooperation.

Help CPRI with its goals to empower people to green Barbados with food gardens everywhere on the island!

God bless!

Lorraine Ciarallo
Site Manager, Designer and Consultant
Caribbean Permaculture Research Institute (CPRI) of Barbados
Graeme Hall, Christ Church

Why is Dengue Fever up 300% so far this year?

Dengue is serious business, and a secondary infection can be a disaster shutting down the liver or damaging the heart.  That’s serious business alright.

Epidemic Dengue is also serious business when it comes to tourism and the economy.  So what is the government doing about a spectacular 300% increase in cases?

It should be a national emergency, but all I see is the same old, same old.

American complains about Barbados Justice system in child custody matter.

Talk ya talk!

By American “CU”

I feel it is my responsibility and duty to inform your readers, especially the ones here in the United States, on the favoritism and bias or non-decisions handed down as orders by some in your judicial system in Barbados. Especially if the presiding Judge happens to be friends with the opposing counsel, or maybe they both belong to the same labor party.

This all started back in May of this year, when my daughter  finally got an interview with the US embassy to obtain her Green Card for her and her daughter. Even though they were never married the child ended up with the father’s last name and the Embassy requested that he provided a letter of permission.

This ended up in the courts and this one judge that in my opinion did not have the desire to rule and therefore, started in motion a set of procedures that prolonged the request. She even included the Child Care Board and even they did not change her original thoughts, that if the mother wanted to leave the Island, she must leave her three year old daughter with the father.

She has now even added fuel to the fire by giving the order that my daughter cannot bring her daughter to the United States until she comes to the United States and find a job which would show her that my daughter is capable of taking care of her daughter. Have you ever heard such stupidness?

First, the US embassy was satisfied with the evidence that I presented to them, showing that I and my spouse is more than capable of taking care of both of them until the mother finds gainful employment. If my financial affidavit was not strong, the US Immigration would not have allowed the Visas.  So could someone tell me why this madam justice has made such a decision? Tell me this is not a miscarriage of justice just because she has “Black Robe Syndrome”.

Meanwhile the winder of opportunity for my daughter to relocate to the US with her daughter is slowly closing. Everybody knows you only have six months after the interview to leave Barbados or you’ll lose the visa and will have to start from square one all over again.

Maybe, this is what the Judge would like to see happen, so she could keep her friendship with the father’s counsel.

Arab-Israeli Conflict or Jewish-Muslim Conflict? Whatever it is, can it be solved?

A Barbadian engineer and author proposes some answers
Our blogging friend Grenville Phillips II is a prolific writer and what I’ll call an “activist structural engineer” in the best sense of the term. Whether the subject is the proper installation of rebar when building a home, or politics or religion – he looks at all the factors, identifies the problems, researches and then methodically builds his solutions.  Read anything at his Weighed in the Balance blog and you’ll see proof of that.

But Grenville is also a man with a sense of history and humanity – he’s not just a numbers guy. I think it is the combination of structural engineer, historian and teacher with genuine concern for humanity that makes everything he writes so worthwhile. That, and his talent for being able to present his ideas clearly and simply enough to be understood.

Writing under his nom de plume Walter Phillips, he has published two books…

Solving The Arab-Israeli Conflict, (2009) subtitled “A practical way forward that allows both sides to negotiate a solution in good-faith”and

Brothers Kept Apart (2008) “Compelling and explicit evidence that exposes the myths that have unnecessarily divided Christians and Muslims for the past 1,300 years.”

Time to buy Phillips’ latest book!
For some reason I missed Grenville’s blog post Solving the Arab-Israeli Conflict but after recently coming across it and reading the wonderful discussions he provoked from around the world, I think I have to purchase and read his latest book.

Damn, I hate it when Grenville makes an argument in such a compelling manner that I have to rethink my own perspective! (Just kidding – that’s what I love about life, learning and growing.) - Marcus

PS: If Grenville doesn’t mind, I think we’ll put his blog and books on our banner list.

We Were Promised Cricket World Cup Accounting Would Be Delivered NOW. (Did We Stupid Bajans Really Believe That Promise?)

The financial and public relations disaster called Cricket World Cup has come and gone – and with it hundreds of millions of tax dollars that will see our grandchildren still working to pay off the debt decades from now.  We were promised an accounting.

The time we were promised to have that accounting is now.  Barbados Underground has the story, but don’t hold your breath…

Prime Minister Owen Arthur promised years ago that we would have a “full accounting” of the GEMS Hotels expenditures and that has yet to arrive.

As Owen Arthur and company have proven time and time again, we stupid Bajans will believe anything.

Clyde Mascoll Lectures About Proper Management

Newly frocked Barbados Minister of State Clyde Mascoll lectured delegates to the first International Management Conference held at Amaryllis Beach Resort, last Monday…

If a country is going to be competitive in this new global environment, then it has to understand how to get more out of its inputs, which, therefore, means that the critical issue confronting the region is how we can become more productive, said the Minister.  He stated that management would play a critical role in enhancing this productivity.

How do you get workers to work harder? How do you get workers to do better? How do you increase you output with the available resources you have? That's the first requirement for productivity, and in the short term, management is critical to that, said Mascoll.  …Full article at The Barbados Advocate.

Enforcing Environmental Laws In Barbados – Forget The Police, We Need Specialists

According to the Minister of Energy and the Environment Elizabeth Thompson, the Cabinet recently approved “a comprehensive Environmental Management Act for Barbados”. (Barbados Advocate article link here.)
While we are pleased to see the Government finally taking steps to provide Barbados with modern and enforcible environmental laws, nobody should get too excited because Cabinet approval is only the first step in a process that will take many months or even years before we see actual law in place.

After 12 years of not one single environmental dumping charge laid, we will not hold our breath for this present government to produce actual results. Barbados has come to expect talk, studies and more announcements like this one. Real results? No.

But as long as we have Minister Thompson and the Owen Arthur government thinking about the environment, let’s talk about enforcement of environmental laws. Here is our position…

Forget About Using The Police To Enforce Environmental Laws
For at least the last year, and perhaps much longer, Environment Minister Thompson has been going on and on about how she wrote two letters – one to the police and one to the previous Attorney General – to try and have some attention paid to enforcing environmental laws. In February, she mused about having the police go undercover at illegal dumpsites. In May, she blamed the police for not trying to catch people dumping garbage by the roadside, and just last week she was again whining in public about those two letters she wrote a year ago.

Liz – get over it. The Royal Barbados Police Force is not coming to the party. The police are currently 130 officers under strength, violent crime is escalating in Barbados as it is everywhere, and they are busy preparing for Cricket World Cup 2007 – the largest and certainly the most demanding security operation they have ever undertaken. And that is even without considering that some of the participating nations near and far are hotbeds of Muslim terrorism.

The police are not interested in environmental investigations and if they are somehow ordered to act, they will only provide lip-service and feign activity. The police rightly believe that they lack the specialized knowledge and training to enforce environmental law – and that their priorities have to be elsewhere – violent crime, public order and safety.

So forget about using the police to enforce environmental laws. The police might agree to an occasional secondary support role, but to expect anything more is simply unrealistic – and is not the best solution anyway.

Barbados Needs Trained Environmental Enforcement Specialists
The Ministry of the Environment should form it’s own Environmental Law Enforcement Squad to investigate violations, gather evidence, bring charges before the court and to work with the prosecution to prepare and present cases at trial. This is what is done in most other jurisdictions because only a specialized environmental enforcement unit can build the necessary longterm knowledge, training and experience to be effective.