Delta Discontinuing Flights To Barbados, Antigua, Trinidad, Turks & Caicos – Low Demand

Flights To Resume In Winter

Travel patterns by United States citizens changed on September 11, 2001. With the war in Iraq and continued attacks by Muslim terrorists upon the west, I don’t think that the Caribbean tourism industry will ever return to pre-9/11 levels before inflation. Bit of a sticky wicket, eh what?

Delta To Discontinue Summer Flights

Delta Airlines has discontinued its flights for the remainder of the summer and will be returning at double force for the winter tourist season. The discontinuation will take place early in September and last for 10 weeks until November.

(Antigua) Minister of Tourism Harold Lovell said, “This is something that they are doing throughout the hemisphere, where they are reducing their number of flights in the summer to come back in the winter.”

Among the other countries to be affected are Barbados, Trinidad, and the Turks and Caicos islands. Lack of sufficient travellers because of the return of school, has been quoted as one of the reasons for the discontinuation…

… continue reading this article at the Antigua Sun (link here)

Attention Caribbean Development Bank: Barbados Cane Farmers Forced To Sell Land To “Political Intermediary” – THEN Planning Permission Is Given And Millions Are Made!

“In 1963 plantation land sold at between $3,000 and $4,000/acre depending on historical yields, while today land sells from $20,000 – $75,000/acre, and some places like Dairy Meadows Dairy Farm, where the owner of 30 years was denied permission to sub-divide for building, had to sell to a political intermediary who then had it removed by law from a Zone 1 area to commercial land, and then it was sold for millions. That particular land now forms part of the Green Monkey Golf Course at Sandy Lane.”

UPDATED: July 6, 2012

The recent Pine Hill Dairy dispute with Trinidad and Tobago has set Barbados Free Press off on a milk-themed series of postings. And why not… milk and milk-products production is one of the few agricultural areas where Barbados probably could be not only self-sufficient, but able to export a significant surplus: If only...

This article by Richard Goddard revealed some truths about the Dairy Meadows Dairy Farm land deal and why good agricultural lands are disappearing: praedial larceny and corrupt activities surrounding agricultural land sales.

Well worth your time to read and consider if anything changed in the last five years of DLP Government. We don’t think that anything has changed…

Original article…

(Sugar cane photo by BFP’s Shona)

Farmer Richard Goddard Comments On The New Sugar Factory

Bleak House,
Burnt House Plantation ,
ST PETER, BB 26031

September 12, 2007

Dr Compton Bourne,
President,
Caribbean Development Bank,
Wildey, ST MICHAEL

Dear Sir,

Re proposed sugar factory, Bulkeley, St George, Barbados

At a consultancy meeting of small farmers held at Groves , St George on 28th August, 2007 between 2 and 4 p.m. and chaired by Dr Orvlle Wickham, there were approximately 35 small farmers in attendance, either by written invitation or by public notice in the newspaper.

Dr Wickham revealed plans for a proposed building of a new sugar factory at Bulkeley, St George, and the planned closure of Portvale and Andrews factories. The new factory is estimated to cost about $300 million, and the proposal was going before the Caribbean Development Bank, who would be financing the project.

Peter Bynoe: Pay Attention To Quality Of Life, Build Graeme Hall National Park

I cut this article out of one of our papers a few weeks ago, and I can’t find it again on the internet so I’ll re-type it. (sigh)

Pay Attention To Quality Of Life

IT IS TIME THAT GOVERNMENT PAYS more attention to quality-of-life issues in Barbados.

There is no disputing that a buoyant economy improves the quality of life, but there are other important things that make life enjoyable: sadly many of these things do not seem to be a priority for our Government.

For instance, although 6,000 people signed the petitition in support of the Graeme Hall Park, no one in Government has made a public response.

If this park is established, the benefit to the country will be immeasurable as it will provide a much needed public green space for people living in the sourth of the island, who make up the bulk of our population. Also it appears that the Legacy Vision for Barbados has quietly died out.

The seven committees (one of which I am a member) are inactive due to a lack of funding. This means that the quantum leap that was supposed to occur because of Cricket World Cup probably will never happen and the hype to make Barbados the No. 1 place to live and work seems to have been typical Barbadian shop talk.

Ironically, I read that Barbados is hosting an international legacy conference in 2008 even though we have no ongoing legacy programme.

Peter Bynoe

Is Barbados Going Bankrupt? Part 77 Of A Continuing Series… More Late Payments To Government Employees: Prison Officers’ Pay Cheques Two Months Behind!

After thirteen years in power and a prison riot that cost this nation approaching a billion dollars in replacement and temporary costs, the government is still two months behind in paying our prison officers.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister’s Lexus 4×4 Has A Full Tank Of Gas And A Wash Every Day

“Is Barbados going bankrupt?“ is a question that we have been asking for almost two years, and the evidence keeps mounting…

The current government views our Prison Officers as little more than dumb servants who are unable to obtain employment elsewhere. Our prison officers should be viewed as trained professionals who are one of the foundations of order in our society. We get up and go to work and school safely every day because these courageous men and women look after the worst of the worst. It is a tough job both mentally and physically and they deserve better.

All we at BFP are able to do is to thank our Prison Officers and tell them that we’re doing our best to try and embarrass the government into paying them.

Unbelievable. One would think that this was Zimbabwe and not “first world” Barbados…

Late payments ‘foolishness’

FOOLISHNESS was how chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into the Glendairy Prisons Fire, Sir Lisle Austin Ward, described the continued late payment of prison officers yesterday.

“That is foolishness!” he declared after hearing Acting Superintendent of Prisons Lieutenant-Colonel John Nurse say late payment had dropped from “in excess of three months” to “about two months” in the Prison Service…

… continue reading this article at The Nation News

Nation News Says Government Wants To Know – Who Are Those Devils At Barbados Free Press?

Government Has Been Looking For BFP’s Staff Since January 2006 – 20 Months

We hear rumours that our new print edition has driven the PM to drink… or at least drink more. “Find them!” he yelled today shortly after lunch. (He did, too!)

THEY have been digging everywhere for well over a year. A few months ago THEY were asking questions up in Grape Hall on a Thursday afternoon – actually asking if anyone was called by “Auntie Moses”. THEY were also looking for Robert by stalking the flightline at Grantley Adams and asking who had any 727 experience. (DUH… that’s just about every A&P who’s ever picked up a bucking bar… Idiots)

We’re lucky that the Owen Arthur government is as competent at finding us as they are at everything else!

First they said we were DLP stooges.

Then we were eco-freaks.

Some claimed we were David Thompson’s “inner circle”…

Next they said we had been hired by (HORRORS!) “the whites”.

Then we were supposed to be a BLP splinter group seeking to replace Owen Arthur.

In the last few weeks, the fingers were pointing at Adrian Loveridge – who must be exceedingly talented to be blogging at the same time he was on live radio, not to mention doing spam patrol 24/7 while running his hotel. (Hey… that’s energy!)

Who Are Those Devils At Barbados Free Press?

Now… THEY have the answer… or at least they think they have the answer… and they ran to The Nation News – who printed the story like a good little government doggy.

Just who runs the Barbados Free Press?

A candidate running in Christ Church… who is being turned in by a woman scorned!

(Ahhhhh….. Shona, darlin’ – we’re still ok, right my love?)

From the Nation News… (Who have time to investigate Barbados Free Press, but still haven’t told the public that the guy building our 300 million dollar flyover and highway system is being sued for the fraud and corrupt kickbacks on his last government bridge project!)

Nothing free

A CERTAIN Christ Church campaigner may be about to get ousted – and that does not mean he is going to be included!

Apparently, investigations are under way to find out the source of a very widely read Internet site that is accessed free of cost. Every piece of gossip about the big and small is found on the interactive site, with Bajans far and away often kept informed or misinformed about developments on this tiny isle.

Well, most of the discussions are less than flattering and sometimes scandalous, but so far no one has been able to get to the source.

A recent falling out over payment to a female staff member may, however, lead to the source being exposed.

Our information is that the staffer has been in contact with members on the other side who are now contemplating whether to break
the news on the platform or subject the campaigner to an investigation by other authorities.

As the saying goes: Nothing ever really comes for free.

… read this so-called news at the so-called newspaper The Nation News – but don’t be looking for stories about government corruption!

UPDATED – Barbados Apartment Collapse: Government Minister Gline Clarke Lied To The United Nations – Transcript, Proof

UPDATED: Scroll to very bottom to read update 

“Distort The Truth? A Minister Of Government Like Me? Never!”

Government Minister Gline Clarke Lied To The United Nations And The World On Behalf Of Barbados…

“In addition, we have instituted a Building Code to effect an improved housing stock generally, including reduced vulnerability to naturally occurring events, such as hurricanes.”

Barbados Government Minister Gline Clarke in a statement to the 25th Special Session Of The General Assembly, New York, June 6, 2001

(Barbados still doesn’t have a building code. Minister Clarke lied.)

Show Us The Barbados Building Code Minister Clarke!

Barbados does not have a Building Code.

Oh, we have a few drafts kicking around – a few stillborn scribblings – but we don’t have a law that has been passed by Parliament.

So we have no building code.

Gline Clarke knows this today. During a recent interview at the scene of the Brittons Hill apartment collapse, Minister Clarke corrected himself during an interview, first saying words to the effect “We have a building code” and then immediately correcting himself to say words to the effect “We are working on a building code.”

We were recording him when we heard him say the first lie at the cave-in. I made a mental note of it – but he must have picked up my thoughts because he corrected himself right away. Minister Clarke knew that the loss of life at Brittons Hill would cause Bajans to ask serious questions about our building process and laws – so he didn’t want to be caught out with an untruth.

But Minister Clarke didn’t correct himself in his statement to the United Nations on June 6, 2001.

He very clearly said in front of the United Nations that Barbados had “instituted a building code.”

Minister Clarke, while representing Barbados before the UN and the world, lied.

That is the way it is with our current spin-doctors in government – all about the look, the show, controlling perception. Barbados citizens deserve better.

STATEMENT
BY
HONOURABLE GLINE CLARKS
MINISTER OF HOUSING AND LANDS
TO THE
TWENTY-FIFTH SPECIAL SESSION OF THE
GENERAL ASSEMBLY FOR AN OVERALL
REVIEW AND APPRAISAL OF THE
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE OUTCOME OF
THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS (HABITAT II)

New York
June 6, 2001

Mr. President, Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am honoured to be given the opportunity to address this Special Session of the General Assembly in respect of the review of the Habitat Agenda. Five years have passed since we met in a similar forum in Istanbul to formulate the Habitat Agenda, and many of us would have come away from that Conference with great expectations for its implementation.

We would nevertheless have been realistic enough to know that implementation would be challenging, especially in an environment of limited resources. Therefore, Mr. President, in conducting this review, we should not be disheartened by any shortfall in achievement since 1996, but rather, we should focus on charting a forward path, towards accelerated implementation.

Mr. President, I welcome the opportunity to highlight some of my country’s experiences since 1996. I am pleased to report that the Government and people of Barbados have taken this Review very seriously, and all the stakeholders have participated actively in the preparation of the National Report. The National Habitat Committee has been expanded, and participation has been at a very high standard.

At the Second PrepCom, concern was expressed that five years was an insufficient period for a review to be conducted. Be that as it may, I certainly believe that this Review is timely since it comes at a juncture when the Centre for Human Settlements is being reorganised and when the phenomenon of globalisation is becoming entrenched. In this regard, I can report that the National Committee has identified a number of new issues that have become a challenge to the realisation of the twin goals of “Adequate Shelter For All” and “Sustainable Human Settlements In An Urbanising World”.

Foremost among these, is perhaps the rising cost of land. As a small island, Barbados’ land resource is a premium. The demand for land is getting progressively stronger, and as a result, the price of land has escalated. In addition, the availability of land along what is known as the “Urban Corridor” stretching from the north to the south of the island, has been substantially reduced. This trend has inflated the cost of land, even in the interior. However, Government has tried to protect the segment of the population who rent land by making it possible for them to purchase their house-spots at 10 cents and in some cases $2.50 per square foot.
We must be ever-conscious of the fact that land and property markets in small island states are not as well-developed, nor do they function as efficiently as those in more developed countries. Accordingly, some form of government intervention is often needed to protect vulnerable persons, in the interest of social equity, and to achieve the Habitat goal of Adequate Shelter For All.

For this purpose, Barbados has established a land banking programme through which the Government systematically acquires and vests land in the relevant social agencies. Those agencies have the responsibility to ensure that those persons whose needs are not met by the formal markets can actually establish tenure at an affordable cost. At this stage, I should point out that there are different elements to this Programme, including the use of private sector initiatives and other participants in the formal market. We shall be making a best practice submission in this area in due course.

Since 1996, much progress has been made in urban development. In 1997, we established the Urban Development Commission, which has the mandate to fast track the implementation of an Urban Renewal Programme. The work of that agency has so far met with much success such as the upgrading of houses, the provision of roads and footpaths to facilitate access, street lighting, disbursement of loans and the transfer of land title to tenants at subsidised prices. The Commission’s work targets the poor and is indeed an indispensable element of my country’s poverty alleviation programme.

Mr. President, we have sought where possible to tap into the positive aspects of globalisation, as it relates to Habitat issues. We are currently examining alternative building technologies. These technologies are cheaper, and just as durable as traditional, local materials. They are also hurricane-resistant, which is a vital consideration for countries like Barbados, which face a perennial threat to their human settlements, from naturally occurring events such as hurricanes.

Mr. President, with respect to housing legislation, we have in the past, concentrated on land tenure and the enfranchisement of longstanding tenants at nominal prices. However, as we undertook the review of the Habitat Agenda, it became more and more apparent that there was need for protection of house tenants as well. Accordingly, we are now examining our laws with a view to ensuring that poor households are not rented sub-standard housing. In addition, we have instituted a Building Code to effect an improved housing stock generally, including reduced vulnerability to naturally occurring events, such as hurricanes.

In closing, I remain confident that this Special Session will serve to place the entire Habitat Agenda into proper perspective, as far as implementation is concerned. Now is the time for action, if the impact of the Habitat II Conference is to be fostered and maintained.

Mr. President, Barbados is anxious that the outputs of this Review should provide a significant impetus to our goals of achieving adequate shelter for all and sustainable human settlements.

Mr. President, I thank you.

From the website of the United Nations (link here)

UPDATED: Sept 11, 2007 09:20am Barbados Time

We just received this excellent information from our friend Bush Tea, who tells us about the status of the Building Code in Barbados.

Bottom line: Yes, folks are working with a draft that has no power in law – because there is no law respecting our “take it or leave it” Building Code. It is voluntary on the part of engineers. As we said, there is no building code in Barbados law…

Letter from Bush Tea…

While you are technically correct that there is no Barbados building code that contractors are required to follow, you should know that there IS IN FACT a building code that has been in PLACE in Barbados since 1993 and is used by engineers.

This code has been adopted by BNSI after extensive discussion with engineers etc, however, like many laws in this island, there has been no application, enforcement or followup.

Obviously the code is in need of upgrade after 15 years, and this is what the focus of the recent talk has been about, but here is the BIG ISSUE.. the weakness of the first code has not been addressed – ENFORCEMENT.

The problem is that no law requires that contractors apply this code when building, (that would probably cause some problems for the yardfowls who get these building contracts for RDC and other government schemes.) so it is TOTALLY voluntary.

When Engineers raised this and other issues with Glyne Clarke, he responded with insults about ‘if greedy wait, hot will cool…’

The problem with the new attempt to establish a code is that Government will have to hire a massive staff in order cope with the volume of applications or we will see even longer delays and red tape. The argument between BAPE and the consultant Matthews was about the correct approach to take in this regard. BAPE was proposing a small admin and overview office and a REQUIREMENT that a competent professional be required to sign off on all building projects, while Matthews wanted a large office with inspectors etc who had to check each stage of each project in progress.

As usual -no real progress has been made so far.