THE Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) seems headed for a fresh round of internal wrangling after its president, Mark Golding, signalled late last week that he was about to shuffle the party’s shadow cabinet. On Saturday Golding revealed a new 26-member shadow cabinet without three of the PNP’s more vocal spokespersons — Lisa Hanna, who shadowed the foreign affairs and foreign trade portfolio; Dr Morais Guy, who spoke on health and wellness; and Senator Lambert Brown, who spoke on the public service. They were replaced by Angela Brown Burke, who was shifted from labour and social security to foreign and regional affairs; and newcomer Dr Alfred Dawes, who takes on health and wellness. Julian Robinson will now be the party’s spokesman on public service while continuing to shadow the finance minister. In the meantime, Senator Donna Scott Mottley was stripped of the information section of her portfolio, leaving her to speak only on justice, while fellow senator, Sophia Frazer Binns, is now being asked to shadow environment and ecological heritage instead of her former portfolio of land, environment, and climate change. Former Cabinet minister and Leader of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives Phillip Paulwell had his shadow portfolio adjusted from energy and mining to energy and climate change, while the outspoken Mikael Phillips saw his portfolio shifted from transport and works to transport and mining. Dawes joins other newcomers in the shadow cabinet, including Wavel Hinds, who takes on labour and sports; Nekeisha Burchell, who will shadow information and public communication; and Dr Deborah Hickling, who will speak on culture and creative industries. Efforts to get a comment from Golding on Saturday were unsuccessful, but in a response to the Jamaica Observer via WhatsApp he underscored that the shadow cabinet has 10 women. In a mid-afternoon release, Burchell said the reshuffle of the shadow cabinet by Golding was aimed at showcasing the diverse talent and extensive skill sets present within the PNP. “The new shadow cabinet combines new faces to front line politics alongside seasoned politicians — all ready to offer solutions to Jamaica’s long-standing challenges. Each shadow minister will be supported by a team, including deputies to be named at a later date, and their junior shadow cabinet counterparts. “Shadow cabinet positions provide an opportunity for team members to contribute and gain exposure, without burdening taxpayers. The Opposition leader thanks those who served in the previous shadow cabinet and will not be offering themselves in the next election,” the release added. But even as the leadership of the party sought to portray the changes to the shadow cabinet as part of its normal business, messages shared in PNP WhatsApp groups suggested that the party could be headed for another major fallout. “Good morning Comrades, I see our party leader has introduced a new method of governance…reshuffle done via e-mail, and with limited MPs in Parliament cutoff of the most senior and vocal,” said one Comrade. “A cabinet reshuffle is being done as we speak via WhatsApp messages, and Guy and Lisa are out because they are not running back. I was unaware that running was a criterion for being in the shadow cabinet,” added the Comrade. That PNP supporter argued that it was political suicide to move Guy and Hanna out of the shadow cabinet weeks before the party is scheduled to contest a local government election. “The implications are so obvious. The question is, where is the political sense?” added the Comrade. With messages flowing quick and fast, several PNP members warned that the party could return to the not-too-distant past when it was split into factions. “The absolute destruction of any semblance of unity within the party going into a local government election,” declared another Comrade in the chats. “The writing on the wall is getting bolder. Wait for the implosion,” added another PNP supporter. The PNP has been facing internal turmoil since 2019 when Peter Bunting challenged then president Dr Peter Phillips for the leadership of the party.’ While Phillips, under his campaign banner of ‘One PNP’, beat back the challenge of Bunting and his ‘Rise United’ team, the rifts in the party failed to heal in time for the 2020 General Election where the party was given a political backsiding by the Andrew Holness-led Jamaica Labour Party. Days after that defeat, Phillips walked away from the PNP’s top job, paving the way for a run-off between Golding and Hanna, which led to fresh, bitter infighting in the party. Golding defeated Hanna and has since tried to unify the party while mending fences, despite the deep hurt caused by the two internal elections. But, with this latest move, Comrades are afraid that the lingering wounds are about to break out into really massive sores.

ELIM, St Elizabeth — Even as a multi-agency probe is underway to determine the circumstances that led to the discovery of a burnt-out small aircraft here Friday night, speculation is rife that the plane may have been involved in drug trafficking. The wreck of the aircraft was found in a swamp in the Elim/Braes River area, a few miles north-east of Santa Cruz. The area, which forms part of the upper Black River Morass, is reputed to have been used as a landing site for small aircraft decades ago when the ganja export trade flourished. A police source told the Jamaica Observer that on Saturday, bamboo with lights attached were seen on either side of a road used as a makeshift airstrip. “It is a straight road; no one, without knowing the area, couldn’t just land there. There was bamboo lining the two sides of the road and light on it, like a runway to guide the plane,” the source said while adding that a wheel believed to have detached from the aircraft was seen in bushes. It is suspected that the defect possibly led to difficulty in the plane taking off. The source said preliminary investigations suggest “there was no crash” and that the plane was “deliberately landed”. It is believed that cargo was removed from the plane and it was possibly then set ablaze. Efforts to get a comment from the leadership of the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority in relation to the probe into the incident were unsuccessful up to mid-afternoon Saturday as calls and messages went unanswered. Head of the St Elizabeth police, Superintendent Coleridge Minto, in a video posted on the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s social media platforms, said it took the police close to three hours to find the wreckage of what appeared to be a two-engine plane. “Sometime after 7:00 pm Friday we were alerted to the information that a plane may have experienced some amount of difficulty and went down somewhere in the morass area of Braes River. An immediate search and rescue operation was launched. The various agencies were contacted to include the fire brigade and the military,” Minto said. “The aircraft was fully burnt, and there is an active investigation ongoing. No person was found, no item except for the burnt remains of the plane,” added Minto. He suggested that the police are examining the “history” of the area as part of the investigation. “We are not sure as to whether or not it was a difficulty the pilot experienced or whether there was an attempt to land it in this area. There is certainly a history surrounding this particular area. There are a number of theories floating around, one of which is that the plane was attempting to land, so we will allow the experts and the various forensics persons to do their checks and investigations and then a more conclusive determination can be made,” said Minto. In January 2006 police and soldiers destroyed an illegal airstrip at Braes River said to have been used to smuggle ganja out of the island. News reports at that time said Operation Kingfish operatives and Jamaica Defence Force Engineering Regiment personnel wired the approximately two-mile runway with explosives that made 12 large craters on the surface. The latest incident involving the burnt-out aircraft follows the seizure of 13 pounds of cocaine in a major bust at a house operated as a drug base in the remote St Elizabeth community of Warminster, north of Junction. The cocaine, worth an estimated $28 million, as well as 222 pounds of ganja valued at $2.2 million, more than $1 million in cash, and a car were confiscated by narcotics police at the house on Thursday night. Police also said that a man ran from the house and escaped.

WARMINSTER, St Elizabeth — The seizure of 13 pounds of cocaine in a major bust at a house operated as a drug base in this remote St Elizabeth community north of Junction has sparked concerns that the parish could experience an increase in violent crime. The cocaine, worth an estimated $28 million, as well as 222 pounds of ganja valued at $2.2 million, more than $1 million in cash, and a car were confiscated by narcotics police at the house on Thursday night. The Jamaica Observer was told that a man ran from the house and escaped. According to one law enforcer, the presence of the cocaine is worrying as it “spells trouble”. “St Elizabeth has had a number of drug seizures, largely marijuana, because there are a lot of ganja fields in the parish. Last year thousands of pounds of ganja were destroyed,” the source said. “In terms of cocaine, since the middle of last year there hasn’t been any seizure of cocaine. Anywhere cocaine is, there are always guns and gangs. Now, to have this white powder in the parish it spells trouble,” the source said, adding that cocaine compounds the already deadly presence of gun, gangs and ganja in St Elizabeth. “This is of concern to us as law enforcement officers. Cocaine in the parish could lead to other violent crimes. Whatever the quantity is, it has serious implications,” the source said. The narcotics police have named Cetron Smith, a resident of Warminster district, as a person of interest in relation to the drug seizure. They have asked him to report to the Narcotics Area 3 office on deCarteret Road in Mandeville by 10:00 am Saturday.

UNIVERSITY of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) students should be able to access their grades on Monday as lecturers have withdrawn their threat to not upload the marks. The lecturers on Tuesday, through their representative group University of Technology Academic Staff Union (UTASU), had issued an ultimatum to the Government to withhold grades unless they were provided with a response to their demand for an update on their compensation review. But late Thursday, Dr Tashieka Burris-Melville, programme leader at the Faculty of Education and Liberal Studies at UTech, told the Jamaica Observer that UTASU representatives met with officials of the finance ministry and received encouraging words. “It’s a positive one [the meeting] because the outcome we wanted was to get the document. We are in receipt of the document and so we are instructing members to return to normalcy, which involves them releasing grades,” said Burris-Melville. However, she underscored that while they now have a document from the finance ministry, the proposal has not yet been accepted and will be reviewed and discussed by UTASU. According to Burns-Melville, the finance ministry did not give a reason for the delay by the Government in presenting the proposal. In its release on Tuesday, UTASU announced that it had decided to take action in response to the Government’s failure to provide a compensation review proposal — despite a request which was first sent on May 4, 2022. “Despite repeated requests and collaborative endeavours the Government has yet to present a formal proposal outlining a fair and equitable compensation framework. This lack of responsiveness and undue delay has left UTASU with no recourse but to take decisive action on behalf of its members. Consequently, UTASU members will suspend all grade entries for semester one 2023/4 until we receive the compensation review proposal for review and consideration. “This decision was not been taken lightly but it is a necessary step to emphasise the urgent need for the compensation review to be completed,” the union said, and indicated that it remained open to continued dialogue.

Two days after the Jamaica Observer reported the disappearance of 19-year-old Chismar “CJ” Josephs, he was reunited with his mother after being found safe and sound in Brown’s Town, St Ann, more than 45 miles from his rural St Andrew home. On January 2 when the Observer published CJ’s story he had been missing for eight days as his mother, Esteleta Cunningham, had last seen him about 11:30 pm on Christmas Day at a shop in their small Lacey district near Cavaliers, Stony Hill, St Andrew. The mother had been extremely worried for her son as he is schizophrenic. Cunningham had told the Observer that due to his condition, CJ had wandered off before and would be gone for two/three days at a time — but never for as long as eight days. However, her fears were allayed on Tuesday when she received a call from Caroline Needham, the Good Samaritan who had been caring for CJ since he reached out to her for assistance, three days after Christmas Day — the very day he was reported missing. Cunningham could not contain her joy as she heaped praises on God and Needham for helping her to locate her son. She also thanked the Observer for its role in reuniting her with her son. The grateful mother said that when Needham contacted her on Tuesday to let her know her son was safe, she asked to speak to CJ on the woman’s phone. According to Cunningham, when she heard CJ said “Mummy” she was beside herself with elation. She said she asked her son what he was doing so far from home and he said he had lost his way. But the expectation of seeing CJ again was delayed on Tuesday as she had difficulties getting transportation to St Ann. She said a taxi man was charging her $20,000 for her transit, which she could not afford. She eventually secured transportation via the help of people from her community and the reunion happened some time after 6:00 pm on Wednesday. It was a teary-eyed, yet joyous affair as Cunningham tightly embraced her son — nine days after she last saw him and two days before his birthday on January 5. Needham, who stayed with CJ until his mother arrived, told the Observer that she immediately took him under her care after he approached her saying that he was weak and hungry She said she bought him a box of food and a cup of tea, and continued to care for him in the ensuing days, also providing him with clothing and toiletries. Needham said while CJ was mainly staying on the street by a market, she also took him home on three occasions so that he could have a shower. The 59-year-old Needham said she cared for CJ and protected him as if he was her grandson. She even told people that he was her grandson to ensure that he would not be harmed. “Him drop in good hands,” said Needham as she told the Observer that she quickly realised that “him head go and come”. According to Needham, she quickly grew fond of CJ and was prepared to take him in. She was, however, discouraged from doing so by people she confided in, who reasoned that she did not know his background or his tendencies. Needham noted, however, that she was overjoyed when someone informed her on Tuesday that they had seen the Observer story on CJ. She said she immediately bought a copy of the paper and retrieved the number the family had asked the public to call. CJ’s mother said she is extremely grateful to Needham who did not hesitate to continue to care for him for another day as she sorted out her transportation issues. Needham had taken CJ to Brown’s Town Police Station to await his mother’s arrival on Tuesday. “That lady is a blessing. She was sent from God,” Cunningham said, saying she wishes she could repay her for her very kind gesture. Cunningham said she would now take her son to his doctor so that he can resume taking his medication. She also called on the Government to provide her with support for her son, noting that she had reached out for help before but was unsuccessful.

Tips notifying the authorities of the activities of players in the lethal lottery scamming industry were close to 40 per cent of all crimes reported to Jamaica’s first dedicated anti-corruption and organised crime hotline last year. The tip line, which was launched December 2022 by the Major Organized Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA) and Crime Stop Jamaica, provides an avenue for people to report fraud, embezzlement, bribery, government kickbacks, procurement breaches, and nepotism as well as organised criminal activity. Rewards for information leading to successful operations and arrests range from $10,000 to $1 million. “Interesting trends have emerged, which may suggest a change in the attitudes of younger Jamaicans towards whistle-blowing and assisting law enforcement,” director of communications at MOCA Major Basil Jarrett said in mining the data. “We have discovered some interesting trends which seem to suggest that younger persons are more comfortable and more willing to share information about crimes or other similar activities that they are aware of,” Major Jarrett told the Jamaica Observer on Thursday. According to Jarrett, the vast majority of tips coming to the anonymous tip line have come through the agency’s social media pages, with the bulk of reports coming via Instagram. He said Instagram, which is mainly used by younger people, particularly millennials, is more popular as a tip-reporting medium, as opposed to Facebook which caters mostly to an older demographic. This, he contended, “possibly signals a significant departure from traditional norms of silence and reluctance to report crimes, which may be prevalent among older generations”. “The influx of reports coming through Instagram suggests a transformative trend in societal attitudes towards sharing information related to crimes and criminals, and holding perpetrators accountable,” Jarrett argued. “It has been sparked by this generation’s increased comfort with sharing information online and could possibly signify an emerging determination to confront criminality and create a more transparent and accountable society.” Jarrett said since the tip line was established it has received more than 250 clues. “Every tip that has come in has been responded to, whether by MOCA or one of its law enforcement partners, and nearly 40 per cent of the crimes reported to the tip line were associated with the deadly lottery scamming industry. The remaining 60 per cent encompass a diverse range of activities, including cyber and cyber-enabled crimes, fraud and other financial misconducts,” he told the Observer. MOCA created 888-MOCA-TIP as a means of allowing citizens to collaborate with law enforcement officials and increase community engagement in combating corruption and organised crime. The tip line is operated by Crime Stop, an entity which has never had a source revealed in its entire 34-year history, Jarrett emphasised. .

MAY PEN, Clarendon — A 22-year-old soldier whose romantic partner’s 14-year-old was brutally beaten by a mob of mostly females has condemned those who left the child with a limp, injuries to her head and body, as well as memory loss. He also denies cheating on the child’s mother — an allegation that is said to have sparked the attack. But the child’s distraught and angry mother, Tandeka Simms, has refused to take his calls as she focuses on getting help and justice for her child. Three female minors and three women have been taken into custody in connection with the beating meted out to the teenager on December 30. The soldier, who asked not to be named in this article, said he knew the people who beat the child and labelled them as troublemakers who have been making his life hell. He said it all started when he tried to help a resident of the Havannah Heights community — a young woman who had a baby and ran away. He found her while on an operation and took her back to her home, he said. “So I started to help with the baby, which is not mine. I tell my lady now say them people here a problem because they make problem with every woman who me ever talk to since that,” he told the Jamaica Observer. “I wasn’t in a relationship with any of them. The two big woman who beat up my stepdaughter are my friends. I have two friends who used to date them, so I know them by association. I also have an ex who has been posting my pictures on TikTok and she screenshot the pictures and that open another can of worms,” he added. He said, on December 30, when he heard that the teenager had been beaten, he confronted the women and they gave him one version of events, but the video that later emerged showed a different story. “I realise that they are telling me lies, pure lies dem a tell. I tell them say that’s foolishness. If you see two girls a go fight they should part them. As big women they have no right to go there and do the lady child like that. Dem a troublemakers, they just walk round and make trouble. Me and dem no inna nothing. Me no know what they have in them head till them start act out,” he bemoaned. He said the attack on his partner’s child has left him distraught and he wants to be there to provide support for them both, but her mother refuses to take his calls. “She block me on everything and if I call her on private number, by the time she realise say a me she get upset and hang up her phone,” he said. Simms appears to have closed the door on their relationship. “His co-workers reached out to me, but I don’t want to talk to him; him can even forget say him know me,” she said resolutely on Wednesday. Her focus now is getting her 14-year-old healthy and minimising the psychological trauma the experience has caused her and her children. She said her 10-year-old daughter has been left scared by the attack on her sibling. “Right now I don’t have no feeling for myself, me just a focus on my daughter and all the trauma that she is going through. She’s acting like she’s okay, but I know my daughter,” she said. Simms is plagued by images of the vicious attack, plastered on social media in now-viral videos, that her child endured. “When I see the part of the video when she’s on the floor and everybody is stepping on her that’s what keep on playing in my head. Every time I close my eyes to sleep that’s all I keep seeing. Also, when I went to the hospital she scream out and say, ‘Mommy, please don’t let me die!’ And even when she was on her way to the hospital she kept saying, ‘Unnu please no mek me dead’,” said the distressed mother. Even though six individuals — three teenagers, two women in their 20s, and a 52-year-old — are now in custody, it has done little to ease her anguish. “I don’t even know how to feel because nothing that happen will ever change [what the child endured] or take that out of my head,” Simms said. She is particularly angry that those who beat her child appear to have no remorse. In one of the videos on social media, she said, some of them could be heard saying even if they were taken into custody they would be released on bail. It pains her, she said, to know that some of the women who mercilessly beat her child are themselves mothers. “The unnecessary lies and the story they are pushing saying that my child was fighting over man; nothing like that. They are making it seem like what they did is right. Those big people don’t know wrong from right! In their case a pickney having pickney these days, so they grow them wrong and the cycle continues. There’s no way I could ever stand up and watch other people beating a child almost lifeless and not help them,” Simms raged. She said she is hurt that none of the soldier’s relatives have reached out to her, but she is heartened by the support that has come from unexpected quarters. “People who I haven’t spoken to from school days have reached out to me. Other community members are cut up about it. No matter who the person be, no matter how you hate somebody and you see that video you have to feel cut up about it. I didn’t know my daughter was so loved. My family and friends, the councillor and the MP reach out to me. Kaylan’s [who was also savagely beaten by a number of women a few years ago] mother reached out to me.

In a rare show of unity on Wednesday, leaders of both major political parties pledged to work together to stamp out the bane of violence in Jamaica and achieve the peace citizens desire. Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who leads the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), and Mark Golding, president of the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP), used the fourth staging of the Annual National Day of Prayer, held under the theme ‘Heal the Family, Heal the Nation’, to demonstrate this new alliance. Both men, who were slated to deliver scripture readings during the third session of the ceremony held at Power of Faith Ministries International headquarters in Portmore, St Catherine, spoke on the vexed issue of violence and drove home the need for a unified front to tackle the nagging problem. Just before delving into his scripture reading, Golding pointed out that the ceremony itself serves as a means of encouraging unity among the leaders, which is required to effectively deal with the scourge. “One of the beauties of this occasion is the fact that it is a non-political event where the prime minister and myself can come together, sit beside each other and feel the spirit of the Lord in this place, in this holy sanctuary. And this is what the people of Jamaica want to see, they want to see us coming together in unity so that we can collectively face all the challenges of the nation and overcome them for the benefit of this generation and generations to come,” he said. Holness, after returning to the lectern to give extended remarks, said he was happy that Golding highlighted the unity the occasion affords between them “because sometimes it can appear as if we are divided and I firmly believe that in all our hearts, we want the same thing — we all want peace in our country. We all want to be able to live in some form of comfort.” The prime minister stressed that the country’s leaders have to deal with the issue of reducing violence “in a deliberate way, in a non-political way. It is something that we have to join together to treat with, because society is in conflict”. “We have personal conflicts, we have conflicts at the workplace, conflicts in the community. When we analyse the murder statistics you know what we find? Gang murders have gone down, [and] interpersonal crime resulting in murder is going up. It tells a story that personal conflict is resulting in the violent loss of life. So we have to, as a government, as a people — JLP and PNP, we’re going to have to join together to deal with this issue of violence,” he said, adding that this joint effort needs to involve the church. Solidifying the leaders’ gesture of unity was an exercise in which they participated led by chair of the Jamaica Umbrella Group of Churches, Rev Dr Elaine McCarthy, during which three generations of a family poured sand from small jars into a larger jar which was then presented to Holness and Golding. Both men then held the jar aloft together. “In their hands are the responsibility of the nation. They are entrusted to be good stewards of his nation, to lead and to direct under the direction of the Lord Jesus Christ,” Rev Dr McCarthy said, explaining that the container symbolises the unity and the oneness required in Jamaica. The event was staged by the Jamaica Umbrella Group of Churches in partnership with Power of Faith Ministries.

FALMOUTH, Trelawny — The Trelawny police were, up to late Tuesday afternoon, questioning Sylvia Montaque Brown in connection with the gruesome killing of her husband, 59-year-old fisherman David Brown, whose body was discovered near their Wakefield home on Saturday morning. Accompanied by her attorney, she was taken into the custody of the Falmouth police at 10:00 am on Tuesday. Cops had given her until noon to turn herself in. Before walking into the police station Montaque Brown had not been seen in public since her husband’s body was discovered. Cops initially named her a person of interest but upgraded her to a suspect on Monday, the same day her brother, 60-year-old gardener Lester “Judge” Montague, was charged with murder in connection with the killing. On Saturday, Brown’s lifeless, bludgeoned, blood-drenched body was found in bushes close to the matrimonial home he and his wife shared. His body, which had multiple wounds, was wrapped in a white bed sheet. It was discovered on a sheet of zinc close to the couple’s house. Commander of the Trelawny Police Division, Deputy Superintendent of Police Winston Milton said the Browns were engaged in a domestic dispute on Friday night; threats were allegedly made during the fracas and Montaque Brown reported the incident to the police. Cops visited the couple’s home in an effort to quell the disturbance. However, sometime after 7:00 Saturday morning the police were again contacted by residents who reportedly heard a commotion coming from the couple’s house. Neighbours said the Browns frequently fought.

A cloud of suspicion is hanging over the leadership of a prominent Corporate Area high school because of its handling of allegations of sexual assault of a minor on the grounds of the institution by a male member of staff. The staff member, who is supposedly in his 50s, is accused of carrying out the act while the little girl was awaiting a family member several months ago. The Jamaica Observer was reliably informed that the man was dismissed by the principal shortly after the incident was reported, but was subsequently rehired. Following a report to the police, however, the alleged perpetrator was nabbed while at a funeral in October last year. The Observer was told that the man was to face questioning in relation to the allegations. The Observer was, however, stonewalled by the St Andrew Central police and the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse when the newspaper sought to verify the status of those investigations on Tuesday. In the meantime, a well-placed source told the Observer that several members of staff are displeased with the approach of the principal to the incident which, they allege, was not reported to the education ministry by him. Questions are also being raised over his decision to rehire the accused individual, despite the nature of the allegations. The Observer was told that there are other reports of sexual harassment by the individual in question, which have not been addressed by the school. Attempts by the Observer to contact the principal of the school on Tuesday were unsuccessful. An education ministry official, responding to questions from the Observer, promised to verify whether any report on the matter was placed with the ministry. – Alicia Dunkley-Willis

Child rights group Hear The Children’s Cry has opened 2024 with a repeat of its call for Prime Minister Andrew Holness to order a National Child Audit, with particular attention to underserved and remote communities. “We need to have an accurate and up-to-date assessment of the conditions under which our most vulnerable citizens, our children, are currently living – with the aim to correct the urgent needs for improvement,” said Hear The Children’s Cry founder Betty-Ann Blaine on Tuesday in a release titled ‘Declare 2024 a Year for our Children’. “We also encourage the Government to provide adequate resources to support family life, and to ensure that the Government budget for this is commensurate with the needs to be met. “It is also critical for the Government to ensure that the laws for the protection of children are enforced, and that those who abuse, brutalise, and murder Jamaican youngsters do not walk free as has happened so many times in the past,” added Blaine. She said Hear The Children’s Cry is challenging Jamaicans in every sector, every parish and every community, not only to declare 2024 a year for our children but also to take decisive action to make child safety an actual reality in this country. “When we look at the atrocities meted out to Jamaican children over the past 12 months we cannot tolerate another year like 2023. “Children have been abused physically and sexually, they have been intentionally or carelessly murdered, they have died by stray bullets from adult warfare, they have been chopped to death in family feuds, burned to death in home fires and killed by careless or drunken drivers. In many cases they have been neglected or abused at home. In other cases, children have been lured away from safety, violated and murdered, and most of their killers still walk the land with impunity,” said Blaine. “Our children are crying out to us for help. We can and we must help them. Every Jamaican can play a part, as we dedicate 2024 as a year in which our children can be protected. We are inviting leaders and members of the following groups to get actively involved in promoting child safety in Jamaica,” added Blaine. According to the children’s rights activist, in addition to the role of the Government, Hear The Children’s Cry is urging the private sector to support the effort to make 2024 a better year for Jamaica’s children with social media and other outreaches, especially geared to public awareness about child rights and child safety. “Security companies and others who have teams regularly on the road are also being asked to play a part in making 2024 a year for our children, by asking their drivers to pay special attention to children using the road. They can assist by either taking direct action or calling for help if a child is seen to be in danger, or if he or she seems to be experiencing difficulty which seems unusual,” said Blaine. She argued that as the main protectors of our children, parents need to play a bigger role in their education by keeping in close touch with the schools their children attend, including getting to know their teachers and guidance counsellors. “Parents can also enhance the safety of their children by getting to know their neighbours and forming active community groups to watch out for youngsters in their neighbourhood. They might even consider setting up parent watch groups in their areas,” added Blaine. Hear The Children’s Cry is also urging older Jamaicans who are no longer working full-time or otherwise, to encourage neighbours who are young parents and offer advice where needed and wanted, about child safety and other challenges. “All of us as citizens are being called upon to be the eyes and ears for our children. This can include looking out for children in our communities and in all public spaces, calling the police if we see a child in trouble, by mentoring youngsters and providing other support through the school system. “Each one of us can play a meaningful part in keeping Jamaica’s children safe, and building the foundation for a better, safer and more caring future for them,” declared Blaine.

IT appears the dispute between Jamaica Police Federation and the constabulary’s high command over the long-standing issue of overtime pay has now been settled as Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson confirmed on Tuesday that the cops have been paid what they were owed. In an upbeat presentation at his annual devotion exercise streamed on Jamaica Constabulary Force’s YouTube channel, Anderson said that during 2023, “We got things done that couldn’t be done, haven’t been done. “We put in place, finally, an overtime system. Not perfect, but people have been paid for the time that they work. It’s something that has been spoken about for a long time — we got that done,” he said. A heated battle concerning overtime pay for rank and file members of Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) came to a head when the federation sued the Government, claiming that its members were owed billions of dollars in outstanding payments. In ruling on the matter in June 2022 the court ordered that by March 31, 2023 the Government should implement a system to capture overtime hours by members of the JCF. In May 2023, at the police federation’s annual conference in Trelawny, Anderson had said the new Workforce Management Solution system to calculate overtime payment was being installed, and promised that members would be paid what is owed to them, noting that “if you earn it, you must get it”. But two months after that promise, payments had still not been made, which prompted the Opposition in a statement to call for the Government and the JCF to honour the court’s order to pay overtime — for April through June — in July’s salary. The Opposition further warned that failure to do so would risk demoralising the police force, which is essential to ensuring the safety and security of the nation. Also, in a statement at that time, Police Federation Chairman Corporal Rohan James expressed disappointment in the high command’s failure to facilitate overtime payments for rank and file police personnel, despite the Government’s approval of a system to calculate and disburse these payments. “Such actions undermine the morale and motivation of our hard-working officers who tirelessly serve to protect our communities,” he said. Later that month, Corporal James was interdicted over remarks he made at a funeral service for a slain cop. Following a probe, the police commissioner directed that disciplinary action be taken against James at a Court of Enquiry. James was also interdicted from duty, with immediate effect, at three quarters of his salary. Speaking at the thanksgiving service for the life of slain Constable Damien Blair at Old Harbour New Testament Church of God in St Catherine on July 15, 2023, James reportedly again chided the police high command for failing to make overtime payments to cops. “Mark my word, and I also want to say to the high command and our commissioner, ‘God help you if the membership is not paid their overtime this month,’ ” James was quoted as saying, adding that the federation would not be “muzzled, intimidated, nor bamboozled”. However, the federation announced in a release in November that James had resumed his duties as chairman of the federation with immediate effect, following a Supreme Court ruling.

WITH millions figuratively down the drain from paying National Water Commission (NWC) sewerage costs, despite not being connected to its system, and simultaneously juggling payments for private sewerage, the strata committee of Queens Court Apartments in the Corporate Area says it is desperately awaiting a decision from the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) on its request for a reprieve. A representative of the committee who contacted the Jamaica Observer said the woes began in 2020 following the completion of works on the NWC’s upgraded sewer line on Constant Spring Road in St Andrew. “They finished the sewer line on Constant Spring Road in 2020; they sent us a notice letter in July of 2020 and told everybody they were giving us five months to prepare ourselves to connect. When we saw our bills going up we didn’t realise that we were being charged for sewerage, we just saw that the bills were extremely high. So, in November of 2020, we queried the bill and realised that the sewerage charges had been added. They were charging us even before time. It was $1 million between June and December,” the representative who asked not to be named told the Observer. She said efforts by the owners of the complex to connect to the NWC’s upgraded sewer main on Constant Spring Road, where they are located, have been thwarted by the topography; a fact to which the commission has been unsympathetic. The NWC is the primary provider of potable water and sewerage services in Jamaica. The OUR regulates the water and sewerage sector. Under Section 12 of the National Water Commission Act, where the commission constructs, extends or operates any sewerage system, the NWC may require the owner of any premises within the service area to be connected to the sewerage system. The commission is required to provide the owner with written notice of this requirement. The occupier will be required to apply to be connected to the system within three months of the receipt of the notification. Where the owner of the premises fails to comply with the notice, the commission reserves the right to cause the premises to be connected to the sewerage system, and the owner of the premises will be liable for all costs associated with the connection. Furthermore, the commission reserves the right to apply sewerage charges to any account once the premises is within 100 yards or 91.4 metres of the sewerage system, whether or not the premises is connected to the system. “We have had challenges connecting with the sewerage system because our land slopes negatively. The original design of the land is that the sewerage is at the back of the property. And since it is negatively sloped away from the sewerage line it would mean that we would have to construct lift station plus get pump/s to get the sewage up,” the individual explained. She said in discovering that it would cost some $5 million to connect, plus other costs in the region of $1 million, the strata’s management wrote to the NWC asking for its guidance. “They did an engineer’s surveyor’s report which did show that we are faced with adverse gradient and they had written us by e-mail telling us that we will not be charged because we cannot connect due to adverse gradient. They had taken off about three months of the sewerage and then after that we got another letter saying that the legal department advised that NWC did not give us sound instructions, so we would still have to connect,” she claimed. “We wrote them back and we said to them, ‘we don’t have that resource to do so because we didn’t expect that it would a difficult connection’. The majority of the properties are supposed to be gravity-fed system, meaning you don’t need a pump system to be able to connect easily, but that’s not our situation and because it requires such high capital we would have to have savings for that, we would have to be able to come together and get that resource together. We would want them to use their discretion and give us a waiver and give us some time to do this,” the representative said. She said the apartment’s management, having sought the intervention of the offices of the Public Defender and the Prime Minister, is now at its wits’ end as it awaits the outcome of an appeal to the OUR. “They have had this matter since September and we are waiting for a verdict. What we have asked for is time to accumulate the funds because it is a lot of money. We have spent over $3 million to date and we have not been able to connect and use of the sewerage [system], plus we have to pay separately for private sewerage to remove our sewage,” the individual said. “If we continue like this we will never be able to connect because we don’t have the resources to connect. We have a lot of pensioners; it is a very old scheme — from 1970 — and we have elderly persons here and we have had to move the maintenance to over 100 per cent to facilitate the sewerage charges and still we are not able to cope,” she explained. She said, while the OUR deliberates, the owners are about to buckle beneath the financial load of two costs for sewerage. “They say it is a technical situation but while we are waiting it’s really hard for us to be finding money each time. We have to be paying two sewerage and that’s the stress of it; it is difficult now, it is like three years of us coping and we are still not hearing anything,” she said.

The Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) has served enforcement and warning notices on the developer of a housing complex at 5 Graham Heights, St Andrew, after consistent complaints from neighbours about an overflow of sewage water onto the public road that is posing a public health risk. For more than a year residents, as well as pedestrians, have been subjected to the health risk, as well as the stench of the sewage water flowing from the Valhalla complex which comprises apartments and townhouses. “Except for about two days over the just-ended holidays the water has been running from the complex onto the street, making life for us uncomfortable,” one resident told the Jamaica Observer on Monday. Another resident noted that many people walking to work each morning are forced to jump over the stream of sewage water as it crosses the road from the complex and runs about 50 metres down to a culvert. “It has become so bad now that just the other day I heard the people who walk up to work saying, ‘We reach in a s… house now’,” he said. “One guy slipped in it the other day and almost fell.” “I am now suffering the inconvenience of heat as I have to be closing my door and windows because of the stench,” he added. He also noted that the constant water flow has contributed to erosion of the heavily traversed road surface, leaving a large pothole that had to be patched recently as it was proving a hazard to motorists. Attempts by the Observer over the weekend to contact the developer were unsuccessful. A third resident said he had reported the problem to the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) in October 2022 and action was taken by the authority to have it corrected. “It stopped for a while, but there were intermittent instances of the water flowing onto the street again. However, last December the problem worsened and another report was made to NEPA,” the resident said. In response, NEPA said it sent an enforcement officer who again inspected the site and reported that, while the system was drawn by a cesspool truck about an hour before his arrival, an engineer would need to examine it and advise on a way forward that will facilitate ceasing the discharge permanently. But with the problem persisting, NRCA, on December 22, 2023, served the notices, citing the developer for “improper operation of a treatment plant for the discharge of sewage effluent” and saying that “the discharge of improperly treated sewage effluent is an unacceptable risk to public health and natural resources in the area as it contains pathogens that may cause bacterial diseases upon contact by members of the public”. The authority also instructed the developer to immediately cease all operations of the treatment plant for the discharge of sewage effluent; submit to the authority a remediation plan to adequately address the contamination of the area within seven days of the effective date of the notice; and undertake remediation of the area, based on the approved plan, to the satisfaction of the authority within the timelines approved in the remediation plan. Additionally, NRCA told the developer to “apply for licences for the reconstruction/alteration of the sewage treatment plant as well as the licences for the operation of the plant and discharge of treated effluent into the environment within 30 days” of the date of the notice.

THE disappearance of 19-year-old Chismar Josephs (CJ) from his Stony Hill, St Andrew, community without a trace last week Monday (Christmas Day) has left his mother in anguish, not knowing what has become of her child. It has now been eight days since Esteleta Cunningham last saw her son around 11:30 pm on Christmas Day, at a shop in the small Lacey District in Cavaliers, Stony Hill. What is even more worrying for the mother is that CJ suffers from the mental illness schizophrenia. “I was up there the night when him walk away [from the shop], but because I know he loves parties and one was keeping up the road, I said that is probably where he is going. I never knew I wouldn’t see him after that night up to this day. I didn’t see him come home that night. I ask everybody if they saw him, I checked at the party. Nobody saw him,” the distraught mother told the Jamaica Observer on Monday. Cunningham says that due to his condition CJ has wandered off before and will be gone for two/three days at a time — but never for this long. She said that ending 2023 with her son missing and entering the new year still with no sign of him has been harrowing for her. “It don’t feel good. It’s not a good year for me,” she said as her voice broke. “Mi nuh know weh him deh. Him never go away so long. The year didn’t end good for me and the new year didn’t start good for me. Yes, I’m alive and I have some of my children with me but I don’t know what happened to CJ… I just dont know.” The distressed 42-year-old mother of seven is holding out hope that her son will return home in time to celebrate his 20th birthday on January 5. “I am just hoping and praying for the best,” she said, though noting she is fearful as to what could have happened to him. “Where him coulda gone? He was doing alright because I try to ensure he is on his medication,” she said, nothing that CJ was medicated at the time of his disappearance. Cunningham, who is a caregiver, said her son has not had the easiest life growing up, having lost sight in his left eye when he was six years old after a little boy caused a nail to enter his eye and cause damage. CJ also lost his father when he was nine, then he dropped out of school when he was 14 years old, which his mother claims was due to a misunderstanding. He was attending Oberlin High School at the time. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 15 years old. Cunningham said that around the time CJ was diagnosed she knew something was wrong as “him just start to move different”. She said she took him to University Hospital of the West Indies where his illness was identified. She said he has also been admitted at Bellevue Hospital from time to time, noting that he has been “on and off” in his behaviour. She, however, believes that before her son went missing he was coping, only recalling two incidents when he reacted violently towards her in the initial stages of his illness. She had reprimanded him and he had attempted to hit her. At another time he succeeded in hitting her in the eye. But Cunningham insists that her son is not usually violent in nature and that he doesn’t try to hurt anyone in his community. CJ, who is unemployed, would often spend his days at home or walking up the road to the district and then returning home. Sometimes he would go further and end up in Half-Way-Tree. His mother says, however, that she would often caution him about venturing too far away from home. People would normally see him roaming and report sightings to his mother, but on the day he went missing nobody spotted him after that fateful night. Cunningham says she reported him missing to the police on Thursday who told her that she has to play her part too in finding him. “I guess my part is to drive around and look but I don’t know where to start from. I’m just wondering which direction he could’ve turned, which part him go,” she said with bewilderment, noting that family members and friends have gone out to Half-Way-Tree and downtown Kingston looking for him, but they came up empty-handed. “I’m planning to see if I can go today but I don’t know where to go — and then me alone can’t look for him. I don’t know which direction to turn; that’s why I would like this story to be put out there so that if anybody sees him they can inform us or the police,” she said. Cunningham, who has children ranging from ages three to 23 years old, said CJ’s siblings are concerned about him, with his six-year-old brother surmising that “them kidnap CJ”. The mother and other family members are pleading with the public to contact (876) 217-8671 or the nearest police station if they have any information about CJ’s whereabouts.

A new year plush with possibilities is the message for 2024, with Jamaica’s governor general, prime minister and leader of the Opposition looking towards 2024 with hope. In his new year’s message for today, Governor General Sir Patrick Allen said the new year marks not just the beginning of another year, but also the dawn of a new chapter in our nation’s history, “a chapter which we will write together with commitment, compassion, courage and pride”. “The past year has been a journey with its share of challenges. We faced the shadows of crime, violence, road accidents and other criminal activities which tested the resilience of our communities. But I hasten to remind you that darkness is only a precursor to dawn,” Allen said. He said this year Jamaicans must commit ourselves to being the light that dispels darkness; to be steadfast in our resolve to experience a brighter future; and to be decisive in our actions. “The future of our nation has to be firmly built on the bonds of trust, responsibility and accountability towards each other,” Allen said. “In this new year, let us embrace the role of being our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, let us foster a culture where we do not just look out only for ourselves, but also look out for our neighbours, friends, and even strangers.” He said our collective welfare hinges on our individual actions, “so let us choose empathy, kindness, understanding and rectitude as our guiding principles”. Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition Mark Golding said while the challenges of the past year tested the resilience of our people, the new year brings with it a renewed sense of possibility. “It is a time for reflection, and also an opportunity to commit to positive change in our own lives and in the life of our beloved Jamaica. It is clear to me that overcoming our serious challenges requires a collaborative approach that is energised by a renewed spirit of national unity. History demands that we now cast aside the divisive and selfish attitudes of the past which are preventing us from harnessing this capacity to solving the major issues that are holding us back.” Golding pointed to challenges experienced by Jamaicans in 2023 — the increases of the cost of living “driven by higher food prices that have made everyday survival that much harder”; and the “demoralising scourge of violent crime which has continued to sap our national spirit, and poses significant obstacles for the development of our nation”. He said our talents and creativity have allowed us to excel to greatness in many areas of life and made Brand Jamaica internationally recognised and admired. And, “yet we continue to lag behind when it comes to building a strong, diversified and inclusive economy that is internationally competitive and resilient and creates opportunities for all our people to pursue their dreams of a better life, right here at home in the land of our birth.” He said he is committed to working constructively and in good faith with all well-thinking Jamaicans, “regardless of political affiliation or other considerations that have too-long divided us, towards finding the ways and means to secure a better future for our country”. “Our proud history of overcoming oppression and adversity is a testament to our ability to overcome challenges and emerge stronger. Now, more than ever, we must harness that strength to address the pressing issues that lie before us. I am confident that, working together, we can achieve progress in overcoming the formidable obstacles to the Jamaica we long to see,” Golding charged. “Let us build common ground to create a society that values each and every Jamaican, regardless of background, wealth or any other factors. As we enter 2024, let this new year be a canvas on which we paint a beautiful vision of a Jamaica where every citizen can realise their full potential. It can be achieved if we commit ourselves to this great and noble task in a spirit on oneness in our shared destiny.” For his part, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said God has given us the opportunity to see the sunrise on a new year, and we should rejoice with gratitude and embrace the 2024 canvas of possibilities, “to paint new and better pictures for our future with vibrant colours of our Jamaican creativity, dreams and aspirations, or complete the masterpieces we have started with optimism and determination”. Pointing to some of the achievements of the Government in 2023, including on the crime and economic fronts, Holness said we will continue to build out the plan to sustainably secure Jamaica. He pointed to the new Firearms Act, Bail Act, and amendments to the Offences Against the Person Act to create realistic deterrent penalties, along with use of the anti-gang law, and improved intelligence and policing operations which are having strong impact on reducing crime overall. “In 2024, your Government will begin the build-out of a comprehensive social services response to violence,” he promised. “In 2024 my Administration will turn the machinery and resources of Government to focus on reducing violence, building our socio-emotional intelligence and human capital, strengthening our families, and promoting peace in our land.” He said Jamaica has been able to undertake transformational projects and recover strongly from the pandemic, because his Administration has been good stewards of the economy. “This year the economic focus will be on increasing economic growth by increasing productivity,” Holness said. “I urge Jamaicans not to undervalue the importance of a strongly performing economy. I want to assure that the Government I lead is committed to ensuring that the benefits of a growing economy reach the people in a fair and just way. So, in 2024, we will further expand economic activity and make the necessary investments in human capital and security to support economic expansion. This will give us the ability to do more for you in 2024.” All three committed to making Jamaica a nation at peace, in harmony, and with social and

WITH several people having lost their lives because of vehicular collisions involving units parked on the side of the road, sometimes in unlit areas and without reflectors, blame is being placed squarely at the feet of the police — and the police say Jamaicans have a right to be concerned. Opposition spokesperson on transport Mikael Phillips blames ineffectiveness in enforcing the law, specifically pertaining to vehicles being parked in a manner which poses a danger to motorists. “Trucks and other vehicles being parked on the road is a long-standing issue and we have seen from time to time people meeting in accidents, some losing their lives, because of vehicles being parked in dark areas or just broken down and left for days,” Phillips told the Jamaica Observer. “This comes back to the lack of enforcement by the authorities, and by the police especially.” He pointed out that the Road Traffic Act speaks to these issues, stressing that “[I]f we have laws and we don’t have enforcement, then what we’re going to see are issues like this, like the recent one on Mandela Highway where a young lady lost her life…” Phillips was referring to a multi-vehicle crash two weeks ago which claimed the life of 23-year-old Shadedra Williams. According to the police, about 5:45 am, Williams was a passenger in a Mercedes Benz SUV travelling on the highway heading to St Catherine when the vehicle collided with a parked truck. As a result of the collision, the SUV careened and crashed into a Suzuki Vitara motor car that was travelling in the same direction. Williams suffered serious injuries and was pronounced dead at hospital. “So it comes down to an issue of enforcement, just the police, the authorities being ignorant of the law; and it has become a part of our culture. But there needs to be a change in how it is in our own culture how we deal with issues like this, especially for the police force itself,” Phillips said. He argued that in other jurisdictions, Jamaicans abide by the laws that are set there, and should do the same in their own country. “Even if it is that the vehicle cannot be moved immediately, there ought to be some signal, reflectors out there to show that there is a vehicle that has been broken down on the side of the road. So it comes down to enforcement and this is something that needs to be enforced, as a matter of urgency,” he said. Under the new Road Traffic Act, a motorist can be fined $6,000 for parking in a no-parking area and attracts three demerit points. For leaving/abandoning a motor vehicle on the road causing obstruction, the fine is $5,000; while the penalty for having no reflectors is a $5,000 fine and two demerit points. But, according to vice-chairman of the National Road Safety Council Dr Lucien Jones, as long as the vehicles have reflectors and the parking isn’t in an area not allowed for parking, then there is not much that can be done about that situation. “They [drivers] are, [however], liable for prosecution if the truck is parked on the road with no reflectors,” Dr Jones said. “The general point is that we ought to do everything possible to prevent vehicles crashing into unlit parked vehicles,” he said, pointing out that the police are responsible for enforcing all aspects of the Road Traffic Act. There has also been public outcry about the situation, including from well-known figures. This includes Seprod Group CEO Richard Pandohie. In a recent social media post, Pandohie shared a picture of a container parked on the side of a dark street with the message, “40ft container parked at an apartment development on a well used road in a residential community with no reflector lights. @JamaicaConstab what should citizens do when they see this? So many unnecessary accidents on our roads because of stupid behaviour/actions.” Users commented under the post mainly agreeing with Pandohie’s sentiments, with one individual stating that elsewhere in the world these vehicles are impounded and the owner ticketed. “In Jamaica it is a free-for-all. They cause accidents and, even worse, deaths, with no one being held accountable,” the user noted. Another user said the container should not be parked on the road, similarly for construction vehicles and equipment. “I called the police about something similar and this trailer was parked in the road near to the stop sign,” the user recalled. “It’s a huge risk seen many times across the roadways. Trucks have inadequate reflectors and can be a big hazard on the highway. Recall the tragic staff bus accident of hotel workers heading home in Ocho Rios colliding with a parked truck with the back sticking out on the road,” another commenter lamented. The user was referring to the crash on the north coast highway in Rio Bueno, Trelawny, in November 2022, where two male Excellence Oyster Bay hotel employees died after the Toyota Coaster bus that was transporting workers to the hotel slammed into a truck parked on the soft shoulder. When the concerns were raised with head of the Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Gary McKenzie, he told the Observer that Jamaicans have a right to be concerned “when breaches of any sort are seen, and it appears that enforcement is not being done”. “The responsibility to treat with parking violations includes the police, the municipal authority and the Transport Authority [public passenger and commercial vehicles]. Whilst I know that multiple prosecutions are done weekly, all entities may have to redouble their efforts in working together to reduce/alleviate the problem. This is a matter that the entities are expected to pursue jointly, going forward,” he said. While not stating how many motorists have been sanctioned for parking violations, ACP McKenzie explained that vehicles, to include trucks, are required to park in areas that are designated for such activity. “Where there are no designated

JUSTICE Minister Delroy Chuck is pushing to have a political referee in place by the end of January, and if he has his way, the ref will be able to do more than just blow a whistle at people who breach the Political Code of Conduct. Jamaica has been without a referee for the political process since the Office of the Political Ombudsman was shuttered in November 2022. At that time the Government had indicated that the role of the political ombudsman would be taken over by the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ). But with the country about to enter a political campaign for the next local government election, which is constitutionally due by the end of February 2024, the calls for a political ombudsman to be in place to monitor activities on the campaign trail have grown louder. Late last week Chuck told the Jamaica Observer that he is trying to fast-track the legislation while ensuring that it is stronger than what existed in the past where the political ombudsman had no power to punish those who broke the rules. “The Political Ombudsman Act, we want to adjust it to say that its functions will be carried out by the Electoral Commission, firstly and secondly, we just want to say that there will be enforcement where penalties can be imposed from apology to suspension and…with the Electoral Commission [having even more power]. “So the candidates, if they misbehave and they don’t apologise, or if the misbehaviour is so egregious, the Electoral Commission could in fact stop them from continuing to run,” said Chuck. “The truth of the matter is that we have had quite a number of discussions and we are looking at how other jurisdictions ensure that where there is misconduct [punishment] can be enforced by the Electoral Commission with some penalties,” added Chuck. He said the proposal now is that only the four selected members of the ECJ would enforce the Political Code of Conduct in a similar fashion to how they operate with campaign financing, with the chairman casting the deciding vote if there is a tie. This would mean that the representatives of the two major political parties, who are members of the ECJ, would not have any role in enforcing the rules. “I have been having many meetings, virtually with the chairman and other members of the Electoral Commission, and they have been working with me and advising my legal team as to how it could operate. “A member of the committee shared with us a number of overseas legislation, in particular the penalties that would be enforced for misconduct of candidates or even MPs [Members of Parliament]. So we have a lot of material going through,” added Chuck. He said he has met with two people who served for a long time in the Office of the Political Ombudsman and it is proposed that they be moved from where they are now seconded to the Houses of Parliament and work with the ECJ in its monitoring of breaches of the Political Code of Conduct. In January Chuck announced that a Cabinet submission was being prepared detailing how the functions of the political ombudsman will be subsumed into the ECJ. Since then, the legislation has not been taken to Parliament, but according to Chuck, that should be remedied shortly. “I had hoped that we would have completed it by now, but I am hoping that early in the new year we can take the matter to Cabinet for Cabinet to sign off, and once this is done, soon after the new Act would be presented to Parliament. “I have told my team that I really would like to have this done in January. But in all sincerity, legislation is not done overnight, but this is of such importance [that] I have asked them to get this expedited so that in January we can have it passed in Parliament so that it is in operation hopefully by the end of January. It is my hope. I am not promising, because you know, we just have to try,” said Chuck. Recent issues on the political trail have prompted a number of organisations to call on the Government to restore the Office of the Political Ombudsman and not place its functions with the ECJ. The organisations include the electoral watchdog group Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE), which recently expressed concern that Jamaica is on the verge of entering a period of election campaigning without the benefit of having a specific person executing the functions of the political ombudsman. In a release, CAFFE said it believes that the Office of the Political Ombudsman during periods of electioneering performs functions which are of “vital importance to our endeavours to maintain stability and ethical standards in our political pronouncements and activities”. “CAFFE does not consider that it is prudent to submit to the Electoral Commission of Jamaica the ethical questions which are normally dealt with by the political ombudsman. Saddling the ECJ with this responsibility overlooks the reality that its membership includes politicians,” the release said. The Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC) also urged the Government to abort its stated intention to subsume the Office of the Political Ombudsman into the ECJ. “Instead, we call for the reinforcement of the Political Ombudsman (Interim) Act (2002) to give greater focus to the monitoring of political conduct by vesting greater power in the Office of the Political Ombudsman and the subsequent appointment of a suitably qualified official to fill this post,” the JCC said in a recent press release.

Sandra Montgomery is still hanging on to hope that she will find her motor car, which was stolen from its parked position at University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) in Papine, St Andrew, just over two months ago. But even as she yearns for the recovery of her property, Montgomery remains furious at the indifference with which security guards at the hospital’s main gate greeted her complaint of the theft on Friday, October 20. The fact, too, that the security guards repotedly did not follow the vehicle exit protocol established by the hospital has made matters worse. Montgomery told the Jamaica Observer that she had taken her mother to the Accident and Emergency Department at approximately 7:00 am on the day and had received a hospital vehicle pass from one of the security guards. “I parked my vehicle a few blocks, maybe five, six cars down from Accident and Emergency, so it wasn’t anywhere far out, and I spent the entire day in the hospital. When I approached where I had parked my vehicle about 7:30 in the evening, I didn’t see the vehicle,” she said. “I went to the security guard and I was explaining that I have the parking ticket and my vehicle is not where I parked it and he just casually brushed it off and say that is everyday these things happen here,” she told the Sunday Observer. Expressing disbelief, Montgomery said she queried how could it be possible for someone to exit the premises with her vehicle when she still had her vehicle pass. “The security told me that if somebody approached them and said they lose their parking ticket, which people do, they would just charge them $500 and they allow them to leave the compound,” Montgomery related. “What got me so annoyed was that they were acting so casual, like it’s nothing, and when I went and I spoke to another security lady on the compound she asked me why mi never come out of the hospital to check on my vehicle,” Montgomery said, unable to hide her frustration. She said that she called her daughter to pick her up and when they were leaving they decided to test the system by telling the security guard that her daughter did not have a hospital vehicle pass. The guard, Montgomery said, allowed them to leave without even checking to establish the ownership of the motor car. However, according to UHWI Public Relations Officer Nordia Francis-Williams, the hospital has a protocol in situations where drivers are trying to exit without the vehicle pass. “The security guard should first take the vehicle out of the line of traffic, politely ask the driver to check his or her vehicle properly, then proceed to ask for their vehicle documents and driver’s licence to verify that the person is the legitimate owner,” Francis-Williams told the Sunday Observer. “The security should then log the information in a log book, capturing name, TRN, vehicle owner, and other particulars, then the person should be given an opportunity to pay the $500 fine at the nearest cashier and after verification of payment the person can proceed thereafter to exit the hospital,” she explained. Francis-Williams said that if the driver refuses to produce his/her licence and vehicle documents, the security guards have been advised to call the police. She expressed disappointment at the manner in which the security guards responded to Montgomery, saying that they must always have a positive duty-of-care attitude towards clients. “The operations management team has spoken to the on-site management team for the security services provider to give the team some guidance on empathy for our clients, staff, and visitors that are exposed to such situations of vehicle theft,” Francis-Williams said. She also said that the hospital has implemented measures to address vehicle theft. They include increased security presence, strategic placement of barriers and chains in car parks, and heightened patrolling by both armed and unarmed personnel. “The engineering and maintenance team has started preparing the scope of work documentation to build a strong ICT infrastructure at the hospital to prepare to install high-quality surveillance cameras and to supply and install smart video solution systems at strategic locations,” she added. However, the measures appear not to be fully effective as on Friday when the Sunday Observer visited the hospital a woman told the newspaper that just last week a motor vehicle owned by a policeman was stolen from the compound. “A whole heap a foolishness a gwaan over there; is like the security dem a sleep,” she said, adding that motor vehicle theft is common at the hospital. A man, who said he recently took a sick relative to UHWI, told the Sunday Observer that he knows of instances of vehicle theft from the hospital. “I had to go there with my cousin, and although the guards gave me the parking ticket, I felt uneasy because I was there for a long time. I jus’ prayed that my car wasn’t stolen. I was lucky,” he said. The matter of whether the hospital has any liability was put to attorney-at-law Andria Whyte Walters. She told the Sunday Observer that it would be unlikely that Montgomery is successful in any claim in court against both the security company and the hospital. “Under the Occupiers Liability Act, unless there exists a special relationship there is no duty on the occupier to protect the goods from theft or damage by a third party,” said Whyte Walters, founder and principal of Whyte Walters Law. “I know that it sounds bad; you park your vehicle, you get a ticket, and you lock up and you go about your business and when you return either you notice the vehicle is crashed, dented or even worse, it is stolen. But the issue is, does the act of them giving you a ticket give rise to a special relationship,” she said. Whyte Walters referred to a 2015 Supreme Court case with similar facts (Lascelle Samms and Jillian

As the year 2023 comes to a close, it’s an opportunity for everyone (working adults and retirees) to reflect on goals met or unattained during the year. Importantly, it’s the right time to plan ahead. For those deadlines that weren’t met in 2023, I recommend a change of deadline, don’t change the goal. Begin 2024 correctly. If you haven’t done so before, now is a good time to have a competent financial advisor on board to assist in stimulating your financial journey. Don’t live with regrets. It’s important to live a balanced life as it helps to minimise regrets in retirement. Having a balanced life relates to one’s relationships, career, health, fitness, finances, and general well-being. A survey conducted among retirees by Allspring Global Investments revealed that most respondents regretted that “they did not start saving early enough”. As we approach a new year, let’s examine our saving and investment mindset. Some pre-retirees have already decided to retire later than the normal age of 65, others have chosen to undertake partial retirement, as they seek to supplement their retirement income with part-time job opportunities. All workers must begin saving for retirement early, as the future is uncertain. There are employees who may be forced into retirement early due to lay-offs, redundancies, or health issues. So, retirement planning is an important part of any financial plan. Contingencies are needed to counter life’s eventualities or setbacks. The Allspring survey showed that many people who started saving after age 40 were still not saving enough to compensate for the years of delay. Based on my observation and experience locally, my findings agree with the results of the survey. There is a reluctance of some employees to contribute the maximum required in their workplace pension plan. Some employees have got accustomed to the minimum contributions and have little wiggle room for an increase in pension contributions. Others have been inconsistent with the increased monthly contributions. In Jamaica, there is no mandatory automatic enrolment in workplace pensions, and saving early for retirement is not encouraged by some employers while some employees continue to ignore the significance of saving early for retirement. There is the notion by some employees that there is still time, but inflation eats away at salary increases that have not kept pace with inflation, making it difficult to “catch up” for time lost in saving for retirement. In a survey with retirees, longevity researchers at LongeviQuest, discovered three things that they regret the most. One thing is “worked too hard”. One retiree regretted that he didn’t try another career that would allow him to enjoy more time with his family. Another reason for regret is “not spending more time with their family”. Parents regret that they didn’t spend more time with their children. Parents may try very hard to ensure that the household income is provided, but some fail to achieve quality family time. The third reason for regret given by retirees is “not enough travel time”. Some retirees who experienced the joy of travelling late in life believe that they would enjoy the experience more if they were younger. This underscores the importance of living a balanced life. It’s good to work hard, but leisure and travel play a role in one’s well-being, especially if done with family. I recommend the making of a budget that covers spending for leisure, travel, and necessities as a requirement for effective financial planning. A 78-year-old was asked by the researchers if she were to choose between remodelling her kitchen and taking an excursion, what would be her decision? Her response was to take the trip. The longevity researchers are of the view that a positive state of mind is very important and they don’t allow their regrets to make them depressed. A lesson we can take away from this is that the pain of regret can be managed and it is not a life sentence. At this time of the year, I am encouraging employees and employers to consider their financial plans. Do not live with the pain of regret but choose instead the pain of discipline. Research shows that the biggest regrets retirees have included not having a goal for retirement, poor financial planning, planning to work much longer, or retiring too early without contingencies for emergencies or setbacks, ignoring the impact of inflation on their retirement plan, and not having a close relationship with their children. Workplace pension and NIS pension benefits provide guaranteed income in retirement; however, your non-guaranteed income (stocks and real estate ) is crucial in keeping your head above financial waters in retirement by supplementing your fixed income and beating inflation. Non-guaranteed income yields higher returns on investment. A diversification strategy that offers non-guaranteed and guaranteed income is the answer to financial security in retirement. Grace G McLean is a financial advisor and retirement specialist at BPM Financial Limited. Contact her at: gmclean@bpmfinancial or visit the website: www.bpmfinancial.com. She is also a podcaster for Living Above Self. E-mail her at livingaboveself@gmail.com.

Juici Patties founder and proprietor Jukie Chin says he is disappointed with the Government’s three-month extension of toll-free use of the May Pen to Williamsfield leg of Highway 2000, pointing to businesses bypassed being on the verge of closure. “They (Government) know why they are doing it. I don’t have anything to say more than I am disappointed, but they would know why they are doing it,” he told the Jamaica Observer on Friday. Chin’s comments follow Prime Minister Andrew Holness’s announcement of the extension of the toll-free travel until March 31, 2024 on Friday via a media release. Toll-free use of the highway was originally set to end year-end. “Business is slow, but we can manage. I am really sorry for the people who only have one business and they are struggling and are on the verge of closing,” said Chin, who operates one of his restaurants at Clarendon Park. For decades, Clarendon Park had been the go-to-place and rest stop for commuters travelling between Kingston, Mandeville and points west along the south coast. The highway bypasses Clarendon Park, which, for more than two decades, has been the home of Juici Patties with its 21-acre headquarters. Chin said he is “sympathetic” towards vendors and small business owners who are struggling to keep their businesses afloat. “Business is slow, but remember, we have over 60 stores, so we can manage, but there are persons out there like the people (vendors) on the street, who only have one store, so it is a bigger challenge for them,” he said. Holness explained that the extension will give time for the completion of negotiations for the operations of the toll road. “This decision is intended to provide more time for ongoing negotiations between TransJamaican Highway Limited (TJH) and the National Road Operating and Constructing Company Limited (NROCC). These discussions focus on finalising the concession for Phase 1C, for which TJH, the current operator of the Kingston to May Pen segment of the East-West Highway, holds a right of first refusal,” the release read in part. The May Pen to Williamsfield leg includes approximately 23 kilometres of a four-lane, arterial divided highway on a new alignment and approximately five kilometres of the existing Melrose Hill Bypass, now a four-lane, rural, arterial divided highway. Holness reiterated plans to extend the highway further west bypassing the crash-prone Spur Tree Hill Road. “Looking ahead, the Government plans to further extend the highway to bypass Spur Tree within the next five years, continuing its commitment to improving Jamaica’s road infrastructure,” the release said. Earlier this year Holness announced that the Government intends to extend the highway from Williamsfield to Hodges, near Black River.

A tip from the person who was to pay a $200,000 ransom for a kidnapped man led to police thwarting the scheme and killing one suspect in the process. The 22-year-old victim was rescued by the St Catherine North Police during a late-night operation in Tawes Meadows, Spanish Town, in St Catherine, on Thursday. According to a press release from the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s Corporate Communications Unit on Friday, two individuals were also arrested and a firearm seized during the operation. Relaying the series of events that led to the showdown, a police source told the Jamaica Observer that the victim went into a pharmacy as a customer. However, he was accused of stealing something by the security guard and pharmacy personnel — an accusation he denied. The police source said the individuals searched him but did not find anything on him. Apparently not satisfied, they proceeded to beat him, then called their “badman” friends to take over the situation. “So, apparently they called them now to make this man maybe pay money,” the source told the Observer. “The men came and took away the victim. They also beat him and demanded the funds. “When he communicated with the person who was to pay the $200,000 on his behalf, the person communicated with us,” the source said, noting that the police ended up listening in on the conversation in which the kidnappers again demanded the money and where it was to be taken. He said because the kidnappers did not know who would have handed over the ransom, a few cops in disguise travelled in a car to the drop-off spot, and all, except for the driver, hid themselves inside the vehicle. “When the men came for the ransom, we jumped out and grabbed them. One of the men [who was] near a shop opened fire and then all hell broke loose,” he said. The official police release said that during the course of the operation the cops encountered armed resistance. “In the ensuing engagement, one of the suspects was fatally shot. He has not yet been identified. A .38 revolver containing five .38 cartridges was seized at the scene,” the release said. In the release, area commander for Police Area Five, Assistant Commissioner of Police Gary Griffiths commended the swift action of the St Catherine North police, saying the team prevented a potential tragedy and demonstrated the force’s commitment to public safety and its relentless efforts in combating crime. The police also urged anyone with additional information to come forward to assist in the ongoing investigation. People can call Crime Stop at 311 or the Spanish Town police at 876-984-2305. The police say the Independent Commission of Investigations has been informed of the incident.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Fitz Bailey on Thursday said the writing is on the wall for another major anti-gang trial, this time involving the Tesha Miller faction of the St Catherine-based Klansman gang, following Thursday’s takedown of 13 alleged members. The arrests bring to 31 the total number of individuals with alleged ties to that criminal organisation now in police custody. Bailey told journalists during an emergency press briefing at Criminal Investigations Branch headquarters in St Andrew that the 13 individuals were rounded up during a major anti-gang operation at several locations in St Catherine which targeted the “section of the gang under the direction of incarcerated leader Tesha Miller o/c Hombre” which has its roots in the De la Vega City area of Spanish Town. “It’s an anti-gang investigation, so they will be charged under the legislation. They are going through an administrative process; they will face identification parade, and those that have been identified, if they are identified, and we go through a process of interview, then the appropriate law will be applied. They are suspected to be involved in very serious crimes,” DCP Bailey said. He said the individuals now in police custody are the sworn “enemies” of the rival Andre “Blackman” Bryan faction of the gang, 15 members of which are now serving sentences following a trial which ended this year. Bryan is among those convicted and sentenced. Chief Justice Bryan Sykes, who had tried the matter sitting alone, several times during the lengthy trial had voiced concerns about the number of defendants and the resources required and called on the State to establish a special facility for such matters. On Thursday, DCP Bailey, who has responsibility for the crime portfolio, said during the operation one suspect, 29-year-old Suman McFarlane o/c Max, who reportedly “challenged the security forces”, was fatally shot. Cops said three illegal firearms and a quantity of ammunition were seized at the location. In addition, a motor vehicle, cash, luxury items and brand name clothing with an estimated value of $3 million were seized at a location in Old Harbour during the raid. “Today’s operation culminated a nine-month-long investigation led by the Counter-Terrorism and Organised Crime Branch, which resulted in a series of arrests over the period. Those persons are being held for several offences, including murders and shootings,” Bailey told journalists. “Our investigation has linked the Klans gang to at least 800 murders since 2014. In 2018, gangs accounted for 80 per cent of the murders committed within our country. This year, 67 per cent of the homicides recorded have been attributed to gang violence,” the crime chief said. Noting that the gang disruption strategy of the constabulary with support from the Jamaica Defence Force has been reaping success, DCP Bailey said “2024 will be a different year for us. We will be stepping up our activities. It doesn’t matter where they hide, we are going to find them”. The Klansman gang is currently listed among the top five criminal organisations operating in Jamaica, with most of its activities centred in Spanish Town and surrounding areas. Its influence, however, has spread to Clarendon, Manchester, St Ann, St James, and Kingston. “The JCF will continue its focus on disrupting criminal organisations wherever they are identified. We will use our skills, competencies and technologies in our quest to create a secure environment for our citizens,” DCP Bailey said, noting that Jamaica’s crime problem is the greatest threat to achieving the country’s 2030 goals. Convicted felon Miller is currently serving 38 years and nine months at hard labour for orchestrating the 2008 slaying of then Jamaica Urban Transit Company Chairman Douglas Chambers. He was convicted in December 2019 and sentenced in January 2020. The possibility of a retrial is, however, looming because of two thorny issues relating to the interpretation of the legislation under which Miller — who was charged with the offences of being an accessory before the fact and after the fact for the killing — was convicted in the Home Circuit Court. The alleged shooter in that incident, Klansman lieutenant Andre “Blackman” Bryan, had been acquitted after a 6-1 majority verdict of not guilty was handed down in the Gun Court Division of the Home Circuit Court in 2016 following his trial there. Miller’s legal team, on the basis of that acquittal, has been contending that a no-case submission for Miller should have been upheld, based on Section 35 of the Criminal Justice (Administration) Act under which Miller was tried. In June this year, prosecutors, in their final submissions to an appeal mounted by Miller, entreated judges of the Appeal Court that if they find that Miller’s conviction has to be quashed, then the court should order a retrial. That ruling is yet to be handed down. In March this year the authorities’ quest to gut the gang recorded success when 15 of 33 accused members of the Blackman faction were convicted for murders, illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, and membership in a criminal organisation following a trial which began in 2021. The testimonies of two Crown witnesses, who are ex-members of the gang, helped prosecutors topple key members of the criminal outfit, including Bryan, who was sentenced to 39 and a half years behind bars when the matter concluded in October this year.

The police say they have nabbed another individual suspected to be involved in the murders of parliamentarian Phillip Paulwell’s 10-month-old daughter Sarayah and her mother, Toshyna Patterson. According to deputy commissioner of police (DCP) in charge of crime and security; Fitz Bailey, the male suspect, who was taken into custody on Wednesday, will go through an administrative process. Bailey revealed this latest development in the case during an emergency press conference held at Criminal Investigations Branch headquarters in St Andrew to announce that 13 more individuals suspected to be members of the vicious Klansman gang were taken into custody on Thursday morning. On September 9, 2023 news emerged that 27-year-old Patterson and her daughter were feared abducted. The police say the mother and daughter were taken to Warieka Hills where they were shot and killed and their bodies burned. While not confirming whether more individuals are involved in the murders, Bailey insisted the police are going to ensure that every person that participated in that crime faces justice. “We are committed to that as an organisation. It is one of the most gruesome crimes that we have ever seen and we are going to ensure that whoever is [involved], it doesn’t matter where they hide…even if you spread your bed in hell, or the utmost part of the sea, we’re going to find the persons and bring them to justice,” he said. Bailey’s announcement follows the arrest and charge of three men, along with United States Navy culinary specialist Leoda Bradshaw, who the police singled out as the mastermind behind the murder-for-hire plot. Now before the court, Bradshaw, who shares a child with Paulwell, has been charged with two counts of conspiracy to murder, two counts of conspiracy to kidnapping, two counts of kidnapping, and two counts of capital murder. Her co-accused Roland Balfour, a 30-year-old assistant graphic designer of a Kingston address who is also her cousin, has been charged with two counts of conspiracy to murder, two counts of conspiracy to kidnapping, and misprision of felony. The other two men have since been convicted after they accepted plea deals from prosecutors. They are Richard Brown, otherwise called Richie, and 29-year-old Roshane Miller. In the meantime, Bailey was tight-lipped when questioned about the murder investigation into the death of Melissa Silvera, the wife of former People’s National Party Member of Parliament Jolyan Silvera. He said he got an update on the case on Wednesday but did not wish to share the details with the public at this time. “The investigation is ongoing and I am satisfied with the pace at which the investigation is going. It’s a very sensitive investigation and I don’t wish to [reveal] too much details…We proceed with our investigation and at the appropriate time, when we can release information, we will do so,” he said. It was previously reported that Silvera died in her sleep on November 10. However, the police upgraded their probe after Silvera’s post-mortem revealed she was shot three times. It was also reported that Silvera’s husband retained the services of King’s Counsel Peter Champagnie who said his client is not a suspect. Bailey also refrained from saying whether or not Jolyan Silvera is now a suspect in the murder investigation.

LUCEA, Hanover — The work being done by members of Noel Holmes Hospital’s (NHH) Hospital Attendant Department has not gone unrecognised. Hanover Health Services recently lauded the team for consistently maintaining a clean and functional sanitary facility within the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA). “It was a privilege for me to give my support to them because I can tell you that it is not easy for them to keep these bathrooms clean. You can go to any of the bathrooms on the property and use it,” stated senior medical officer (SMO) for Noel Holmes Hospital, Dr Patrice Monthrope. Dr Monthrope pointed out that the excellent work observed had spanned more than a year and so retired heads of the Hospital Attendant Department — including Claudette Sangster and Hyacinth Scott — were brought in to share in the special occasion held last Friday. The 22 employees of the department were collectively presented with a plaque and trophy in appreciation of their outstanding work. The initiative comes on the heels of media exposure that highlighted the unsatisfactory conditions of many sanitary facilities within public hospitals across all four regional health authorities. In that report, made public last December, Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital in Westmoreland fared the worst. Improvements have since been made. Savanna-la-Mar hospital is one of four within the WRHA. The others are Noel Holmes, Falmouth General in Trelawny and Cornwall Regional Hospital in St James. Dr Monthrope is proud of how well Hanover has done. “[We are the] best in the western region, and possibly the best in the island, and as such we throw down the gloves for them [other hospitals] to challenge us for the trophy,” he said, buoyed by the 60-bed facility’s attendant department. The senior officer of health pointed to the importance of keeping the bar high. He wants to see the recognition given to Noel Holmes replicated at the national level of the health sector. “So often these standards are falling in many areas in how offices are run. I am not picking anybody out but it is time that we increase our standards and make people feel good about having good standards. So often our people seem to be majoring in the minor — and I don’t think that is something we need to support. We need to support good customer service, good relations, good care and compassion, as we have been charting for a long time,” stated the SMO. Acting supervisor of the Hospital Attendant Department, Julian Sinclair was ecstatic about the award. “I was excited about it, and I can tell others that hard work pays off,” he told the Observer. Chief executive officer (CEO) of Hanover Health Services, Roan Grant credited hospital attendants with “always keeping the areas clean and sanitised, in keeping with our policies”. He said the aim is to make this an ongoing event whereby other departments will be included. “We are trying to do it as an in-house thing to encourage a high level of efficiency when persons are executing their duties in whichever department… It will be an ongoing thing,” stated Grant.

As we bring the curtains down on yet another fabulous year of exploring Jamaica, we take a look back at some of the memorable moments of 2023. STAY We kicked off the year with assurance, from the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association, that despite a bumper crop of visitors flocking our shores, locals are still welcome. You just have to do a bit more digging to find the deals. The options range from the luxury of Sandals Dunn’s River to the rustic retreat that is Windmill Cottages in Malvern, St Elizabeth, and everything in-between. For locals who can afford to have the best of both worlds and live like they’re tourists Bessa, an exclusive boutique community in Oracabessa, St Mary, came on the market. And according to Sagicor Property Services, the resort real estate market is booming! However, there were some anxious moments for the lucrative short-stay segment of the market when word emerged that the Government is mulling over regulations that some fear will eat into their profit margins. PLAY This year has been one of the hottest, ever and so we spent a lot of time trying to stay cool by getting in the water! At Sandals Montego Bay, we learned how to ski like a pro and enjoyed the wide range of water sports on property. We continued the trend with high-tech water sports at Carib-Blue Water Toys Centre which operates from the easily-accessible Pier One in the western city. There was also water involved when we went Hiking with hooligans, a trek to the river and back alongside the dogs at Montego Bay Animal Haven’s location in Hanover. We also let you in on Harmony Park, MoBay’s best-kept secret where it’s very easy to spend an entire day relaxing by the seaside. There was the adrenaline rush of Camp Irie, a 600-acre adventure in south St Elizabeth that offers laser tag, ATV rides, rock climbing, and more. We also hit the road with Spice Joy Ride Motorcycle Rentals & Tours in St Ann. And we cannot forget a relaxing afternoon spent downtown at Kingston Creative’s ArtWalk Festival, full of music and craft. Meanwhile, patrons who turned out for the Jamaica International Kite Festival in St Ann said it had everything: amazing kites soaring high above the clouds, entertainment and great food. TASTE Speaking of food, we had some amazing meals this year. We got things going with a trip to St Elizabeth where the great food at Grego’s Seafood Bar & Grill was only rivalled by the service. Other mouth-watering excursions took us to Spiritz of Montego Bay in Ironshore, St James; Cannonball Café in New Kingston; and we told you to keep an eye on the long-awaited Bob Marley’s One Love Restaurant at Sangster International Airport. The hands-down favourite spot for healthy eats this year was DLE Café in Fairview, Montego Bay. And Sabores opened its doors on the border of St James and Trelawny to provide Italian-Jamaica fusion. If you didn’t get a chance to do, go, see, eat at any of the above, there’s always next year!

OWNERS and occupiers of seven parcels of land in east Kingston which have been pegged for ‘development’ by the Andrew Holness Administration have described the move as “ludicrous”, even as fear of eviction from the homes they have occupied for years, and in cases decades, mounts. The residents say the proposed acquisition, which they were unaware of until alerted by this reporter, is tantamount to betrayal, as they had received no assistance from the Government to rebuild when all but two of the homes were devastated by a fire that swept the area during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, in an ‘urgent notice’ published in the Sunday edition of the Jamaica Observer, said the minister of housing is interested in acquiring the properties. It said, “anyone knowing the whereabouts of the owners or agents kindly contact the Land Administration section within the ministry on or before January 19, 2024”. Wednesday, when the Observer visited the area, two of the three properties at James Street which had been completely burnt were unoccupied but for debris from the fire. However, the affected homes on Smith Lane were in different stages of reconstruction. “All block mi buy and seh mi a go lick out deh so [expansion]. The amount a block weh inna mi yard, dem something yah a sin yuh know, bredda. People can’t a work dem money and see mi buy mi block and mi cement dem already,” one female resident complained. “Me and my family live here for years and we a pay everything for it. My family is going to buy the property, so when they do that what dem leave we to do? A sin dem something here, you know, a sin,” she said passionately. An elderly man and woman at another of the Smith Lane addresses, which had been reduced from eight bedrooms to one because of the fire, told the Observer they have occupied the premises for 24 years. “The owner for the place die years ago and leave it to her daughter; the daughter die and leave it to him,” the woman said, pointing to the man. “So we are the owners now, but our name didn’t sign up on the property.” “It [house] did burn down year before last [2021] and all the papers burn up — title and everything,” the woman, who gave her name as Catherine, told the Observer. The elderly woman argued that they had received no assistance to rebuild, and the now-decrepit, one-bedroom structure which they had tried to repair on their own is the only home they know. “We don’t have anywhere to go,” she said with a tone of resignation. A property owner for one of the parcels of interest, who resides overseas, while speaking with the Observer was also taken aback by the Government’s quest. “We have a title, we pay our taxes, and the ministry has my information and my contacts. We will contact them because that is ludicrous,” said the landowner, who indicated he had recently listed the property — now occupied by tenants — for sale. For the occupant of the one residence at James Street which survived the inferno, plans to legally own the property are being upended for a third time. “This one was under adverse possession by me before it burn down. It was in that process already but it did go on a hold when the Government change. I live here from mi a boy ’til me a man — me a 50 come next year,” he told the Observer. “I was going to rebuild it; dem house yah have to lick dung and start fresh. It was owned by an old man who used to live ’round here, but that man died; him never did get the title,” he said. Meanwhile, senior lands officer with responsibility for acquisitions in the ministry, Nicholas Pennant, responding to the Observer’s queries ahead of its interviews with the residents, said the acquisitions were for “development purposes”. “These sections were directed to us by the prime minister. These places were burnt down years ago; what is there now is derelict remnants. The ministry calls it a project area. The addresses are all close, so they form a boundary which we call a project area which we will be working in. After acquiring we would go forward [based on] whatever directive the prime minister gives after we own them,” he told the Observer. Pennant said if there is no word from the individuals who own the property the Government will move ahead with the plans to acquire, nonetheless. “What we want to do is purchase via private treaty. If we don’t hear from them by a certain time we can proceed to compulsory acquisition, where the commissioner of lands does this on behalf of the minister of housing; they have the power to do so,” he said. “We have done some background work, we have titles and so forth. Some of them are deceased, some of them might have migrated, hopefully some of them can reach out to us by that time — whether the owners, the agents, or anybody representing an estate,” Pennant added. The Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation was established in February 2016. It has responsibility for the formulation and implementation of policies relating to its portfolio areas which include water and wastewater, land, environment, climate change, housing, urban renewal, economic policy and investment, and works.

Chinese automaker BYD Co is poised to surpass Tesla Inc as the new worldwide leader in fully electric vehicle (EV) sales, Bloomberg news reported on Wednesday. According to the international news agency, the development will likely occur in the current quarter and “will be both a symbolic turning point for the EV market and further confirmation of China’s growing clout in the global automotive industry”. Pointing out that the auto industry is still dominated by more familiar names like Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co, Bloomberg stated that Chinese manufacturers, including BYD and SAIC Motor Corp, are making serious inroads. “After leapfrogging the US, South Korea, and Germany over the past few years, China now rivals Japan for the global lead in passenger car exports. Some 1.3 million of the 3.6 million vehicles shipped from the mainland as of October this year were electric,” the Bloomberg article stated. “The competitive landscape of the auto industry has changed,” the article quotes Bridget McCarthy, head of China operations for Shenzhen-based hedge fund Snow Bull Capital, which has invested in both BYD and Tesla. “It’s no longer about the size and legacy of auto companies; it’s about the speed at which they can innovate and iterate. BYD began preparing long ago to be able to do this faster than anyone thought possible, and now the rest of the industry has to race to catch up.” The Bloomberg article stated that the passing of the EV sales crown also reflects the shift in competitive dynamics between Tesla’s Elon Musk, the world’s richest executive, and BYD’s billionaire founder Wang Chuanfu. “Whereas Musk has been warning that not enough consumers can afford his EVs with such high interest rates, Wang is firmly on the offensive. His company offers half a dozen higher-volume models that cost much less than what Tesla charges for its cheapest Model 3 sedan in China,” the Bloomberg report states. It noted that when a Tesla owners’ club shared a clip in May of Musk snickering at BYD’s cars during a 2011 appearance on Bloomberg Television, Musk wrote back that BYD’s vehicles are “highly competitive these days”. “The likely change in the global EV pecking order marks the realisation of a goal that Wang, 57, set back when China was just starting to foster its now world-beating electric car industry. While BYD continues to pull away from Tesla and all other auto brands at home, replicating its runaway success abroad is proving tricky,” Bloomberg reported. “Wang has racked up the air miles in 2023, criss-crossing the globe between auto shows, new market launches and meetings with heads of states. He’s touched down in countries including Japan, Germany, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico, and Chile – a travel schedule befitting the leader of a company that’s set up shop in some 60 countries and territories in just the last two years,” the Bloomberg report said. Analysts, the news agency also said, expect BYD to launch its third-generation EVs next year, offering more technology such as automated-driving capabilities.

When his companion of 20 years passed while giving birth to his fourth child on November 25 this year, Richard Gordon was a man on the verge of losing it, as doctors at Victoria Jubilee Maternity Hospital in Kingston battled to save the life of their daughter Azalia. A month later, on Monday, December 25, Gordon, who said he was “all cried out”, emerged from that same hospital clutching the sleeping infant — who was being allowed home for the first time — like a lifeline. “It’s a happy sad story… She is my eyeball, my heart, I can’t see and I can’t breathe without her. My greatest joy is when I get her, that’s the only joy for the year to this whole ordeal,” he told the Jamaica Observer, smiling wistfully. The dedicated father said he has already had several bouts of grief brought on by the “bittersweet” realisation that Azaelia, who has also been named Nicola in honour of her mother, will have many firsts which will not be witnessed by the woman with whom he had built a life. “Sometimes I look at her and cry to know that her mother never got to touch her, she never got to feed her. When I changed her for the first time on the ward I cried; when I feed her for the first time on the ward I cry to know that her mother didn’t get the chance,” he said, his voice filled with emotion. He also feels another bout of grief that their daughter is yet too young to understand. “She is the last daughter, and to know that every time her birthday comes is her mother’s memorial,” he said before pledging, “she will never forget her mother; she will always be loved by me. No matter what it takes, I take care of all my kids, but this one here is special. She is so special.” Gordon, in reflecting on the approach by himself and his partner in raising their other children, paid homage to the woman who he said dreamt with him as they navigated life. “I lived with her mother for 20 years. We grow three nice kids; my daughter graduate with six subjects, my son is going to Jose Marti [High School]. My next son goes to Calabar [High School], so we did a good job parenting. Not everybody is perfect, but we do what we can to make sure that they have what we didn’t have,” Gordon, who said he was not raised by a father, told the Observer. In the meantime, he also rues the fact that the mother of his children missed out on seeing their dream of homeownership together, which they had set sights on for 2024, materialise. “Right now I am in the middle of planning her funeral. We did the post-mortem on Wednesday, they give us the burial order to go ahead and do the funeral, but it hurts me. What cuts me, you know, we were saving to buy a house. We said we would save a million dollars so if we get a $10-million house we have the 10 per cent up front, and I showed her like a week ago and said ‘I reach $600,000 babes,’ and said by March we have a million,” Gordon shared. “Now I have to use the money to bury her. It hurts me, it hurt me so much. From 2002 we are working; we don’t take back any returns (National Housing Trust contributions refund) because we said when we reach certain age we want to have this in place… I can’t cry anymore, I’m cried all out, I have to be there consoling the children,” Gordon said. The St Andrew father — who was presented with a basket of baby products by Kiwanis International in collaboration with Kirk Industries and Answers for Children — had high praises for the medical team that tended their child. “Even though her mother gone, I have to give the neonatal unit praises. They did a good job to bring back the baby to life because she was born in real distress, I am telling you… I had to just gather all the nurses and doctors and tell them thanks. They could have turned their backs, but the humanitarians that they are, the work that they dedicated to, I appreciate it. They give me follow-on tests to do… I am going to do those and come back March for her review; anything the doctor says, I will do,” he said. While still uncertain as to the cause of death of his 36-year-old life companion, Gordon is certain about one thing for now: “Mi up and running, man, mi over the baby like Google ennuh,” he said, cradling his precious bundle of joy and smiling. In the meantime, the heartbroken father had a parting word of advice to other fathers. “Once you have it, support your child, be a father to your child. Once somebody [else] mentor your child you already lose the child because the child is going to always listen to who they look up to. So be a role model for your child,” he encouraged.

Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) on Monday maintained its tradition of providing meals to homeless and poor Jamaicans living on the streets of downtown Kingston. Dozens of people turned up at Marie Atkins Night Shelter on Hanover Street for the event which is an expansion of the corporation’s poor relief programme that provides welfare assistance. According to KSAMC public relations spokeswoman Jodian Ann James the activity is only one aspect of a much wider programme to assist homeless people, which is being co-ordinated by the corporation’s Poor Relief Department at Hanover Street. The event started off with KSAMC councillors — headed by Mayor Delroy Williams and the corporation’s CEO Robert Hill — assisting staff at the centre who were serving people soup and chicken lunches. James said that through a process of sensitisation and collaboration the corporation has been successfully promoting the use of feeding centres operated by churches and civic organisations in the area.

LUCEA, Hanover — Four months ahead of the slated opening of Princess Hotel in Green Island, Hanover, it has hosted its first-ever Christmas treat for patients of Noel Holmes Hospital’s paediatric department, spending $200,000 to bring holiday cheer to the grateful children. “The majority of our staff [now being recruited] are coming from in and around the Lucea area. We know that whatever happens, more than likely, that is the hospital that they’re going to go to. We want to know that we are helping them, supporting them — whether financially or whatever we can give to [the hospital] – because we know that when we need them, they’re going to be there for us as well,” said the hotel’s Executive Administrative Manager Jade McLaren. Princess is slated to open its doors to guests on April 2, 2024. The hope is that last Friday’s event will not be the last treat for the hospital. “It is our goal to make it a yearly event where we can bring out our staff and give back to the community,” said McLaren. The hotel’s General Manager Enrico Pezzoli and about 40 of his staff handed out gifts to more than 25 patients of the paediatric ward and children of hospital staff. Christmas cake and sorrel was provided for hospital employees. “We weren’t expecting to have kids from the nurses that are working there but thankfully, we had enough gifts so that we could not only give the kids on the ward but also the kids of the staff who work at the hospital,” McLaren told the Jamaica Observer. “We had a nice little event where they were able to interact with Santa Claus and Mrs Claus,” she added. Chief executive officer (CEO) of Hanover Health Services, Roan Grant said the treat was well received. “I think it was Maya Angelou who said, ‘People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel’. Just by them showing up — even if they had never given a gift, just by coming and saying blessed holidays, the way they dress and the way they seem united — it was a heartfelt moment that lifted a lot of persons’ spirits. It raised a lot of excitement, even if they never gave a gift. The gift was just kind of like the icing on the cake for the children of the staff, as well as for the children on the ward,” Grant told the Observer. Deputy mayor of Lucea, Andria Dehaney Grant was also on hand to help spread good cheer. “Considering that Princess Hotel thought about the persons who are in the hospital that’s a really good thing because that person in the hospital at this time will not be able to enjoy Christmas as much as other persons outside,” she said. “I saw smiles on the faces of the persons who were actually in hospital when they received those gifts. It was well received.”

TWO bright sixth formers at Immaculate Conception High School in St Andrew know the pain of being disabled but want to make life easier for those who end up with a disability. The two friends — Sarai Watson and Kayla Williams — have started a charity called Limitless Wheels, – with the aim of “putting smiles on faces nationwide and encourages everyone to move forward, regardless of the struggles they may face”. So far, the charity, with the support of family members and friends, has donated three wheelchairs and a walker to people in need. The presentations, which took place between August and November, have been made to Mr Alva in Spanish Town; Audrey Craig in Spanish Town; Nadine Smikle in Trench Town; and Euvannie Brown in Trench Town. The youngsters were so eager to make their first presentation to Mr Alva on August 30 that they did not get his last name. Targeting the needy, selection of recipients is done through referrals – mainly through word of mouth and at their church. Following interviews with individuals who make referrals and the beneficiary’s family members, an assessment is done based on need. “Experiencing life as a disabled individual is not only physically challenging but also mentally and emotionally taxing. Maintaining comfort while being disabled is difficult and often an expensive endeavour that many people consider impossible. This is where Limitless Wheels comes in – a Jamaican organisation dedicated to making the lives of the less fortunate more beautiful,” said Watson while quoting the charity’s mission statement. “My friend Sarai was wheelchair-bound for a couple of years due to problems with her legs. I as well struggle with disabilities, although not as visible. I have two autoimmune diseases [fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis] that have affected me severely since I was 11. So with our shared experiences with our own disabilities we acknowledged the widespread issues with not only the lack of accessibility in Jamaica, but the ignorance that came with it a lot of the time. We decided we wanted to change that, and in turn we made this initiative. Our goal is to raise awareness, build a community that uplifts and empowers disabled persons and donate assistive devices to persons in Jamaica who can’t afford it. Wheelchairs are the start, but we hope to branch out and be more inclusive with the needs of others in the near future, said Williams. “Our aim is to donate wheelchairs, first aid kits, and more to people in need islandwide. Enjoying life is a fundamental human right, and achieving that requires the necessary support systems. Limitless Wheels aims to put smiles on faces nationwide and encourages everyone to move forward, regardless of the struggles they may face,” Watson said. Watson said she was in the wheelchair for three years, on and off, because of Blount’s disease and hyperplasticity of the ligaments, which caused instability in the knees. Blount’s disease is a growth disorder that affects the bones of the lower leg, causing them to bow outward. It can affect people at any time during the growing process, but it’s more common in children younger than four and in teens. “My recovery wasn’t smooth but I’m happy with where I am and I would say I’m okay for the most part. I do have occasional ‘relapses’ but nothing dire, thankfully,” said Watson. People who are poor are the ones given first priority, the young women said. “If someone requires assistance or knows someone who does, they inform us, and we assess how we can help from there,” said Watson. Marilyn McDonald Watson, Sarai’s mom, has been very supportive of her daughter and friend in their charity work. “I encourage them to do good but tell them to manage their emotions because these situations can become overwhelming when you have to see sick people going through physical challenges. But it is encouraging when the recipients are appreciative and are positive,” said McDonald Watson. Kayla Williams’ parents are also very supportive of the charity work of their daughter. Asked how she coped when her daughter was in a wheelchair, McDonald Watson said: “Wow; it was very emotional and challenging but I had to stay as positive as possible so as not to pass on my negative energy to her. I always try to ensure she got the best treatments like physical therapy and doctors, both locally and overseas.”She is aware that wheelchair accessibility is limited locally, but expressed appreciation to Immaculate for the adjustments made to accommodate her daughter’s access. “Wheelchair ramps were put in place, and the school also made the effort to put all her classes on the lower floor,” said the appreciative mom. At the same time, she said she is praying that Sarai stays healthy and does not have a major relapse so that she has to go back into a wheelchair.

TEN horses that were expected to improve Jamaica’s racing bloodstock have been left grazing in the United States, waiting to be taken to their final destination after they were bought from Canada at a yearling sale last October. The situation arose weeks ago after Jamaica’s Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders (TOBA), led by veteran horseman Howard Hamilton, was granted what was said to be a loan of approximately $20 million from the Government to import the horses for racing purposes. It is understood that a TOBA representative, with approval from the organisation’s leadership, bought the animals at the Woodbine Select Yearling Sale, and placed an advertisement in local horse racing publication Track and Pools, that the horses would be available to the membership of TOBA for purchasing at the annual Yearling Sale, held usually in November in St Catherine. However, officials from the Veterinary Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries saw the advert and proceeded to enquire how that could occur without TOBA getting permission from the Veterinary Division to bring in animals from Canada. In an effort to reduce cost to Jamaica, TOBA decided to truck the horses from Canada to Florida, with the intention to send them by air from Florida to Jamaica within days. Jamaican veterinary authorities though, contacted their colleagues in Florida to clarify the matter of how they intended to send the horses to Jamaica without medical certification, at which point the Americans, who hitherto thought that the animals were native-bred, slapped a one-year ban on the horses, insisting that they must remain in the United States until October 2024, and be fully cleared of all medical challenges that may have set in. Another move by TOBA officials to try to get the horses back to Canada and restart the process of getting the animals into Jamaica directly failed, as executives of the US Veterinary Department insisted that they must spend a year in their country before a release may be considered, in following certain veterinary principles. Documentation in respect of shots and vaccines were not available, it emerged. Local racing officials have determined that for the horses to be released by the Americans, it has to involve Jamaica’s Veterinary Services Division (VSD), which must assure their colleagues to the north that they would take full responsibility for them. The horses — all fillies — are being kept at Ian Parsard’s farm in Ocala, central Florida. The Jamaica Observer understands that although Parsard is not charging TOBA to keep the animals in a particular space, daily feeding and caring expenses have to be met. Chairman of the Jamaica Racing Commission and of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission, retired banker Clovis Metcalfe, admitted to the Sunday Observer, that there was an issue with the importation of the horses, but referred the newspaper to Ainsley Walters, CEO of TOBA, for a fuller understanding of what took place. “That is TOBA importing those horses, and they couldn’t come straight from Canada, so they had to go to the States and stay there for about a year,” Metcalfe said. “It is understood that TOBA could not get a licence to import directly from Canada, so they should have checked that before. The horses are at Parsard’s farm now and they are trying to work with the Ministry of Agriculture’s Veterinary Division to see what sort of allowance can be given,” was all that Metcalfe would say. Walters confirmed to the Sunday Observer that negotiations were continuing with TOBA and the agriculture ministry’s Veterinary Division to find a solution to the matter, and said that he would not want to say much that would prejudice those talks. He said, however, that the horses that TOBA was bringing in had US health certificates, but “it is on that premise that the [Jamaican] vets are saying that it is a different protocol. You can’t bring in horses from Canada on US health certificates,” he stated. Walters said that TOBA had all along thought that that was the legitimate way to import the horses, and argued that in the past, Canadian-bred horses had entered Jamaica in the same way. “We wrote to the vets explaining to them that we thought they were doing the right thing, because there are other horses which came in via the same route,” Walters said. TOBA had written to the Veterinary Division for it to forego the one-year domicile of the horses, a request that was turned down, the Sunday Observer understands. “It is understood that [head of the Agriculture Ministry’s Veterinary Division] Dr [Osbil] Watson and his team are looking into the matter to see how best they can assist to ensure that the horses are brought into Jamaica, even if it takes three to four months. We are awaiting the VSD to say you are free to come into the country now,” Walters said. During a presentation in the House of Representation earlier in 2023, Minister of Finance and the Public Service Dr Nigel Clarke announced, to broad approval by members of the horse racing fraternity, that General Consumption Tax would be removed from the importation of horses, in a bid to improve Jamaica’s horse racing pedigree. No GCT would be charged on the importation of small ruminants and pigs too, Dr Clarke said, as part of a July 19, 2023 GCT Order. By November 1, 2023, the removal of GCT on horses took effect officially, upon the clearing of some tariff codes. One veteran horseman told the Sunday Observer that the matter was “at a very delicate stage”, and TOBA was doing everything to ensure that there is no semblance of anyone trying to put pressure on the Veterinary Division in a bid to twist its arm, as that was not the case. “An error has been made, and we are trying to correct that in the best possible way that would not hurt the industry,” said the individual, who has been involved in horse racing for over 45 years. “How people

MONTEGO BAY, St James — While most 14-year-olds are looking forward to the second term of grade nine, Jada Wright is eagerly awaiting her first day at University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) in January. Dubbed a little genius by her mother Judian Wright, Jada is preparing to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. Wright told the Jamaica Observer that her daughter has always been advanced for her age. While preparing for her Primary Exit Profile (PEP) exams, Jada was also studying to sit two Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) subjects. Later that year, she successfully matriculated to Hampton School in her home parish, and also received two grade ones in CSEC. Since then, Jada has received an additional seven grade ones in CSEC and has coordinated a home-school programme at her parents’ institution, the Caribbean Online Academy. Wright proudly told the Sunday Observer that her daughter achieved all of those goals before her 14th birthday, which was in November. She explained that the novel coronavirus pandemic aided Jada in her quest for success as, unlike others, the young woman loved the flexibility that came with online learning. Wright shared that Jada, who is passionate about coding and computer science, utilised her time online to enroll in master classes, while also preparing for her CSEC subjects. “So when the COVID cases [declined] and she was to return to Hampton, that was where we had a problem because she didn’t want to go back. She went back briefly, but she had grown so comfortable being online and most importantly, she loves to run business,” Wright told the Sunday Observer. Admittedly, Wright said that she understood her daughter’s love for the flexibility that came with home schooling. With her background in education as the founder of the South East College in Manchester, Wright said she transitioned her daughter to a full-time online programme. “I am in the business of education. I have a school, so she is also involved in business. Students talk to her on the phone and they don’t even know they are talking to a child. When I transitioned her to fully online, she started a homeschool programme,” Wright explained. “This was a new school that we were starting, the Caribbean Online Academy. We were focusing on [Caribbean Examination Council] students and evening classes. That is when she bargained with us and said she would run the homeschool programme, so we took in a cohort for grade seven. She coordinated with the teachers and parents. She also taught them coding,” she added. Jada was only 12 years old when she took on that task. However, she was determined to prove that she could handle being outside of the public education system. She has soared. At the same time, her mother told the Sunday Observer that Jada is also deeply admired in the tech industry. The teenager was invited to share the stage with industry professionals at the recently-held Tech Beach Retreat in Montego Bay. That was her second time at the technology conference. “This year they asked her to be an ambassador for a kids programme. They also brought in an astronaut and she was a part of that interview panel as well,” said Wright. With Jada being the younger of her two children, Wright is proud of all the work she has done so far. However, she cannot help but feel emotional, as Jada sets out to soar her wings in January. She said that Jada will not board on campus due to her age. “This is the first time they are accepting someone so young, so it is a lot of paperwork but she is going to start her degree programme in computer science in January. I am proud, sometimes it can feel a little overwhelming but I am extremely proud of her. I started my first school. the South East College, at 14, so I know what it is like to be passionate about something,” Wright said. As for Jada, the unfamiliar roads ahead do not frighten her. She told the Sunday Observer that she is ready to continue making big strides in her coding career. The soft-spoken teenager spoke proudly of striking a balance between studying and spending time with her family. She said that while she has read 60 books since the start of the year, she has also spent adequate time lounging around. “I spend 80 per cent of my time studying. It’s just to know when to take time out to spend with family; plus I have a dog and a cat – I love animals, so it is really about knowing when to take time to de-stress and when to focus,” said Jada. However, heading off to university at the age of 14 is another chapter in her book waiting to be written. “I am very anxious about it. I am a little bit nervous but I think it is going to be an amazing experience. I can’t wait to get started and gain all that new knowledge. I didn’t spend that much time in physical high school so I am looking forward to going to physical college,” Jada told the Sunday Observer.

“I am going to get my foot for the Christmas!” declared an elated Ethon Miller, who was one of two recipients of a prosthetic leg at Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Centre last Wednesday. Miller and 67-year-old Lester Spaulding each received a prosthetic leg under the Ministry of Health and Wellness’s ‘New Limb, New Life’ programme. Speaking with the Jamaica Observer, Spaulding explained that after losing a leg two years ago he had to get creative in order to remain mobile. “I made my own leg. I had the knowledge to do a lot of things so that was what came to me so I could help myself because with one leg I couldn’t do anything, and since I made the leg I could do more because I drive and take my kids to school,” he said. He further explained that he lost his leg during an incident at his daughter’s home but noted that it was his ignorance about his diabetic condition, alongside the injury, that forced him to get his leg amputated. “My daughter left the house, as I was the caretaker for it and when she left I looked out the gate and it wasn’t proper for her to come back and see it like that, so I said I am going clean it up and burn some stuff. While I was burning, the breeze blew the fire and it went into a man’s yard where his car was parked so when I saw the fire I started to rush and go out the fire,” he said as he recalled the tragic incident. “The jump I made caused the fire to burn me, plus the macca [thorn] stick me, and from that I didn’t take it seriously because I did not know that I had diabetes and it turned out to a point where they said my foot cannot be saved because there was poison in it and they said I had to cut it.” Spaulding said that despite the constant pain he felt, he was hesitant to lose his leg but did not have much of a choice. He expressed immense gratitude to everyone who made it possible for him to get his new leg, describing it as a “joyful” moment for him to get it just in time for Christmas. The other recipient, Miller, a police officer in Westmoreland’s Criminal Investigations Branch (CIB), shared his appreciation for the new prosthetic leg. Miller’s left leg was amputated in February, 30 years after being shot in the knee. “I have suffered for 30 years since, but the injuries got worse over the last 10 years in which the muscles, nerves and tendons deteriorated. As a result of that, doctors had to amputate the leg,” Miller said. “I am feeling 150 per cent better since having my leg amputated…I am living a better life now, no pain, no discomfort so I am giving God thanks. I was feeling a lot of pain and discomfort and the foot was 75 per cent deformed because of the nerves and the tendons that were damaged over the years,” he said. Miller acknowledged that even though his tasks at the CIB are office-based, the prosthetic leg will be transformative for his life, making everyday activities easier to accomplish. Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton, who was in attendance, explained that the initiative goes beyond supplying prosthetic legs. It aims to raise awareness about diabetes. “Ninety-five per cent of these people who lose a limb is because of complications from diabetes. And we really want to use the opportunity to urge Jamaicans to get their check-ups in the first instance but also to celebrate the New Limb, New Life programme which is giving a number of Jamaicans the opportunity to have a leg replacement and basically giving them a second opportunity to move around,” Tufton explained.

NEGRIL, Hanover — For more than 14 years, Emergency medical services (EMS) technician Sergeant Rian Crooks has served the Westmoreland branch of the Jamaica Fire Brigade with distinction. Now he has the awards to prove it. He has been lauded for being the most dedicated firefighter and named firefighter of the year for the parish. “It is a very rewarding and fulfilling feeling for me to be awarded as the most disciplined firefighter, and also firefighter of the year. It has been 14 years and many months of dedicated service and I have never been recognised in this fashion. Yes, I have been recognised for my hard work and I have been commended on numerous occasions, but I have never been awarded tangibly,” Sergeant Crooks told the Jamaica Observer during a ceremony on December 21. The awards were presented during an end-of-year banquet and awards function put on by the Westmoreland Fire Department. The selection process started out with Crooks being nominated by watch commanders and district officers. An interview and other assessment tools, such as an appraisal, followed. “It is somewhat tedious and also nerve-racking because I know that I went up against very good candidates just the same, who are knowledgeable about the job and what they are about,” said Crooks. As an EMS technician, he responds to medical and traumatic emergencies. The memories of a few of them have remained with him. “One of the scariest moments as an EMT… is during the COVID-19 pandemic where if you hear people cough or [saw] any sign of flu-like symptoms, you think it is COVID because people were dying worldwide. However, there are many unique calls. I have gone to mass casualty incidents and fatalities. You name it. I also went on calls where it is like a counselling session — hearing what the patients have to say and offering your services to them,” stated Crooks. It has all been worth it. Still basking in the glow of his awards, he took some time to ruminate on what comes next for him. “Now that I am awarded firefighter of the year, and most disciplined firefighter of the year, it is just to continue to fulfil the mandate of the Jamaica Fire Brigade service — saving lives and protecting property — and still upholding the rules and regulations of the organisation, still carrying out my role and function as a sergeant, still trying to motivate those who are beneath me, and still trying to emulate those who are above me who displayed the right attitude,” stated Crooks. The EMS technician is encouraging younger firefighters to value themselves and what they do and to work within the rules of the JFB. Crooks is also encouraging those just leaving high school who want to join the JFB to pursue their dream. “I can tell them that it is a very, very good job, you understand? Every job has its own uniqueness, but I don’t regret being a firefighter and it is not just because I won the firefighter of the year. I don’t regret being in a firefight,” said Crooks. Another outstanding awardee was retired District Officer Roger Williams, who served the brigade for more than 30 years. A total of 30 people were awarded. While the awards functions have been in existence for more than a decade, this is the first staging since a hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Divisional commander for Westmoreland Fire Department, Superintendent Rudolph Seaton said his team looks forward to the event each year. “It keeps them highly motivated because you have persons who perform above standards, and this is our form of recognition to them,” he said.

SEVENTY-TWO hours before Christmas Day some vendors downtown Kingston were expressing disappointment with the volume of sales, saying that many customers are complaining about the price of goods. But their experience contrasts with those of at least two store workers who said that sales have been good so far. Amid heavy crowds of shoppers at Coronation Market and on the streets of the capital, a vendor who gave her name only as Kerry told the Jamaica Observer that the goods are expensive, resulting in customers complaining. “When the customers come to buy, sometimes they ask and then they just walk away because the things are so expensive,” said Kerry who buys produce from other vendors inside the market. Another vendor, Joseph Rhoden, shared similar sentiments. “They have a system by saying that ‘not fi the buyer, not fi the seller’. Things not going the way we would want it,” he said, adding that some customers cannot afford the products. That, he said, forces him to adjust his prices. “It go by the way how you work out your weekend money because you have some people not earning as much as some so the difference is, we work with the way how you can afford,” Rhoden explained. Demar Miles, who said he plans to work part-time on Christmas Day, complained that business is slow. “Yuh nuh see how the market look empty and a Christmas? Money fi a gwaan,” Miles said, pointing out that last Christmas was better. A street vendor who did not want to be named said sales were so bad that she was thinking of “running off” to the United States. However, a shopper who gave her name only as Denise told the Observer, “The prices are quite reasonable, quite affordable and good.” At Rockland Furniture Depot on Orange Street a worker who gave his name as Raman said that even though sales this Christmas are slower than last year they are still getting a lot of customers. Anthony Howell at A’s Trendy Fashion, also on Orange Street, had a similar experience. However, he said that while business was booming he was facing problems in another area. “All containers delay; we just get the goods three days before Christmas so business can’t be better — and remember, we owe people for the goods,” Howell said.

JAMAICA Gasolene Retailers Association (JGRA) President Errol Edwards says solutions “to mitigate or cauterise” the impact of robberies on service stations are a constant feature of frequent membership meetings as robbers continue to prey on the entities, relieving them of quantities of cash. Responding to queries from the Jamaica Observer regarding reports from the JGRA’s membership about incidents of theft, Edwards said there have been several reports. He said the JGRA — while unable to quantify the incidents, as not all robberies are reported — has service stations in several parts of the island which have been affected by criminals. “We are aware of incidents and it is something that we try to guard against; we encourage the pump attendants to reduce the amount of cash on their person at any one time. It is a result of what is taking place in the society right now — the level of crime,” Edwards told the Observer on Friday. He said the robberies do not appear to be confined to any particular locale, but are across the board. “It’s not that it’s more prevalent in any one area, and it might be hard to quantify. I can well imagine that there are incidents that might not be reported, but it is just that persons have to try to not make themselves targets by keeping large amounts of cash on their person,” he said. “Generally speaking, everywhere that persons use cash they are at risk, so they just have to be very, very careful when it comes to handling cash — and our members are constantly reminded about this, and in our frequent meetings these are things that we bring to the fore,” the JGRA head said. Asked what the protocol is when employees are robbed on their shifts, Edwards said, “If it’s a situation where it’s a robbery the matter would have to be reported to the police and the incident investigated.” Asked if pump attendants who are robbed while on the job have to account for the funds, he said: “The companies have policies. If there are policies and the employee does not follow [them] and expose the company to those situations it is a management decision as to how they would treat with that.” However, it would appear that not all incidents are being reported to the police. Commanding officer for St Andrew South, Senior Superintendent of Police Kirk Ricketts told the Observer that no reports of such incidents have come to his attention. Likewise, head of operations for the St Catherine North Police Division Deputy Superintendent Camendo Thoms told the Observer that no reports have surfaced in that locale but said a combination of foot patrols, aggressive stop and search operations, and patrols at nights with flashing lights might be a mitigating factor. He said the division, which has beefed up its numbers by deploying a number of probationary officers from the police training academy in the parish, has increased its vigilance. “We will continue to be like that even throughout the Christmas. We are trying just about our best to minimise,” he told the Observer. On Friday, Superintendent Christopher Phillips, commander for the St Catherine South Police Division, also said the police in that vicinity have not received any complaints. “We do not have that report any at all. And when these things happen, and people don’t report it, as the police, when we don’t have the report we can’t do anything about it, and so we ask them to report,” he told the Observer. In July this year one man was charged after his attempts to rob a gas station attendant on Slipe Road in Kingston backfired. A security guard opened gunfire, resulting in the would-be robber escaping on foot. He was subsequently arrested and charged with assault with intent to rob, illegal possession of firearm and ammunition, and using a firearm to commit a felony. Thieves in April this year pulled off a multimillion-dollar robbery at a service station in Gutters, St Elizabeth. The men reportedly stole $24 million and escaped in a waiting motor car. Then in December last year gunmen held up and robbed a petrol station in Knockpatrick, south Manchester, just hours after robbing another service station in Cross Keys where employees were reportedly tied up and kept hostage. During the incident, personnel at an adjoining mini mart were also robbed of cash.

THE Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) is urging Jamaicans to exercise fire safety in the kitchen as they prepare meals over the festive seas on. “We know a lot of cooking is done during the season and we invite over everybody to come taste what we prepare, but one thing you need to also remember is that during the process of cooking, ensure that you cook in a safe manner,” said acting research and planning officer, JFB, Jay Scott, during a recent interview with JIS News. He further stressed that cooking should not be left unattended, as it could result in a fire. “The minute you leave, it is likely that something could go wrong, and if you are not there to address what went wrong, then it could be problematic. So, keep close to your stove when you are doing the food preparation,” said Scott. He pointed out that people should also be mindful of where they leave kitchen towels when cooking, noting that they should be placed away from the flame and not left on top of the pot and hanging down. “We also encourage that you have a lid close by or, if you have a fire blanket or any other firefighting equipment, ensure that it is fully functional and ready to go, in the event that something goes wrong,” Scott added. The JFB has also recommended that people wear short-sleeved tops when cooking as long sleeves have the propensity to start burning more quickly.

HOPEWELL, Hanover – The police have confirmed that Hopewell High School Principal Byron Grant is in custody in connection with Wednesday afternoon’s shooting death of the school’s bursar. The initial report had indicated that Grant smashed through a glass door as he attempted to flee when a man gunned down 35-five-year-old Jermaine Roberts on the school compound. It was also reported that Grant was injured and was taken to a medical institution for treatment. On Thursday, chairman of the school’s Board of Management Dalton Hastings told the Jamaica Observer that Grant was now out of hospital and recuperating. However, on Thursday afternoon, commanding officer for the Hanover Police Division Superintendent Ian Mowatt confirmed reports from Observer sources that there was a bizarre twist in the investigation and that Grant had been taken into custody Wednesday night. “Yes, it is confirmed,” Mowatt told the Observer. “It is in relation to the case.” A day earlier Mowatt had appealed to witnesses to come forward to buttress footage captured by Closed Circuit Television cameras on the school compound. According to Observer sources, Grant had been instrumental in the installation of the cameras years ago. On Thursday, before news of the principal being taken into custody became public, an emergency board meeting was held to discuss how best to navigate the trauma being experienced by the school community. “It is tragic and the entire school family is actually in mourning, and it is taking a toll on them as staff were still on campus whilst it happened. So, you will understand the trauma that they are going through,” Hastings told the Observer. The initial report was that the fatal shooting occurred shortly before 4:00 pm on Wednesday as Roberts was about to drive off the compound. He reportedly died on the spot. Roberts is originally from St Mary and, up to Thursday afternoon, efforts by the school to reach his family proved futile. His school family, meanwhile, will receive support and counselling. “We have been in dialogue with the regional director of the Ministry of Education, the minister of education, and we are all coming together to see all the necessary support that we can give. My immediate concern now is the support for the family and the school population and that is what I am working on as we speak,” stated Hastings. Roberts is the second individual to be murdered at the 17-year-old school. In 2010, a gunman posing as a parent shot dead 32-year-old New Testament Church of God minister Keaven Dixon as he left the compound. Dixon had gone to the school to collect his job confirmation letter to commence teaching.

The National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA) is to roll out a national anti-vaping campaign next year after a recently concluded baseline assessment pointed to usage among primary and high school-aged students, sparking fears over nicotine addiction which might continue into adulthood. Speaking with the Jamaica Observer in a recent interview, NCDA Research Analyst Uki Atkinson said the study conducted over the past two months using focus groups across three parishes was the result of increasing reports from across the island from schools about vaping. “Those discussions yielded a wealth of information as to what is going on with vaping. We knew already that it’s happening, but to hear it directly from the horse’s mouth confirms that we have an increasing problem facing us,” Atkinson said. Atkinson said the students, some of whom spoke at length about their own experience with vaping, and other individuals in their space, told the Observer, “the fact is that it is now almost like a trend with young people”. “So vaping is cool, they are not thinking necessarily about the health effects of it because the risk perception of vaping is very low; they are looking at the flavours which is exactly what the products are intended to do; in other words, they market these products in a way so you have the chocolate flavour and the mint flavour and raspberry and all of these and the different devices and the attractiveness of the way the devices are made,” she pointed out. She said youngsters were also exultant about the fact they can vape without detection by adults, and ease of access to the product. “They emphasised that teachers don’t know, and parents don’t know [the devices], so they can use it in their presence and they don’t know. You can do it incognito. Because you can’t really smell it; it’s not like cigarettes where when somebody smokes you know because you smell it. Some of them are very sweet-smelling, they are aromatic,” Atkinson explained. She said students described the fad as an escape hatch. “When we asked why young people are vaping, they said it’s a trend, it’s a fad, it helps them relax, [and] it helps them escape some of the problems they are having,” Atkinson shared. The NCDA is, however, concerned about one troubling factor that is eluding the youngsters. “What we know is the majority of these products they are consuming contain significant amounts of nicotine and nicotine is one of the most addictive substances, and a lot of people don’t know this, and especially when you introduce it to the growing brain the likelihood of addiction is very high,” she said. In noting that the NCDA had no intention of being “sensational” or “the bearer of bad news” Atkinson said during the assessment guidance counsellors, school administrators, vice-principals and other school officials expressed concern about children vaping at school. “While they confiscate the devices, they have outlined an increasing problem with this substance. Some of them have said they are not challenged with ganja anymore as vaping has taken over. They have also noted that not all the devices contain nicotine; some of them contain cannabis,” Atkinson disclosed. Said Atkinson: “We are not talking about uptown children, we are talking about parishes that have remote rural schools across the board. It’s not confined to one socioeconomic group.” “We have a lot on our hands. Our young people are struggling with their mental health, struggling with coping, and if we do not attend to them urgently, we are going to have major problems later on. That’s the reality. I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news but we have to keep it real,” she said. Atkinson said the NCDA will be conducting the campaign over the new year and will incorporate the recommendations from the youth who were canvassed who indicated that they would prefer messaging from their peers that is balanced and not “scare tactics”.

Approximately 50 motorists have had their licences suspended since the new Road Traffic Act came into force in February. While no motorists has had his/her driver’s licence revoked so far the traffic chief, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Gary McKenzie has warned motorists to obey the rules of the road or they will feel the effects of the law when they have accumulated enough demerit points for their driver’s licences to be suspended, and could also be revoked. The new law, which significantly updates fines and penalties for breaches, took effect on February 1, and since this time the police say more than 535,000 tickets have been issued to motorists for various offences. This has, however, not bested the record number of 720,694 traffic tickets issued for breaches of the road code last year. “I believe that the increase in fines and points for some offences have made a difference. The addition of the offence of driving whilst using a cellphone is impactful,” said McKenzie, who heads the Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch (PSTEB) of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). He told the Jamaica Observer that the offence motorists are mostly ticketed for is ‘failing to wear seat belt’ for which more than 100,000 tickets have been issued, followed by ‘driving at excessive speeds’, with more than 60,000 tickets issued. Under the legislation, an accumulation of traffic tickets for offences, including speeding, driving/operating motor vehicle while using electronic communication device, and careless driving causing collision, now result in demerit points added to the driver’s licence. ACP McKenzie noted that licences are suspended through the courts or when motorists accumulate 10 or more points. Among the repercussions for the offence of speeding under the demerit system, with the accumulation of 10 to 14 demerit points over a 12-month period, is the suspension of the licence and/or payment of fines. To get back the licence, the driver is required to complete training on the dangers of speeding by a certified driving instructor, and pass a written test administered by the Island Traffic Authority (ITA). However, if after 15 months, a driver has accumulated demerit points that are fewer than those required for a suspension of the licence, then the points will expire and the record cleared. Under the new Road Traffic Act, drivers with outstanding traffic tickets will not be able to transfer titles of vehicles, renew driver’s licences, or pay fitness and registration fees. Previously, drivers with accumulated traffic tickets were still able to conduct these transactions at the tax office. In the meantime, ACP McKenzie said he believes that the police have been fairly effective in enforcement of the new Road Traffic Act. He said that the electronic ticketing system has greatly improved enforcement and has ensured greater compliance as it relates to prosecutions. He noted, for example, that payment for infractions have now moved from 30 per cent to approximately 55 per cent. In June this year, the Ministry of National Security had reported that the digitised Traffic Ticket Management System (TTMS) has resulted in greater efficiencies, reducing the number of issues associated with the manual writing tickets by 90 per cent. The system allows the police to issue tickets using a mobile device and printer. The data instantly uploads to the centralised TTMS database, which is accessible by the JCF, the traffic courts and all other government agencies that depend on traffic ticket information. The digitised system has reduced the time it takes for the police to issue a traffic ticket and there has also been an increase in the number of traffic tickets being issued, with the number now averaging 7,000 per week. ACP McKenzie said he is of the belief that motorists are not as aware as they should be about what is contained in the new Road Traffic Act; as such, he is advising them to visit the Ministry of Justice’s website to get more acquainted with the new legislation.

THE Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) kept borrowing rates unchanged Wednesday despite mounting worries over inflation, and it showed little sign that it is contemplating cutting them any time soon — unlike the US Federal Reserve. The central bank left its main interest rate at a 12-year high of 7 per cent, where it has stood since November 2022 following the end of a year of hikes that targeted a surge in inflation, first stoked by supply chain issues during the coronavirus pandemic and then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which pushed up food and energy costs. All five members of the central bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) voted for holding rates again for the ninth-consecutive meeting pointing to core inflation — that is price increases outside of that for food and fuel which tend to volatile — “being contained” at 5.6 per cent which bodes well for the longer-term inflation outlook. That is generally in line with the average of the past three months and lower than the 8.4 per cent recorded at April 2022. Central banks focus on core inflation when setting interest rates rather than just the headline rate. But the headline rate, which was 6.3 per cent in November, is also being keenly watched. While the BOJ said the drivers of high inflation over recent months are waning as international commodity prices and shipping costs continue to decline, other things such as the increase in public passenger vehicle (PPV) fares and high domestic agricultural prices “marks the onset of temporary fluctuations in inflation outside the target band”. The BOJ is mandated to maintain inflation at a rate of between 4 per cent and 6 per cent, and largely realised that in the months of September and October. Still, while the interest rate increases have helped in the battle against inflation, it has squeezed consumer spending, primarily through higher mortgage rates. Financial institutions are also again hiking rates on loans. There are growing worries that rates will stay high for too long, unnecessarily damaging the economy. Yet, there are indications that the lowering of the central bank policy rate will not come soon enough. That as the BOJ indicates that inflation for much of the period between the December 2023 and March 2024 quarters is expected to rise above its mandated target again, primarily due to the continued impact of the increases in selected PPV fares. “Without the effects of the PPV fare increase, it is estimated that annual headline inflation would have averaged 5.9 per cent during this period,” the BOJ said in notes accompanying its decision. But the increase in select PPV fares is not the only worry the central bank has. It said “sharper-than-anticipated increases in domestic agricultural price inflation over the near term, and higher-than-projected future wage adjustments in the context of the tight domestic labour market” are concerning its MPC. And like in all its releases, it said that any decision on changing its stance on the policy rate will depend on incoming data. For now it said it will maintain heightened surveillance of the risks and core inflation and “is prepared to take the necessary actions, including further tightening of monetary policy, if the emerging upside risks to inflation highlighted above materialise.” As always though, the actions of the US Fed will also be taken into account when setting the policy rate in the future. The US Fed already has signalled that it expects to make three interest rate cuts next year after it kept rates on hold earlier this month. The European Central Bank, which sets policy for the 20 European Union countries using the euro currency, also left rates unchanged but indicated that it would stay the course for a while. The date of the next policy decision announcement in Jamaica is February 20, 2024.

Power brokers in the education sector are being encouraged to develop more residential-type schools for boys as part of the solution to rescuing young men who are suffering from a lack of positive male mentorship. The suggestion was made by Jayson Downer, chairman of Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre and former boarding master at Jamaica College, at a men and boys forum staged by the United Nations Women Multi-Country Office Caribbean last Thursday. “I have seen what providing a safe space where healthy masculinity is modelled to an 11-year-old who comes, just about to enter puberty, to the point of leaving in upper sixth form, or a boy who they transferred to play sport and he has to board and when you take an intentional approach what the result can be to the point where boys don’t want to go home,” Downer, who is also founder of Men of God Against Violence and Abuse, told the forum held at ROK hotel, downtown Kingston. Downer, who shared that he now runs a small-scale residential operation for boys and also partners with two Corporate Area high schools to help provide interventions for boys with maladaptive behaviours, said the approach is proven. “I was the boarding master at Jamaica College up to April of this year, from 2016, and I had the opportunity to practically see what many theorise and that’s why I use the term sterile environment as opposed to confinement. If we get that sterile environment, and put the right things in place, we can set up a paramilitary school; but nobody nah put dem money deh, but I have seen the transformation,” he noted. “Let’s do a pilot…it works,” he urged further. Commenting on the issue, Dave Henzel, board chair for CariMAN Jamaica — a regional network of individuals and organisations in the Caribbean working on engaging men and boys to promote gender equality — said the proposal was worth exploring, not just for boys, but also for men who are in need of psycho-social support. “One of the issues I think is crucial is the issue of education; the way in which some of our educational institutions don’t seem to be as male-friendly as they could be, and there is really a need for a reworking of that,” Henzel said. “The issue of dormitory spaces, one of the things I feel we are identifying here is the absence of spaces for men to express themselves in a way that they can be heard and understood and assisted,” he noted. “The residential setting gives an opportunity; it is not limited to a term-long dormitory situation. If we were able to organise more weekend retreats, week-long retreats, summer-long retreats where we just have the men for two weeks, you would be surprised how that time would give space for them to assess themselves and begin to do the rethinking and retooling about what being a man really is,” Henzel said. “That’s something I think we should look at as a possible solution, because that residential experience has an opportunity to transform within a short period of time,” he added. Downer, speaking further on the issue, in referring to the work of his organisation with men including some who have served time, said, “When you give a listening ear and a man let out what in him belly and begin to talk, you would be surprised how in the same breath that man will tell you how what he did was wrong. Men come from the prison and one of the reasons they find us is because they feel they can relate to us as men. Your approach is key.”

JAMAICA’S lead environmental protection agency on Tuesday absolved German Ship Repair Jamaica Limited of responsibility for the recent fish kill at Harbour View, St Andrew, saying that an enforcement action it had taken against the company under the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) Act was for “non-compliance with terms and conditions of the environmental permit” issued to the company in 2019. “The management of German Ship Repair Jamaica Limited has begun to comply and to satisfy the requirements of the submission of documents for review,” National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) said in a news release. The massive fish kill occurred on Saturday, December 9, 2023 and was attributed to a build-up of oxygen-depleting algae. Anthony McKenzie, director of environmental management and conservation at NEPA, had told the Jamaica Observer that the fish in that area died due to a lack of oxygen. “It is not an uncommon occurrence, especially in that area. We started our investigations yesterday [December 9], and based on our findings so far it is pointing to the cause of the fish kill being a red tide that is presently occurring in the harbour. What that means is that we have oxygen depletion resulting in the death of the fish,” he said. “We are, however, still investigating, and our investigations will involve NEPA, the National Fisheries Authority, and the veterinary services commission,” he said. In its release on Tuesday, NEPA also reported that an enforcement notice was served on the president of the National Water Commission (NWC) on Monday, December 11, 2023 in relation to the fish kill at Harbour Head. The notice requires the NWC to: 1. Immediately cease the discharge of improperly treated sewage to the environment; 2. Repair/replace the malfunctioning pump at the lift station within three days of the December 11 notice; 3. Install a redundancy pump to minimise the possibility of any discharge; 4. Install/implement an early warning system and submit details within 30 days of the effective date of the notice, and monthly reports on the results of this system should be submitted to the agency; 5. Submit a maintenance schedule for the entire system within seven days of the date of the notice. “The NWC has already complied with items 1 and 2 of the requirements,” said NEPA, which also gave an update on the oil spill in the Rio Cobre in St Catherine. According to NEPA, “the oil spill emitted from the Jamaica Beverage[s] plant, owned and operated by Trade Winds Citrus Limited, is now contained. Rehabilitation of the storm drains and other impacted areas of the Rio Cobre is continuing”. NEPA also reported that the directors of Trade Winds Citrus Limited have been served with an enforcement notice under the NRCA Act and a summons to appear in court under the Wild Life Protection Act.

A detective sergeant who led police investigations into the July 20, 2020 murder of Tonia McDonald in Portland seemingly got caught in a state of confusion during the trial on Tuesday in the Home Circuit Court, downtown Kingston, while under cross-examination from attorney-at-law John Jacobs. Tonia’s partially burnt body was found on the main road in Sherwood Forest in Portland with multiple stab wounds. She was found beside the razed Toyota Axio motor car she was driving. Facing questions from Jacobs on Tuesday, the lead detective appealed for many chances to be able to recall certain occurrences during the investigations, particularly in relation to the recording of at least two statements from a witness in the case. The policeman had difficulty recalling where one statement was recorded and had to overcome the challenge of settling on the dates when he said the statements had been taken. At first he told the court that he was present during the recording of at least one of the statements by the witness who had given evidence in relation to liquid substance in a glass bottle that turned out to be acid after tests were done at a government lab. The cop said a statement was taken from the witness at a police station. However, checks made by Jacobs revealed that the statement was taken at the home of the witness. “A statement was recorded. It is on the file. It is possible my notebook could help me with the events,” the policeman said before he was given an opportunity to consult his notebook. After checking the notebook, the detective sergeant said, “There is no notation in respect of the statement.” Jacobs pressed the policeman to explain whether he had signed any certificate to say he observed the taking of the statement from the witness. “I remember signing one certificate. I cannot speak to the date. The statement that was taken that I observed could have been at one of the police stations in Portland,” the cop said. Jacobs, however, told the policeman that no statement from that particular witness was recorded in his presence at any police station. The lawyer then asked for the statement to be shown to the witness and asked him to tell the court where the statement was recorded. The policeman said, The statement was recorded on August 18, 2020. It was done at the home of the witness. I observed the taking of that particular statement. I went to the home, Sir, on at least one occasion and not at a police station. It was an error when I said police station. “I was there at the start of the statement but not at the finish. I signed the certificate because I did observe it. I was there for the signing. When it was completed I was called and it was read back to me. The witness signed it and I was witness to it.” Regarding the other statement the witness gave, the detective sergeant said he only observed a portion of the writing of the statement. He told the court that he did not observe the writing of that statement for long because he had to tend to something else in relation to the case. “What I attended to was important to the case,” he said, saying that he did not remember if he made any mention of that in his statements. The lawyer later asked the detective why he searched Beachy Stout’s supermarket in Portland without the businessman being present. The cop claimed that it was too high a risk to do so, even though it was in very close proximity to a police station. “I searched two premises for him. One is located in Dolphin Bay, Portland. When I searched it he was not in custody. While he was in custody I searched 8 William Street. It is good practice to search in the presence of the owner but not in all situations. The investigator would determine this. It was my decision to search 8 William Street. It would have been a risk to have Mr McDonald present. “The business is close to a police station but the risk was still very high,” he said. Jacobs is one of five attorneys representing Beachy Stout, who is one of two accused in the matter. The other person facing trial for the murder of Tonia is Oscar Barnes. The trial continues on January 9, 2024.

The Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society (JCHS) has thrown its weight behind the 25,000 strong Jamaica Teachers’ Association’s position that utilisation of the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” should not be normalised in the education sector. On December 11, 2023, JTA President Leighton Johnson, in calling for open discussions on the matter, said while the issue is not yet mainstream in Jamaica, the association is unbending in its stance that the natural line of distinction between sexes cannot be blurred by modern definitions. Gender identity, according to the World Health Organization, “refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth”. According to the JTA head, subscribing to that definition would spell chaos for Jamaica. “Let’s look at the implications of all of this: In our country we have schools that are gender-based, we have all-female schools, we have all-male schools… if, as a nation, we were to subscribe to this new definition of what gender is based on — one’s intuition based on how one feels at a particular time — then this has serious implications for how we operate as an education sector,” he told Tyrell Morgan, host of virtual talk show Heart to Heart, at the time. “These are the conversations we must have. As a nation, the Church, and any other group, we need to continue to stand against this kind of thinking. Of course, there are those who will want to promote this modern thinking, there are those who would indicate that our position is archaic and outdated and doesn’t have a basis, but I would continue to promote the thinking that we are a Christian nation and it is the Bible that defines our morality,” the JTA president said. On Monday this week, the JCHS, in a statement to the Observer, said it “firmly stands” with Johnson in rejecting the acceptance or utilisation of the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) in the education sector. According to the coalition, SOGI is neither accepted in Jamaican law nor in any binding international treaty. “The terms ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ are based on false and flawed ideas. A person’s sex is either male or female and is determined from conception. No matter what a person may feel about him or herself, sex can never be changed. It is biologically and medically impossible,” JCHS head Dr Wayne West asserted. According to Dr West, “To affirm that a man can become a woman, or a woman can become a man by undergoing surgeries or taking hormones is to aid and abet someone’s confusion and delusion. Such a person needs sound counselling support to regain a correct sense of self.” “Furthermore, homosexual and bisexual sexual preferences are abnormal and run against design and purpose of the natural order of the universe,” the JCHS president asserted. He further argued that “the societal chaos that would result from introducing those terms into law and policy is not imagined but can be clearly seen in the experiences of other nations such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada which have normalised those terms”. According to Dr West, such countries have found themselves in deeper problems by normalising these terms. “In accepting gender identity, males who feel they are female are being allowed to use female bathrooms, play on female sports teams, and in Canada convicted male sex offenders are permitted to transfer to female prisons, putting the female inmates are risk for sexual assault by the male imposters,” Dr West argued. “Sexual orientation is undefined and potentially unlimited in its scope, going beyond homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual and can include other criminally prohibited behaviours such as incest, paedophilia and bestiality,” the JCHS head warned. Legal counsel for the JCHS, attorney Shirley Richards, in the meantime said the use of the word “gender” to classify humans is extremely suspect. “Of note is that there is no constitutional basis for use of the word gender in this manner. The report of the Joint Constitutional Committee, 2001, which oversaw public discussion on, and deliberated on the amendments to the constitution, namely the Charter of Rights, recognised that gender refers to the grammatical classification of nouns and related words. However, the word ‘sex’ is the more appropriate designation for humans. The resulting section 13 (3) (i)) in the Charter of Rights therefore expressly provides for one classification of humans, namely, sex being either male or female,” Richards pointed out. In the meantime, JCHS Advocacy Officer Philippa Davies said most individuals are in the dark as to the popularisation of the terms and the ill effects. “Most persons are unaware that it was in the 1960-70s that Dr John Money (1921-2006) popularised the terms ‘gender’ and ‘gender identity’. He was among the pioneers of the now discredited practice of sex ‘reassignment’ surgery and was a proponent of paedophilia,” Davies said. “His most famous and disastrous experiment was to force the parents of Bruce Reimer to raise the boy as a girl, while Money routinely sexually traumatised Bruce and his twin brother as children. This experiment ended tragically with both brothers becoming severely mentally distressed and committing suicide two years apart while still in their 30s. The mainstreaming of the word ‘gender’ in various policy documents and programmes in Jamaica has really been based on grammatical inaccuracy and a sordid history,” she declared. The JCHS is, in the meantime, urging Government ministries, agencies and departments “to bring their activities and programme titles in line with the constitution by replacing ‘gender’ with sex” and thus avoiding what it says is “the undesirable association with an unethical history in the false description of humans as a ‘gender’.”

GRANGE HILL, Westmoreland – The Westmoreland Municipal Corporation has served People’s National Party councillor/candidate Warren Littleton (Grange Hill Division) with a stop order on a house that is being built adjacent to a cemetery. However Littleton’s son, Ackeem, told the Jamaica Observer that he is the owner of the structure being erected on the property in Church Lincoln, Grange Hill, and is fuming that the stop notice, served on December 15, will result in losses for him. “I don’t know what is the next procedure. For a little youth who a work and a build from so long and then they come give a stop order when you put on the housetop [and] borrow loan,” the 27-year-old bartender bemoaned. He also rubbished talk that the house is being constructed inside the cemetery. “I am not in the cemetery; a yah so mi born and grow. They need to get their surveyor, get their diagrams, and from there they can say if the house is on the land because I don’t know about that,” Ackeem Littleton argued. On Monday a resident of a nearby community told the Observer that there were three wooden houses in the cemetery but that they were taken down after the residents received notice to remove. “Mi nuh feel good ’bout it. Nobody nuh fi try occupy the cemetery; the cemetery is for the poorer class of people. Houses were here before and the Government give them notice and dem move,” the resident said. The Observer sought a comment from Westmoreland’s Chief Public Health Inspector Steve Morris on the risks of living inside a cemetery. “If somebody goes into a cemetery and builds a permanent structure, it is cause for concern,” he said. “It’s a permanent structure being put in a public space, and that should be a no-no,” Morris said, adding that the parish is short on burial space. “Grange Hill is one of those big communities with a large population and so space in [a] cemetery is really short. At the health department we will not support living among the dead,” he said. Attempts to get a comment from Mayor Bertel Moore on the matter were unsuccessful as it was said that he had to get a comment from the officer who served the notice.

NEW YORK, USA – The matriarch of a Jamaican family who survived a stabbing rampage that snuffed out the lives of four members of the family, including two children aged 11 and 12, is reportedly recovering after undergoing emergency surgery here. Christine Watson, 61, is “alert and conscious”, a sister told New York Daily News. Watson was among five members of the family who were attacked in their home by her nephew Courtney Gordon, 38, in a horrific incident that rocked the Far Rockaway, Queens, community during the early hours of Sunday, December 4, 2023. Gordon was later shot and killed by police after he allegedly attacked and wounded two officers who arrived at the scene to investigate the incident. Those killed in the knife attack included Watson’s daughter Suzette Taylor, 44; her (Watson’s) son-in-law; and her two grandchildren whose names were not disclosed. The grandchildren had migrated from Jamaica recently, investigators said. Family members were quoted as saying that Gordon was taken into the home by Watson after he became homeless. He was said to be suffering from severe mental health issues. Concern mounted among family members who became increasingly fearful that Gordon would “fly off ” at some point. They told him he had to move out of the home as “he was acting strange and talking strange things”, the New York Daily News reported family friend, Charmaine Taylor, as saying. Another of Gordon’s aunts, Lillian McKoy, who provided accommodation for him in her Bronx, New York home between last year and earlier this year, told reporters she was forced to put him out as well because of his behaviour. Family members and friends are still trying to come to terms with the gruesome murders. “This is shocking. We are all sad and devastated. We don’t take it lightly because two families have been destroyed at this moment,” McKoy said of the incident. The tragedy marks the second time in less than a month that the Jamaican community here has been shaken by murders. Last month a Jamaican landlord, David Daniels, stabbed his two tenants and his girlfriend to death in St Albans, Queens. That incident stemmed from a dispute over the non-payment of rent. Daniels, who blamed stress and pressure for his actions, is currently awaiting trial on three counts of second-degree murder and one count of criminal possession of a weapon. Prosecutors plan to seek a life sentence without parole if he is convicted.

SIX teenage entrepreneurs, owners of clothing brand Old Crisis, have contributed to the deepening of the Christmas spirit this year as they shared their good fortune with children at Stony Hill Basic School last Tuesday. The six — Joey Bogdanovich, Jordon Dennis, Carmelo Onfroy, Kaden Harris, Zack Foster and Thierry Silvera — gave gifts of books, toys and cash valued at $600,000 to the school, and spent the morning playing and interacting with the children. “Spending time with the kids was most definitely the best part of the morning because, at the end of the day, it’s all about them and seeing smiles on their faces as they received their gifts; I am sure we enjoyed the treat as much as they did. We did this because we believe more young people should become involved in sharing with others who are less fortunate,” said Bogdanovich. The youngsters started the business in 2022 and, according to Bogdanovich, “The brand was created by Carmelo. He got us together and told us we’re going to start the brand. We all liked the idea so we joined him in the venture. “This Christmas we decided that the community gave us a lot of support and we wanted to give back as much as we could so we sponsored a fun event for the children. We bought gifts for the kids — because it’s Christmas time — and we gave the school a cheque for 200K [$200,000] to put towards books that they may need. Overall, it was a very unique day and it turned out perfectly.” The Old Crisis brand currently focuses on the production and branding of T-shirts. The name Old Crisis demonstrates depth of insight on the part of these young people who were inspired by the concept that there is “nothing new under the sun”. “The essence of human kindness and generosity remains timeless. In the context of any initiative it implies that while your act of giving may be unique, the fundamental idea of people coming together to support one another has been a constant throughout history. It’s a reminder that, even in the novelty of your endeavours, you are part of a broader, timeless narrative of communal care and compassion,” he said. “The past year was successful for us so it was only right for us to give back to the community,” added Bogdanovich.