CARIBBEAN ROUND-UP
Financial Task Force/IMF meeting in Barbados
ST JOHN’S, Antigua — What has been officially described as “a crucial meeting” of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) takes place in Barbados tomorrow.
A direct outcome of the Ministerial Meeting of the CFATF held in The Bahamas last October, tomorrow’s meeting will focus on a controversial “methodology” to be used in the Caribbean and Central America as part of the IMF and World Bank surveillance.
Sir Ronald Sanders, chief negotiator on international services for Antigua and Barbuda and deputy chairman of the CFATF, will be representing the government of Antigua and Barbuda at the meeting.
He said that at last October’s confab, a specific request was made for a meeting with representatives of the IMF to “fully explore the purposes and implications of the new methodology to be pursued”.
The demand for such a meeting was made since, as Sanders explained, the new approaches agreed to by the IMF and the CFATF — the grouping that represents the world’s industrialised nations — seem to go beyond the money laundering recommendations of the CFATF, “and include new standards that will not be applied to other jurisdictions but the Caribbean region”.
While in Barbados, the Antigua and Barbuda delegation and the secretariat of the CFATF will review a draft report that provides an analysis of the country’s compliance with international standards for combating drug trafficking and money laundering.
Caricom leaders meeting in Trinidad
ROSEAU, Dominica — Caribbean Community heads of government will meet in Port-of-Spain February 14-15 for their first inter-sessional conference for 2003.
Details of the event, expected to be preceded by an informal session of Caricom leaders on the promotion of matters pertaining to both economic and political integration, were worked out during a meeting here last week between Prime Minister Pierre Charles of Dominica and the community’s secretary-general, Edwin Carrington.
Charles has assumed the chairmanship of Caricom for the next six months, taking over from President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana. But the Port-of-Spain meeting of community leaders will be hosted by Prime Minister Patrick Manning.
Carrington has confirmed that “critical areas” to be addressed at next month’s meeting will include the framework plan agreed to last August in St Lucia for stabilising and transforming Caribbean economies and the related issue of the Regional Stabilisation Fund.
Progress on arrangements to operationalise the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) and establishment of the Caribbean Court of Justice will also be high on the agenda.
A meeting of regional co-ordinators for the CCJ took place at the Caricom Secretariat in Georgetown on Sunday as part of a series of meetings leading up to next month’s Port-of-Spain meeting.
PNC/R calls for urgent anti-crime meeting
GEORGETOWN, Guyana — Guyana’s main opposition party, People’s National Congress/Reform (PNC/R) has called for an “urgent meeting” with acting police commissioner Floyd McDonald to discuss the crime problems plaguing the country.
The call came from the party’s chairman and interim leader, Robert Corbin, who said that there was a need for special focus on Buxton village, scene of a number of murders, criminal violence and disturbances.
In what is viewed as a significant initiative following the death last month of the PNC/R’s leader, Desmond Hoyte, Corbin has also written separately to President Bharrat Jagdeo urging the pursuit of a “co-ordinted strategy” to combat the offensive of the criminals.
In a press release on Sunday that disclosed the forwarding of letters to President Jagdeo and Police Commissioner McDonald, Corbin said that “all blatant law breakers should be equally brought to justice if there is to be national confidence in and support for the work of the security forces”.