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Speaking truth to power

• Report on Tourism Growth 2010

• Why APUA is Broke?

This article can be found in the Top Stories section

APUA solution is to first increase utility rates to extortionary levels bankrupting every business and household, 40% of whom at any given time is disconnected, take up public pipes depriving poor people of having access to clean public water jeopardizing public health, cutting off households businesses including media houses, putting people out of work. All of these measures reduce production and retarding economic growth.

As if those measures are not harmful enough, APUA has now targeted old people, real old people, deciding to discontinue the labour Party programme of providing free utilities to eighty year old household with no dependent. A UPP government prepared to ride on the backs of octogenarians to make up for their mismanagement and corruption.

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• Businesses in China, a minefield of bribery risks

This article can be found in Top Stories section

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Foreign companies doing business in China must navigate a business culture in which bribery is rife, finding ways to remove obstacles to expanding in the world's second-largest economy without running afoul of local or home-country laws.

Especially in areas such as dealing with local officials in charge of permits, it is still common for bribes, whether cash or illegal gifts, to be expected in return for providing the necessary approvals, industry and legal experts say.

For U.S. companies in particular, that means they need to take pains not to run afoul of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which bars U.S. firms and others from paying bribes to officials of foreign governments.

"Any industry that you see that is heavily regulated typically is high-risk," said Meg Utterback, a partner at the law firm King and Wood Mallesons in Shanghai who frequently deals with corporate investigations.

 

• Instability in Eastern Caribbean government Securities market: Antigua the new banging Post!

This article can be found in Top Stories section

Dwight Venner the politically adventurous central bank governor, busy putting in the place the economic superstructure to his long held dream of forming a unitary OECS state has many irons in the fire, so many in fact he is losing control and things seem to be falling apart with little attention from the Governor and his pliable monetary council.

The OECS government Securities Market put in place by the Governor and central bank to help governments raise capital is in dire jeopardy of collapsing. Two governments St Kitts Nevis and Antigua Barbuda HAVE NOW Defaulted ON THEIR government issued loans to Bond holders, mainly institutions and individuals from Antigua and the rest of the OECS.

Poor economic growth and performance in the sub region with negative growth over the past three years in most of the countries threaten further default from additional countries who continue to fail at restoring economic growth, creating jobs and attracting new investments.

• BAWL MURDA! TIME FOR A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE

This article can be found in Editorials and Opinions section

The people of Antigua and Barbuda are left with little options other than to BAWL MURDA under the hardship, pain, hunger and bankruptcy brought on by the poor performance of UPP Government, led by Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer. Relief can only come if a vote of no confidence is tabled and passed in Parliament, forcing early elections to vote the government out of power and relieve the people of their misery.
As the swirling sea of bankruptcy engulfs the government and make non- functional every service and institution of government, the people of Antigua and Barbuda are feeling the pressure and increasingly a consensus is evolving that it is now time for the UPP government to go.

The latest assault by the UPP government on the people of Antigua and Barbuda came via a disembodied announcement by a walking dead that APUA will cut off all four services if any arrears show up on any one of the bills for the services provided.

APUA is bankrupt, short of four million every month. Under ALP APUA made annual profits on average of EC$30M. A look at all regional utilities show they are all making profit, some like Jamaica making as much as EC$110m a year profit. What is even more frustrating, APUA charges the second highest rate in the Caribbean with only Bermuda charging more.

It gets worse APUA has not presented an audited statement since 2003 statement was presented in Parliament. This means APUA has spent over $EC5 Billion without presenting any accounts to Parliament, breaking the law deliberately, continuously, materially and criminally.

• UPP GOVERNMENT SELLING ANTIGUAN PASSPORT: CRACK HEADS AT WORK

This article can be found in Special Feature section

IN ITS LATEST ACT OF DESPERATION the UPP Government plans to sell Antiguan passport and prime lands to foreigners, a special UPP task force urged the government to quickly implement the programme as a quick means of generating revenue deemed essential to prevent collapse of the government Treasury. The government intends to raise a hundred million dollars from this operation.

The last time Antiguans were for sale we were slaves. It took “plenty plenty blood sweat tears, plenty plenty rough sea and plenty plenty hot sun,” to free ourselves from slavery then battle with colonialism. Slavery was a system based on selling Antigua Land and citizenship; it involved dominance of a foreign minority who bought and sold black Africans and owned their Antiguan children as chattels.

The UPP GOVERNMENT INTRODUCED A PLETHORA OF NEW TAXES INTENSIFIED TAX COLLECTION EFFORTS AND RAISED TAXES TO EXHORBITANT LEVELS AFTER COMING TO POWER IN 2004 MOVING GOVERNMENT REVENUE FROM  $450M TO NEARLY A BILLION WITHIN THE SPACE OTF TWO YEARS . EXCITED BY THIS LARGE AMOUNT OF CASH THE GOVERNMENT WENT WILD.

• Board Of Education Harass Students after Wasting Millions in Ponzi Scheme

This article can be found in Top Stories section

Recently The Board of Education, (BOE) officials were loud in their aggression to sue sureties for grant money given to students to assist them in pursuing a university education for finding employment outside of Antigua.

The aggression hostility, the characterisation of these students as bad and even criminal, the self-righteous utterances coming from those in charge, proudly announcing new stringent rules governing future disbursements and qualification of sureties, demonstrate  a fundamental lack of understanding OFTHE ROLE OF EDUCATION AND MORE SO THE VALUE OF EMBODIED HUMAN CAPITAL WHEN PROGRAMMED AS AN EXPORT INDUSTRY. IT FURTHER POINTS TO A LACK OF CLEAR STRATEGIC APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT BY THE UPP GOVERNMENT.

First of all growth and development of all nations are determined by the critical factors of  technology, human capital, finance, market access and of course raw material, natural resources, principles of agglomeration and economies of scale  and of course appropriate policies vision and economic management.

• Psst, Did You hear?

This article can be found in the Did You Hear section

APUA IS bankrupt losing$4m a month

APUA plans to solve its problems by climbing on the back of eighty year olds cutting off their free utilities

APUA plans to take up public stand pipes

APUA has spent over$ 5B in eight years and refuse to table any audited statements as required by law in Parliament

Mancow at BOE suing students who tiered of being unemployed decided to work overseas

Mancow put millions of Board Education money in British American Ponzi scheme

Social Security lost over ten million and Medical Benefit in British American

Somebody receive millions in commissions for putting money with British American

Daniel have Spencer under neck arm

• Judge says Spencer Lie! Damn Lie! Blasted Lie!

This article can be found in the Top Stories section

Prime Minister Spencer is on a losing streak, in fact the worst losing streak of any Prime Minister in the Courts. Spencer lost taking Dato Tan and Stanford to court, setting in motion the anti -investor stance of UPP. Under Spencer the UPP does not court investors UPP takes investors to Court!

Now Spencer continues to rack up major losses in the courts, first in a show down with Gerry Watt, Spencer got a plain old whipping; exposed as an unconstitutional brazen law breaker!

• ABI Bank for Sale to ECAB - A Tale of UPP Government Wickedness and Stupidity

This article can be found in Top Stories section

Under cover of APUA - Chinese supplied $130m dollar old generator rip off scandal And Prime Minister Spencer continuous losses in court, first to Gerry Watt then to Lester Bird, the Minister of Finance Harold Lovell and the Central Bank Governor are making a move to finalise the sale of ABI Bank. This sale seems to be a part of The Governor of the Central Bank Dwight Venner’s plan of consolidating all the indigenous banks in the OECS into a single bank, as an important component to his life- long obsession of establishing a single OECS state.

The proposed structure of the sale and subsequent liquidation of ABI Bank is a new chapter in UPP Government wickedness, stupidity, betrayal, abuse of power and destruction of Antiguan entrepreneurship, wealth and self - confidence.

The sale proposal calls for a separation of the good assets of ABI bank from the bad assets. The good assets and the deposits of ABI BANK customers will be sold to ECAB for one dollar. The deposits for ABI Bank Shareholders and government $ 300m loan will not be part of this sale to ECAB. Instead the bad assets will be left in ABI Bank and the collateral sold off at an expected significant loss. This loss will be financed BY THE Shareholders share capital, retained earnings and deposits.  It is reported that the UPP Government, in a move that would make a gangster blush, intends to write off its $300m loan from ABI Bank as part of its payment for managing the banks liquidation.