Oluatoyin Alleyne

Some residents of Orealla village on the Corentyne River are calling for the removal of the current Toshao alleging that he has been mismanaging the village’s assets and not properly accounting for its finances.

One of the victims in the recently dismissed hu-man trafficking cases against shop owner Ann Marie Carter has called upon the authorities to re-open the case and give her a chance to testify against the woman whom she alleges brutalized her.

APNU leader David Granger last evening gave notice of the main opposition’s intention to withhold support for proposed spending that is not in the nation’s interest, while  saying government’s estimates in its $220B national budget do not cater for the poor, the workers, the young, the aged and is driven by politics and not economics.

While Minister of Edu-cation Priya Manickchand boasted about the advancements made in the education sector, APNU’s shadow minister Amna Ally criticised spending in the sector, saying the nation’s children are not the real beneficiaries.

Owners of small businesses in Guyana frown on record-keeping mostly because many don’t pay taxes even though they understand the importance of having their records up to date, according to University of Guyana part-time lecturer and business trainer Denise Bentinck “In Guyana people involved in small business have a practice of not wanting to keep records and instead they commit information to their heads,” Bentinck told Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview.

In a surprise move, APNU Member of Parliament Jaipaul Sharma yesterday resigned from the National Assembly over a comment made about his father by Education Minister Priya Manickchand during the budget debate even as Speaker Raphael Trotman lifted a ban he had earlier imposed on the minister following her refusal to apologise to her fellow MP.

Saying that the proposed $220 billion budget seeks to bring balance in income distribution and the national “pie of wealth,” Minister of Housing and Water Irfaan Ali pilloried APNU’s Shadow Finance Minister Carl Greenidge for criticising the estimates for spending this year but not offering any concrete alternatives to improve the lives of citizens.

Guyana has failed to develop a consolidated response to the growing problem of domestic violence and “while nothing gets done… women and children especially continue to die,” lecturer and programme officer in the Women’s Studies Unit (WSU) University of Guyana, Audrey Benn says.

The current Sexual Offences Act has strong legislative power but there is a gap in terms of its implementation.

Sharp, witty, fierce yet sensitive and patriotic were some of the words used to describe former Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Deborah Backer who died early yesterday morning at the Davis Memorial Hospital following months of illness.

A stint in the lock-ups, a charge of larceny and a case that dragged on for five years marked the beginning of a turning point in Karen de Souza’s life when she realized that living is much more than making oneself comfortable while others suffer around you.

There is need for Caribbean universities to get their students out of the classrooms and more into their communities to help these become developed and sustainable and to address their many social problems.

Something of a fixture at the corner of North Road and Orange Walk, Nandaram Sawh can be seen night or day chopping fresh water coconuts for his thirsty customers who he says flock to him because of his mantra, “the customer comes first.”

A political novice by the name of Dr Karen Cummings was recently chosen to replace a veteran, Deborah Backer, in the National Assembly, but while she may be a newcomer she has already identified a number of issues in the health sector she would like to address.

A 30-year-old Soesdyke taxi driver and mother of two was yesterday morning found murdered behind the Jubilee Resort on the Linden/Soesdyke Highway and one man has since been taken into custody and has reportedly confessed to the crime.

Following a three-day ‘awareness’ trip to the Cuyuni area, Region 7, the Guyana Women Miners Organisation (GWMO) said it remains concerned about the conditions under which women in the interior are forced to work and about the number of young girls who are still being trafficked.

The opposition has brought about real change, according to Opposition Leader David Granger, who says there has been a strengthened National Assembly and greater scrutiny of the executive despite constraints.

The time has come for persons working in the construction sector to have basic training in occupation, health and safety practices since for too long they have been putting their life and health at risk, according to occupation, health and safety expert Dale Beresford.

At 18 many young girls would be looking forward excitedly to their future, but for Tammy (not her real name) her future seems grim and as she puts it, “there is nothing to look forward to.”

The intestinal injuries sustained by prisoner Colwyn Harding, who has accused a policeman of sodomising him with a baton, resulted after an operation for an incarcerated inguinal hernia, Minister of Health Dr Bheri Ramsaran told the National Assembly yesterday.