Guyana News

Prime Minister Sam Hinds yesterday informed the National Assembly that the government has no current plans to establish a parliamentary committee to specifically address border issues.

While the Ministry of Labour has been unable to establish actual unemployment levels in Guyana, Labour Minister Nanda Gopaul says that whatever unemployment levels exist is a result of persons not possessing the skill sets that are in high demand.

Information on actions and procedures put in place by the government in the wake of a visit to Eteringbang by members of the Venezuela opposition is restricted, Prime Minister Sam Hinds told the National Assembly yesterday.

A key outcome of a recently completed three-day training workshop was the recommendation from participants that Guyana should accede to the Nagoya Protocol, an international legal instrument which covers access to genetic resources and fair and equitable benefit sharing.

The re-tabled Anti Money Laundering/ Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill was last night sent to a select committee of Parliament which will begin deliberating in detail on its contents in the new year.

The Government of Guyana has said that it is attempting to improve the level of transparency and accountability in the extractive industries, particularly in mining by eventually adopting the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) that involves the disclosure of payments to the government from private companies, and the disclosure of receipts from the government.

Six educational establishments are now the beneficiaries of five million dollars thanks to the contributions of CGX Energy Inc.

A resident of the East La Penitence Night Shelter was yesterday fined by a city magistrate after assaulting another resident in what he claimed was an attempt to wake the man up.

A realtor was yesterday brought to a city court after she allegedly converted the funds given to her for rent to her own use.

Twenty-one-year-old Keron Perreira, accused of the knifepoint hold-up of a teacher of the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre, was remanded to prison yesterday Perreira was not required to plead when he was brought to the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts yesterday.

At about 1155h today,  police say that a female Assistant Accountant and a female Accounts Clerk of the Ministry of Public Works, Fort Street, Kingston, accompanied by an armed Private Security Guard, were attacked and robbed of $7.7M by two men armed with handguns.

The police say they are conducting investigations into the murder of Godfrey Jaggroo, 20 years, of Belle Vue, WBD, which occurred at about 1900h last night at Belle Vue.

The Guyana Public Service Union yesterday announced in a statement that protest action/marches against the impositions of wages and salaries will commence tomorrow at 11hrs.

The long vacant post of Ombudsman will likely be filled soon as government yesterday informed the opposition of its selection of former Justice Winston Moore to hold the position.

APNU MP Joseph Harmon yesterday said that none of the explanations offered by Minister of Natural Resources Robert Persaud on the Muri Brasil Ventures survey in the sensitive New River Triangle are credible and he reiterated his call for the minister to quit.

The Director of Public Prosecu-tions (DPP) has directed that the preliminary inquiry (PI) in the murder charge against local cricketer Carlyle Barton, who was accused of fatally shooting another man on Orange Walk, be reopened.

By Jeff Trotman Over one hundred workers of the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) stayed away from their jobs yesterday as the protest against the government’s announced five percent increase for public servants escalated.

A pork-knocker, hailing from the North West District, was remanded to prison yesterday after being charged with murdering his own brother.

A hike in gun attacks this year has pushed the level of crime upwards, with a four percent increase in serious offences and a fifteen percent rise in gun robberies, Crime Chief Seelall Persaud said yesterday.

The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GHPC) yesterday received $900,000 in donations to aid in the procurement of three foetal monitors for its Neo-Natal Unit.