The PNCR says it submitted the joint opposition parliamentary parties’ petition to Caricom Chairman and Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer and Secretary-General Edwin Carrington but as of yesterday there was no indication if the issues raised therein had been discussed.
PNCR General Secretary Oscar Clarke who travelled to Antigua and Barbuda to deliver the document said the presentation took place in the Hibiscus Conference Room at the Jolly Beach Hotel on Tuesday. It was presented at the opening ceremony of the 29th Meeting of the Con-ference of Heads of Government of Caricom. Clarke said Carrington told him that he would inform him about how the petition would be dealt with. The next day Clarke said, Caricom Programme Manager of External and Economic Trade Negotiations David Hales told him on Carrington’s behalf that it would be necessary for one of the Heads to present the petition to the meeting. Hales said it was the only way that the petition could be added to the agenda. Clarke said had that information been passed on to him earlier he would have taken a different action as earlier he had given the Barbados and Jamaica prime ministers a synopsis of what the petition contained.
At the time he left the island on Thursday, Clarke said he had had no response or commitments from either the Chairman or the Secretary-General on the issue. However, he said PNCR-1G MP Africo Simon who accompanied him to the Conference had stayed behind to follow up the issue. Clarke said he was hopeful that the petition could be raised and mentioned in the conference’s communiqué.
As had been earlier reported the PNCR-1G, AFC and GAP-ROAR had collected about 8,000 signatures countrywide. The objective of the exercise is to urge the current administration to address a number of issues that are having a negative impact on the society.
These include the rising cost-of-living which has been exacerbated by the introduction of the 16% Value-Added Tax; attacks on the right to Freedom of Expression as in the case of the four-month suspension of the CNS Channel 6 broadcast licence; the harassment of citizens and the violation of their human rights; the incarceration of former army officer Oliver Hinckson on a sedition charge and the refusal to grant him bail; the refusal to enact Freedom of Information legislation; the improper extension of the life of the Ethnic Relations Commission; the use of torture by the security forces and other issues.
