Chevy Devonish

Curl Fest, Guyana’s first ever Natural Hair Expo, was held on Sunday, October 9, 2016 in the Promenade Gardens.

Amid continuing concerns that Asian firms are ripping out logs from forests here without any serious intent to set up processing plants, Natural Resources Minister Robert Persaud yesterday said these companies have signaled that they will be “serious” about their commitments.

A Zeelugt woman being transferred from the Leonora Cottage Hospital to the West Demerara Regional Hospital (WDRH) for blood pressure-related illnesses on Sunday afternoon died following an accident involving the ambulance transporting her and a minibus.

Nearly two years after a deal was brokered to end the bloody blockade of Linden, Region 10 and the government are continuing to trade blame for the lack of progress on key agreements, including resolving the contentions around a proposed hike in electricity tariffs that sparked the unrest in the town.

-shot fired in voting hall during chaotic scenes David Granger was returned unopposed as PNCR Leader after his main challenger Aubrey Norton withdrew in an accreditation row amid chaotic scenes in the voting hall at Congress Place during which a gunshot was fired.

People’s National Congress (PNCR) stalwart Aubrey Norton is to challenge David Granger for the party’s leadership during its Congress to be held in two weeks from July 25th to 27th.

Plaisance residents yesterday protested the replacement of the community’s Overseer with someone who they say is insufficiently experienced, but Local Government Minister Norman Whittaker maintained that the new holder of the post possesses superior academic qualifications and diverse, relevant work experience.

Guyana’s population has dropped to 747,884, according to preliminary results from the 2012 census and Chief Statistician and Census Officer Lennox Benjamin says the “marginal reduction” was mainly influenced by migration.

The Student Loan Fund had enough cash to sustain the disbursement of loans to prospective University of Guyana (UG) students for the 2014/2015 academic year even though its annual allocation was caught in opposition budget cuts but its real problem is the whopping $7.3B in receivables As has been stated by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) financial spokesman Carl Greenidge, government has been adding around $450 million to the fund since it was created in 1994.

There is no reason why local government elections should not be called as soon as possible aside from logistics issues, says Private Sector Commission (PSC) Chairman Ramesh Persaud.

Digicel Guyana CEO Gregory Dean is optimistic that the Telecommuni-cations Bill will be passed by July thereby ending the more than 20-year-old monopoly held by GT&T and allowing it to provide additional telecommunications services, as well as improve the services it currently offers.

Originally intended to cost $425 million, Guyana’s Olympic standard pool was built at a cost of $581 million and questions have been raised about the price tag and the structural integrity of the main facility, which is now being retrofitted with a $38.7 million warm-up pool which critics say should have been built from the outset.

The Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) has urged countries in the region to step up countermeasures to protect themselves from financial risks emanating from Guyana as a result of the country’s failure to rectify deficiencies in its anti-money laundering legislation.

Lecturers and support staff at the University of Guyana (UG) are bracing for the possible discontinuation of some of the university’s programmes and non-renewal of some their contracts as the implications of the cutting of $450 million for student loans from the national budget begins to take form.

Caricom’s negotiations with Canada for a new trade agreement must take full account of the bloc’s interests, given the differences in size and levels of development, says Cari-com Secretary-General Irwin LaRocque.

– calls on minister to set dateAs various stakeholders, here and abroad, continue to press for local government elections, a group of young people, all of whom were not old enough to vote during the last such polls in 1994, have decided to add their voices to the endeavour.

Anti-money laundering law stalemate Attorney General Anil Nandlall says that Cabinet will have to finally decide on opposition conditions for passage of the anti-laundering bill but he won’t recommend that the President assent to several rejected bills as is being sought by APNU and the AFC.

– following fiasco with local gov’t legislation   Parliament Office is now sending bills for assent directly to the Office of the President (OP), bypassing the traditional route that involved first referring them to the Attorney General’s Chambers for vetting.

Avoiding a showdown that could have triggered general elections, the National Assembly last evening passed an appropriation bill for government’s 2014 budget, after APNU and the AFC chopped $22.4 billion from the Finance Ministry’s planned capital expenditure on the last day of consideration of the estimates.

With some $9.3B of estimated expenditure already cut from government proposed $220B national budget, the Committee of Supply sub-committee mechanism suggested by House Speaker Raphael Trotman to facilitate negotiations on contentious estimates is not producing the intended results.