What was supposed to be an enjoyable first-time visit to Barbados has turned into a nightmare for five young Vincentians.

The visitors, aged 19 to 26, are claiming that police barged into the house where they were staying in the wee hours of Monday and brutalized them, leaving them to seek medical attention for varying injuries.

And Allison Louis, the mother of one of the victims has vowed to leave no stone unturned in her fight for justice.

Speaking to Barbados TODAY tonight from her home at 1st Avenue Bibby’s Lane, St Michael, the irate Louis explained that her son Bashan Chance, who lives with her, was involved in an altercation with some boys not far from their home last Wednesday.

[caption id="attachment_305458" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Allison Louis (right) has vowed to fight for justice for her family members who she said were brutalized by police officers.[/caption]

She said from information she had received, a female was at the centre of the dispute.

She further explained that following that incident, a group of men came to her house and called for her son. When he went to the door they pulled him out of the house and beat him, inflicting several injuries in the process.

As a result, Louis said she went to the District ‘A’ Police Station where she made a complaint.

[caption id="attachment_305457" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Two chairs which Allison Louis claimed were destroyed by police officers during the search.[/caption]

However, she charged that instead of doing their job to apprehend the culprits who beat her son, members of the Task Force barged into her home at 4 o’clock this morning without a warrant and beat all of the occupants, who were family members on their first trip to Barbados.

“They broke down the door and went into the house. They didn’t show anybody a warrant and they beat everybody who was inside the house for no reason.

“They destroyed my bed, windows, doors, my showerhead and they even burst a pipe outside. The police claimed they were looking for guns but they did not find anything, not even a cigarette or a wrapper. Where is the justice for foreigners in Barbados?” asked the Vincentian who has been living here for the past 32 years.

One of the alleged victims Jefa Stephas told Barbados TODAY he was inside sleeping with his girlfriend when he heard a knock on the door.

He said he was hesitant to open it because of what had happened to Bashan.

The 23-year-old said from the time police gained entry to the house it was “licks for everyone”.

Stephas said male officers even slapped his girlfriend Hawanya Young in her face.

“It was about 4 o’ clock and me and my girlfriend was sleeping and we heard a banging on the house. When I got up I heard some footsteps in the house and someone shouted out ‘come here, come here’.

“I ran back in the bedroom and they kicked in the door and before I could even grab a towel the first thing in my chest was a foot stamp,” he recalled.

He said he was then made to lay on the floor and while officers questioned him about a gun.

“Every time they asked me about a gun and I told them I didn’t know about no gun they slapped me in my face. If they ask me five times they slapped me every time,” Stephas said.

He said he was so terrified he wanted to cry but fought back tears when he realized they would not help the situation.

Stephas said once they were finished with him, they went through the house beating the other occupants, which included another female.

Louis said she was forced to take them for medical treatment at the Sir Winston Scott Polyclinic.

She said some of them suffered soft tissue damage and one was diagnosed with a haematoma to the left side of her face.

The frustrated woman said she had already called the Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines Dr Ralph Gonsalves and had also made an attempt to speak to PM Mia Mottley about the issue.

“They said they will remember this for the rest of their lives. This is the first time in Barbados and this happened to them. Two of those girls haven’t even been in Barbados for 24 hours and they get licks. They only came in at 10 o’ clock Monday night and they got beat after 4 a.m. Where is the justice for foreigners in this country?” she cried.

“I am not going to stop until I get justice. I am going to take this as far as I can because this is wrong!”

When contacted, police public relations officer Acting Inspector Rodney Inniss told Barbados TODAY he was unaware of the incident and therefore would not be in a position to comment.

He explained however, that while investigations would have to be carried out, there was a protocol for lodging complaints against police officers.
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb

The post ‘Brutal visit’ appeared first on Barbados Today.

Minister of Education Santia Bradshaw served notice in Parliament today that repair works at some schools may not be completed in time for the start of the new school year.

During debate on a supplementary appropriation of $175,000 for the Ann Hill School, Bradshaw said that upon taking up office last year, her ministry has had to deal “a serious decay” of school plants.

According to her, additional funds have been allocated for the ministry to undertake work at 41 schools during the domestic “summer” programme. This is more than double the 18 schools which had been allocated in  previous years, Bradshaw noted.

While some may argue that this is an ambitious undertaking over the vacation, it was a matter that needed urgent attention, she told fellow lawmakers.

“I cannot wait two, three, four years from now to start to make the school plants comfortable for the persons who have to operate in that environment.

“And therefore, whether it is an issue of environmental problems or whether it is an issue of space it has become of urgent attention within the Ministry of Education to be able to request the dedication of resources to allow the schools to settle.”

Bradshaw noted that while some projects may be completed before the estimate eight-week period, some may need more time.

She said: “We also have to budget in the course of the summer vacation for things that are unforeseen because we don’t know what awaits us in terms of a hurricane season so with all the best intentions and being able to accomplish the domestic summer programme … the reality is that there are some external factors that may also impact on our ability to do so.

“So Madam Chair I would like the members here [and] certainly the wider Barbados to appreciate from now that there will be some schools that we’re going to have to open later. Maybe a week later, maybe two weeks later.”

She knocked the previous Democratic Labour Party (DLP) administration’s for failing to put in place a proper maintenance programme for schools, which she said contributed to the current problems.

Bradshaw said: “These were things that could have been addressed over the course of the past decade but the priorities of the last administration clearly was not to focus on the maintenance and putting in particular a proper domestic maintenance programme for the respective institutions under their portfolio.

“It isn’t to say that monies were not spent, because we can see from the records that monies were spent.

“But I believe that what we have seen transpire is the inability to be able to not just send out carpenters and masons and labourers to be able to do work on an emergency basis, but also we have a situation that now sees it necessary to be able to have a proper maintenance programme in place for the school plants.”

She also announced that the ministry has engaged the services of 18 new contractors, and declared that she will not accept shoddy work this year.

“While I am fair in the sense that we must have new entrants and we must have established persons, equally, Madam Chair, I have let them know that I will not be tolerating the poor workmanship that I have seen in some cases across some of these school plants.

“Because it has been costing the taxpayers money, it has been eating up the resources of the Ministry of Education in a way that has made it difficult for us to be able to spend on the much needed resources that are required within the Ministry of Education.” 

The post Expect delays on school repairs appeared first on Barbados Today.

Government has legally acquired lands at Bay Street, St Michael to be used for the Hyatt project.

The resolution to approve the acquisition of land for the purpose of vesting in the Barbados Tourism Inc was passed in the Lower House today.

“This resolution is to seek approval of the aforementioned land. We have had extensive debate on this particular resolution lasting for almost a day. I do not propose to repeat the substance of that debate. The 14th of May the House approved the acquisition of the said parcel of land. The land is now vested in the Crown,” said Minister of Housing and Lands George Payne.

According the Minister, the joint Government/private sector venture is an investment in the tourism sector.

“The BTI has taken on a number of projects in order to push the frontiers of tourism development in the country. The physical development plan 2017 for Bridgetown includes encouraging investment along Bay Street and promoting redevelopment of key sites for tourism investment including hotels, restaurants, attractions and costal open spaces including the Pierhead, Needhams Point and Hincks Street.”

Payne pointed out that the land was part of six properties on which the Hyatt Hotel will be built.

The Minister said the parcel of land is one of six properties that will form what will be known as the Hyatt project. Two of those parcels were vested in the BTI prior to 2019. This property will supplement the property in the area of Deco Motors which is owned by Visions Inc, the developers for the Hyatt, he said.

The post Lands for Hyatt project secured appeared first on Barbados Today.

St Peter MP Colin Jordan has called for the reopening of the Alma Parris School, which catered for children with learning difficulties.

Speaking in Parliament during debate on a supplementary appropriation of $175,000 for the Ann Hill School, Jordan acknowledged that while reopening the St Peter school “will call for some good funds”, given the Government’s current financial constraints, it is important to the Labour Party’s mandate that no one should be left behind. that no child is left behind.

The Alma Parris School was opened on September 25, 1995 to create an environment for children who scored less than 30 per cent on the Common Entrance exam to learn at a slower pace.

But it was closed in 2017 following reports that it had received no new students in the previous two years.

Jordan, the Minister of Labour, also appealed to non-Governmental organisations to consider partnering with Government to reopen the school.

He declared: “This is a Government that believes that everybody should be taken along.

“The Alma Parris School allowed for persons who had challenges in various ways, maybe some behavioural, some learning...to be accommodated in an institution that allowed them to be able to reach their potential, allowed them to be able to develop.”

He added that Government cannot allow for situations where anyone living with any kind of disability is not allowed to realise their full potential.

Jordan said: “The maximum is going to be different for different people, but everybody needs the opportunity to be able to develop.

“The Alma Parris School was one of those institutions that allowed for it, and we in St Peter, in Barbados generally, look forward to the time when that school will reopen and cater for the children who need that kind of facility.”

Earlier in the debate, Minister for Elder Affairs and Community Empowerment Cynthia Forde said Government needs to engage NGOs to provide more opportunities for people with disabilities.

She commended those who are already playing their part and urged others to come forward.

Forde, a veteran educator, said: “I had the privilege of meeting with about ten of them on Friday and the work they are doing is phenomenal.

“And therefore I want to encourage more of our NGOs to be recognised and to come on board because we need the synergies.”

She told Parliament she was pleased that schools are catering to more children with special needs, but more work needs to be done.

“We need more resources, whether it be monetary, physical plant space, playing fields, musical instruments, manipulative apparatus to be able to help them, especially with the technology,” Forde said.

The post MP wants Alma Parris reopened appeared first on Barbados Today.

“There are more questions than answers, and the more I find out the less I know.”

- More Questions than Answers, Johnny Nash 

In Government’s continuing efforts to rebuild our battered economy, and as an indicator that “Barbados is open for business again”, many proposals have come in for new hotel properties.

Apart from the Hyatt in the heart of Bridgetown, there is talk of Carlisle House and its adjacent car park being made into a hotel; there is another project at the building that currently houses the Waterfront Cafe; indeed, we have even heard about a stretch of hotels from the Pierhead in the City of Bridgetown all the way to Batts Rock on the border of St Michael and St James. And more recently, the planned redevelopment of the Blue Horizon property at Rockley on the south coast into a much more elaborate structure has generated much controversy.

While such investments might refresh what some consider to be a tired tourism product, and will generate jobs in the construction phase and after these properties open, let’s be honest: our track record on completing new big hotel projects has not been stellar of late.

The Four Seasons project barely got off the ground, and has been abandoned for 11 winter tourist seasons now; Beaches at the former Almond Beach Village has been on hold since the beginning of the year, and the authorities have been completely silent on the all-new Sam Lord’s Castle. Does it not make more sense to try to get these projects finished first before starting some that are even bigger?

In September 2016, then Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy announced a further two billion dollars in investment would be coming to build up our room stock.

He told the Caribbean Tourism Organisation’s (CTO) State of the Industry Conference,  that Barbados is hoping to add a further 2,000 rooms to the existing room stock by 2019.

Can we presume that the Hyatt, Four Seasons and Sam Lord’s Castle developments accounted for some of those rooms? If so, what of the others? And what impact can this surfeit of rooms have on the nature and market for our product? Are we going for mass tourism as the Dominican Republic has done give the maturity of our destination?

And even before we build all these new hotels, we must consider the worldwide trend of tourists moving away from seeking accommodation in the ‘tourist belts’ where they are subjected to higher prices, constant harassment from taxi drivers and people selling everything, including sex and drugs.

Government often speaks about community tourism, and it has been catching on here in recent years. Barbados itself has 300 sites listed on Airbnb, ranging from US$11 to US$2,500 per night. This accommodation is all over the island - from “tent cities” to a converted Transport Board bus to villas and condominiums. And there may be many other Barbadians offering such accommodation who might not be registered with Airbnb.

Environmental Impact Assessments are considered an expense many investors try to avoid, but these are extremely important given the scale of these developments.

The problems with the sewage treatment facilities in Bridgetown and the south coast are well documented, so if these projects do come to pass, Government will definitely have to expand the existing facilities before we are faced with an even bigger crisis.

Storm surge is also a very real threat, especially in the area of the Wharf, when Hurricane Ivan passed here in 2004 and knocked the old Coast Guard base at Fort Willoughby out of commission and completely obliterated the chattel house shops at the Bridgetown Port. And we did not even get the full brunt of that system.

And where will the land come from to build this stretch of hotels from the Pierhead to Batts Rock? Well, you guessed it; whoever is responsible will have to buy it from its present owners - some of whom have held it for generations - putting them out of a home and out of pocket given the time it usually takes to compensate landowners. Will these investors pay to relocate them elsewhere and build their new houses for them? Not likely.

How will these hotels add to the aesthetic value of their locations? The artist’s impression of the proposed Hyatt in Bay Street already sticks out in that part of The City. Where is its car park? How far back does it stretch to the beachfront? Wouldn’t a smaller, say, four-storey building with a ‘classic’ design in keeping with the Heritage Site designation make more sense in that part of The City than the twelve-storey monolith in the illustrations? How will it affect the people living in London Bourne Towers and Wellington Street, not to mention the many businesses and the Fire Service headquarters in that vicinity? Simply moving businesses and institutions is not the answer, especially if the project actually gets going and for whatever reason is put on hold after all the disruption.

Townhall meetings tend to come up after contracts have already been signed and work is about to start. This should never be the case with projects of this magnitude. The people behind these projects should let those who will be most affected have a say when they come up with their ideas, take their concerns seriously, especially the environmental ones coming from people who in some cases have lived and worked in the area all their lives, and then proceed with something that will truly benefit all parties involved.

The current practices of starting work and asking questions later and starting something that never finishes should not be allowed to continue if we are serious about development in this country.

For now, there are more questions than answers. We seek illumination that considers long-term growth, not short-term gain.

The post #BTEditorial – How realistic are ‘big hotel’ proposals? appeared first on Barbados Today.