Syberton Marcelle Miller was remanded to HMP Dodds on a charge of murdering her husband Cecil Miller.
The 63-year-old of No. 92, 5th Avenue Rowans Park North, St George allegedly committed the capital offence between September 17 and 18, 2018.

The accused was not required to plead to the indictable offence when she appeared before Chief Magistrate Christopher Birch in the District 'C ' St Matthias Magistrate's Court today with her attorneys Andrew Pilgrim, QC, and Naomi Lynton.
She will make her next appearance in the District 'B' Magistrate's Court on December 3.

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THE Barbados Workers' Union (BWU) is distancing itself from a memo sent out to workers of the Barbados Transport Board last Friday, asking those interested in voluntary separation or early retirement to state their intentions by Friday, November 23.

General Secretary of the BWU Toni Moore told members of the media at the union's Solidarity headquarters tonight that while the correspondence also stated that the BWU had agreed to the proposed packages, this was not the case.

Following a meeting with Transport Board workers, where the memo was one of many issues discussed, Moore made it clear that the Union would never agree to workers opting to go home, without knowing the terms and conditions of the packages.

"The Executive Council of the Barbados Workers Union wishes to distance itself from this approach as it relates to central government, as it relates to statutory corporations. Where there is going to be any agreement that carries the Barbados Workers' Union's signature to it, it would be an agreement that specifies to people up front, what they are entitled to, when they will be entitled to it, how it will be paid out to them," The general secretary assured.

The memo to Transport Board workers, titled voluntary separation, read that further to the meeting of November 1, 2018, between the Board and the BWU, it was agreed that the Board would engage employees in a process of voluntary separation and or early retirement to those persons who have reached the legal retirement age of 60 years, in the first instance.

The letter also stated that in this regard, all interested persons were asked to submit their names on or before Friday November 23, 2018 to the Manager-Human Resources and Marketing.

"While at the national level the Barbados Workers Union does not distance itself from the proposal made to Government that where retrenchment of any kind was being contemplated that voluntary separation should be one of the first steps taken so that you ensure that people who might want to go have the opportunity to express it and can go as opposed to forcing people out who don't want to go, and who perhaps can't go because of their financial situation.

"So we are not going to distance ourselves from what has been a good proposal from us that voluntary separation should be considered. But where we have a concern is that we have not discussed with the Transport Board what form that voluntary separation should take, how it should be applied, and the Transport Board has gone ahead, giving the impression that it is final," Moore said.

The General Secretary argued that management of the Transport Board has not given workers any indication regarding what they would receive  if they volunteer to leave their posts.

"And this relates to a memo that would have been sent out from the Head of the Civil Service on Friday last week as well, asking Heads of Departments to entertain voluntary separation with a cut off date of the 23 of November.

"But get this, you fill out an option form to say I want to go and you get the details after. Does that make sense? Would the Barbados Workers' Union, or anybody in their right mind agree to a situation that would have workers exposed to raising their hands for something and then finding out what they are going to get from it afterwards," she said.

Meanwhile, President of the BWU Division of the Transport Board Frederick Lovell told Barbados TODAY that the union never entered any agreement with the Transport Board, about asking workers to go home voluntarily.

"So, to have said that the union would have agreed to it, is not factual. We would never agree to something to put our colleagues blindly to accept a pig in a bag. It was distasteful. Workers are left in a quandary as to how they should approach the situation. We cannot allow persons to sign off on anything, not knowing if they are signing their death wish," Lovell said. (AH)

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by Anesta Henry

Prime Minister Mia Mottley this evening said that the Government’s restructuring exercise was affected by “sabotage”, but served notice that the order would be restored.

Reiterating that she was “deeply disappointed” in how the retrenchment exercise was being carried out, Mottley said “she was satisfied that there was an element of sabotage in respect to some aspects of it. And I am not blaming anybody, but I am not blind.

“There was a recommendation to lay off some people in the health sector, which I vetoed , people did not know that I vetoed it because I have been very clear that the basis of the layoffs has to be in areas where we can restructure and repurpose.

"Little did we know, that that recommendation which is nothing more than a recommendation, should find itself circulating on social media, yesterday morning, as a fact. And similarly, there have been one or two other instances that have been brought to my attention in the last 24 hours, where persons acted without the requisite authority. Suffice it to say, fret not thyself, there will be order and accountability in the Government of Barbados," she said.

Mottley however confirmed that a letter being circulated on social media issued by Head of the Civil Service Dr Louis Woodroffe offering Voluntary Separation Packages to four categories of public servants was legitimate.

She explained that while Government could not offer voluntary retrenchment to everyone, it was prepared to accommodate between 80 to 100 public servants.

"There is a cost to retrenchment and at the end of the day we recognize at the same time that we are restructuring elements of Government to make it fiscally fit and that there may be some people who for all kinds of reasons, may want to go home...," she said.

The packages are being offered to general workers, stenographer/typists, clerk typists and clerical officers.

Officers who wish to exercise this option must do so by Friday. (AH)

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by Anesta Henry

Prime Minister Mia Mottley has welcomed the recent upgrade from international rating agency Standard & Poor's as “great news”, saying it was an indication that Barbados was on its way back.

However, the Prime Minister whose Barbados Labour Party (BLP) administration has been implementing tough measures to stabilize the ailing economy cautioned that the news does not "allow us to rest on our laurels, because the country is not where it wants to be.”

On Friday, Standard & Poor's raised its long and short-term local currency sovereign credit ratings on Barbados to B'-/B' from 'SD/SD' (selective default), one of the first positive ratings after suffering more than 20 downgrades from different agencies over the last decade.

The New York-based experts said the upgrade was based on the Government’s successful completion of its local currency exchange, the implementation of the Barbados Economic Recovery Plan (BERT) and the recent financing received from multinational lending institutions, including the International Monetary Fund and the Inter American Development Bank.

The Prime Minister commented on the development this afternoon at Government Headquarters, Bay Street, St Michael where she signed the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Special Development Lending (SDL) loan agreement with the Bank's President Luis Alberto Moreno.  Barbados is the first country to access this new SDL facility since created by IDB.

"The news that came this weekend from Standard & Poor's that we have in fact seen our domestic debt not just upgraded, but upgraded four notches with respect to our long term debt, and with our short term debt, three notches. And with a very clear signal, that once we complete the discussions on the restructuring of our foreign debt, you are likely to see further upgrades.”

Mottley added that from a psychological standpoint, the development was important to the country which had regrettably become accustomed to downgrades, with as much as 24 recorded over the last decade.

"And that psychologically did a lot to batter us, but worst than that, it caused interest rates to rise, the cost of borrowing to significantly rise, and perhaps even worst than all of that, it triggered the movement of certain companies offshore because a corporate entity could not get a credit rating higher than a sovereign credit rating. And we all know the story of Sagicor, which had to move to Bermuda, in spite of the fact that Sagicor's genesis was in Barbados in the 19th century. That perhaps, was the hardest blow in the last decade, for us to take," she said.

The Prime Minister was however quick to point out that while Barbados had not yet arrived at where her Government wants it to be, work was ongoing to keep the island on the right track.

Mottley further stressed that Barbados must again shoot for the stars as it was accustomed to doing. (AH)

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Syberton Miller, the wife of the late Cecil Miller,  has been arrested and charged with the murder of her husband.

On Tuesday, September 18, Miller’s lifeless body was found at #92 Rowans Park North, St George.

[caption id="attachment_283584" align="alignnone" width="476"] The late Cecil Miller.[/caption]

She will appear at the District “B” Magistrate Court.

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