HURST REPORTS ON CABINET of Wednesday 30 April 2025
The customary prayers were rendered by a Methodist Minister who quoted from the Book of Niemeyer on leadership and collaboration. The rebuilding of the destroyed city wall required effective governance which emphasizes fairness, and the Minister prayed the same for the Cabinet.
1. The Cabinet held a discussion about the re-purposing of the Deluxe Cinema building on High Street. It was agreed that the work will begin immediately and completion is anticipated in late 2026, when the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) will take place in Antigua. There is a tenant in the building at this time and Notice has to be given for the tenant to vacate. The Deluxe Cinema building is to be turned into a National Performing Arts Center – where the Antigua and Barbuda Youth Symphony Orchestra (ABYSO) will have its home, and a Theatre for the Performing Arts will also be housed. It is now anticipated that many schools, whose students engaged in Theatre Arts and Drama competitions, will be able to utilize the re-purposed building when completed.
2. The Cabinet called on the APUA management to account for the provision of water to homes, hotels, government institutions and other consumers. The Potworks Dam, from which 900,000 gallons were being withdrawn daily, is not now supplying any; the Reverse Osmosis (RO) Plants must therefore step into the breach to produce more potable water for consumer consumption. The Cabinet also provided the APUA with some cash injection, in order to ensure that it has sufficient parts in stock to keep the RO plants running. More rain is expected to fall in the coming days to resupply the dams, reservoirs and aquifers.
3. The Commissioner of Inland Revenue Department (IRD) and a Tax Enforcement Officer made a visit to the Cabinet at the request of the Chairman. They had been required to report to the Cabinet on abandoned buildings within the commercial sector of St. John’s City; the IRD presented photographs of more than 20 abandoned/unoccupied buildings within the area marked by the Vivian Richards Street, along Market Street, all of Newgate Street and across Independence Avenue. Property taxes exceeding $1 million dollars are owed, and the buildings are an eyesore; they have become a place where rodents and rubbish are to be found. The Legislature recently adopted a law that would allow the government to seek the permission of the Court, following Notice to the last-known owners; to remove the threat to safety and good sanitation which they pose to neighbouring properties and the City in general. Failure to so act would allow the government to forcibly acquire the properties, to remove buildings, rubbish, rodents and unwanted vegetation from the sites and to dispose of the properties with any overage paid to the owner of record.
4. i. Dr. Didacus Jules, Director General of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), was invited to Cabinet to discuss issues relating to aviation and transatlantic connections between the Caribbean and West Africa. He pointed out that all the countries of the Eastern Caribbean, inclusive of Guadeloupe and Martinique, utilize a radar system that is managed by Trinidad and Tobago; therefore, all fees which air carriers pay for the freedom to fly in the airspace of these countries are paid over to Trinidad and Tobago. Dr. Jules is of the view that Antigua and Barbuda could in fact sell those same services to the countries of the Northern Leeward Islands with the implementation of such a radar system.
ii. Dr. Jules successfully persuaded the Cabinet to accept that flights from many West African countries have a shorter distance to fly to Antigua than to any other Eastern Caribbean country. He therefore encouraged the Cabinet members to continue to pursue the development of links between West Africa and Antigua and Barbuda. The Cabinet successfully enabled Air Peace to invest in putting LIAT (2020) back in the air for more than one year at this time, allowing Caribbean nationals to experience the enhanced connectivity that once was common. Many small airlines began operating along routes that LIAT (1974) used to service, and the routes have become very competitive though the prices of airline tickets have become very high, Dr. Jules indicated.
5. i. The Cabinet approved the purchase of 4 police dogs for the Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda. They will be trained to sniff out explosives, guns, cadavers, and a variety of evidence that may be found at crime scenes.
ii. 27 workers from the Ministry of Works are headed to China for training in road construction and other engineering lessons, lasting 3 weeks.
iii. The unfinished bathroom facility at YASCO, constructed during the previous administration, costing more than $600,000, is to be completed before the end of the year for public use. A separate change facility is to be arranged for the athletes in the south-east corner of the YASCO grounds.
iv. The Cabinet took note of the fact that Labour Day 2025 marks 74 consecutive years since the holiday was first celebrated in 1951. A queen show, a church service, the customary rally at the V.C. Bird bust, and the celebration at Fort James will mark the historic event. An alternate rally at the T.N. Kirnon Grounds and a beach picnic at Ffryes Bay will also take place.
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Really do not read the Cabinet notes, can’t watch this specimen from the Early Man Era who I believe should be home enjoying his fat pension or pensions. Time for a young and vibrant guy or gal, modernise the damn thing
we don’t want no fake GOOYANEEZ CROOK posing as a journalist or rastafari empress!
I read Cabinet Notes for entertainment rather than engagement for it tell me how F**k up this country is; beginning with the Methodist Minister who pray over Cabinet
The very institutions who should be at the vanguard of the fight against CURRUPTION prays over the proceeding where the Corruption are planned and initiated.
A performing Arts Center with no parking.
The patrons of this type of activity are drivers of SUVs and other “look at me vehicles”
Lack of parking has caused many entertainment venues to die on arrival.
Let’s hope it works. .
A better alternative would be AUA and the Multipurpose Center, until the master plan for UWI Five Islands gets built out.
Water water, lack of portable water . This problem will never be solved unless there is a rational master plan with use and zoning for the entire island.
Should a person or a family choose to build in the remote areas then they live without water at their own risk.
The public should not bear the cost to satisfy egos if individuals choose to live remotely.
An continiusly reviewed plan can the followed by 15 year Capital Budgets.
If those budjets are followed political parties are not able to take credit for the work being done.
Capital planning is fundimental to Town and Urban planning is ansthma to the politicians needs.
Dr. Jules successfully persuaded the Cabinet to accept that flights from many West African countries.
This is insane. What are the economic benefits to Antigua and Barbuda tax payers? Where is the study and committed financing ?
The Eastern Caribbean people would benefit from more reasonable and lower priced air travel as well as sea transport than vanity flights to and from West Africa.
We are not miners of precious metals, we are not big coffee drinkers.
Most Antiguans and other Caribbean people who visit Africa end up being gaukers with photos to be posted.
Most Antiguans who have gone to Africa have never been to Barbuda.
West African businessmen were in Antigua months after the Camaroonians disappeared. They were here to invest in pharma and medicine.
Dr. Didacus Jules should be discussing the long awaited ferry service that was announced to bring products and passengers out of The Southern Caribbean and an alternative people mover.
The OES and CARICOM would be better served with more economical airlifts and water borne transportation rather than this fanciful idea of West African connection.
I just hope these 4 police dogs acquired by the Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda is not used against the Citizens of Antigua and Barbuda when they protest against Government greed and corruptiin.
Dear reporter, I’m looking in the bible to find this book! The Book of (Niemeyer)🫣 or should it be Nehimiah🙏😋
Book of Niemeyer????
You mean LieNuHell lies even on the Bible and what book it contains????
Some prayer comes from the mouth, enter the nose and comes out via the exhaust.
Anyone who.prays for.men who continue to opress their subjects is the devil incarnate…
Deluxe Cinema:
Work will begin shortly. Hmmmmmm!!! Not immediately anymore.
Hope shortly isn’t measured by the same measurement/clock used for the Car Park.
Ooops! The car park will be in the cabinet notes next week.
What is the estimated cost of the transformation?
Has the work been sent out to tenders?
Has a contractor been selected?
I hope it isn’t Turner’s Construction.
APUA:
Cabinet provided APUA with a cash injection.
Do successful businesses ever get cash injections?
Is APUA failing and in the red?
It is apparent that RO plants are not the poblem.
Over the past ten years we have built a new RO plant every year.
Yet the water crisis continues to worsen.
Why is that so?
IRD:
Twenty abandoned properties.
Someone has already been in the city on an information gathering mission.
The world knows that the cabinet is a real estate company headed by the chief officer.
Since 2014 he has acquired more properties than Sandals Resort.
Hope the man in charge of IRD isn’t used to huff properties like the man at Port authority and add to the national debt through litigation.
Hope cabinet members aren’t salivating at the prosoects of new acquisition.
Dr Didicas:
Very persuasive man.
He persuaded government to recall the African Migrant Smuggling Ring.
He persuaded cabinet to repeat the imaginary Antigua airways.
Is he familiar with the scandal surrounding Antigua Airways and how the government was duped into making Antigua the entry and exit point for Africans looking to smugle their way into America.
Was he shown the documents related to the Liat 2020 agreement which Rochard Lewis, Sherfield Bowens et al have been asking for?
Sniffer Dogs:
Jacqui Quin we now have four FBI/ Mounties/Scotland Yard Investigators.
You can cut that off your list in the morning.
Finding drugs and uncovering cadavers rather than live people is more important the solving white color crimes and rescuing people.
MOW to China:
We had Cubans doing a great job on the roads.
Their work minimized the level of contract inflation.
We have also been doing our roads for decades on decades.
Suddenly our work and that of the Cubans is not satisfactory so we have to send peopl to learn Chinese methods.
Are we using the same road building materials?
Do we have the same climate?
Why weren’t men sent to learn the Cuban method instead?
$600K Bathroom:
Winston Williams must be smiling like hyena.
Finally his luxury bathroom is going to get another couple of hundred or thousand dollars injected to compete it.
Will it be named “The Winston Williams $600K Sports Convenience Facility”?
Any credit for it must go to him.
Didn’t this government roll him on hot coals for that?
Isn’t he today the loudest choir singer?
Misery loves company. So to does corruption attract
the corrupt.
Labour Day:
The time is come for unions and political party to complete the divorce in the courts.
The marriage is not working.
Finally, Max, hiw much money was spent on meals, snacks and other goodies for cabiet yesterday?
We need to know and to calculate how much it has cost us for the past eleven years.
Who does the catering??????