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Page 14 ISSUE 147 Friday 11th MARCH, 2016 “BE PART OF THE SOLUTION, NOT THE PROBLEM” tant, I have had to deal with many parents who will bring their children to seek help and I will what a police officer has to deal with on a daily basis, before you make it look like the officers are not spend countless hours properly trained. My father speaking to them to find out why they are doing what they are not supposed was a police officer and many of you will not like to hear the kind of stories to be doing while that he had shared when he BY MANSA BEYCANDO KANKAN they are out to the public, was in the Service. MUSA so I can just imagine what Therefore, I will like to a Police Officer has to make seven suggestions My brothers and deal with on a daily basis. on how the country can sisters, it’s easy Based on what was handle the youth violence for many of us shown in that Roger Alexander/Ian Alleyne video, problems. and other escalating crime IAN ALLEYNE being arrested by Inspector ROGER ALEXANDER to sit on our comfortable sofa and try to tell the Trinidad and Tobago Police officers, how to handle a misbehaving young person or Television personality. we are all jumping to conclusions without having enough facts. Many persons also complained about the Ian Alleyne’s arrest re- 1. If anyone has any better suggestions on how a Police Officer should interact with the public, they should first attend the Po- However, has garding how the police had lice Training Academy and anyone of our critics, ever had to encounter an handled him. Until many of us have walked a few learn what they are teaching the recruits there about unruly young person or adult before in our life and try to use reasoning with them? As a consul- footsteps and I am not talking about a mile, just a few footsteps in a Police Officer’s shoes, please know apprehending someone. If you think that you can improve on their methods, then share it with them and hope that they will implement them in their daily practice when they are dealing with the public. However, until then, let us keep a civil head and understand that while a glass may look half-full to you, it will also look halfempty to another person, but to someone else who is thirsty, they will drink it either way to quench their thirst. 2. Many suggestions on how the Police Officers in Trinidad and Tobago could fix the problems with today’s youth are coming from people who do not have any children of their own or a clue about raising them. It is just like, “squeezing an empty tube of toothpaste, and hoping to get some toothpaste to brush your teeth.” They usually have nothing to offer, no matter how hard you try to squeeze them into something substantial. 3. The growing crime statistics in the country is not a PNM or a UNC problem for only them to solve when either one of them gets into power. It is a problem for everyone to deal with in the whole country, which also include the members of the Opposition Party. Everyone should work together with the present administration to help implement comprehensive solutions for the benefit of all. 4. The present administration instead of modernizing the older jails should invest the funds in constructing “Community Police Centers” throughout the whole country. A “Community Police Center” is a combination of a “Police Station” built within or adjacent to the local “Community Center.” The stigma is of having the word “Station” to be removed and replaced with “Center” instead. Here will be a safe place where many young people and adults can visit and participate in the various activities that a regular “Community Center” usually provides. The “Community Police Officers” will be members living within the community and they will be able to assist those who may need their help in whatever capacity that they can perform. Since most Police Stations are supposed to be operating 24/7/365, this will be an ideal place for many people to visit at any hour of the day or night. If anyone wants to participate in the activities of the “Community Police Center”, they must register and sign their name upon entering the facility. Many young people after finishing their schooling for the day, can stay in those safe facilities to complete their homework, or until their working parents arrive to take them home. 5. Any person under the age of twenty-five, who was caught dealing with Several members of the Trinidad & Tobago Police Service illegal drugs or guns, will be given the opportunity to either join the Coast Guard or Army for the minimum term of seven [7] years or will be incarcerated to the maximum time allotted for their individual crimes. 6. Any Police, Army, Coast Guard or Prison Officers, who were caught participating in any indictable crime or criminal activities, will be automatically incarcerated to the maximum life sentence of twenty-five years without any early parole options. 7. Institute a policy of having the young students from the various secondary schools in the country visit the many Government owned and larger business facilities. School tours should be mandatory for all young people to the various jails and to the Police Stations and Headquarters so that they can see firsthand, the end result that awaits them if they do not graduate from Universities, but choose to get into trouble with the law. I am positive that other readers of this worthwhile Newspaper can come up with many solutions that are more workable and share them with the MP in their area. It is left up to the MPs to have a closer connection with their respective constituencies to give them feedback to all of the suggestions that they may have brought forward and shared with them. “We are all in the same boat together and the sooner we look out for those few people who may want to come aboard with a cordless drill in their hand instead of ours; we will never enjoy a safe cruise.” SIS IN NEW MULTI-MILLION SCANDAL SEE BACK PAGE
ISSUE 147 Friday 11th MARCH, 2016 Page 15 A CARIBBEAN BANKING AGENCY IN THE US? By Sir RONALD SANDERS Caribbean governments, indigenous banks and offshore anks located in the Caibbean are extremely oncerned about the withrawal of correspondent elations from Caribbean anks by banks in the nited States (US). Caribbean Heads of Government at a meeting in Belize in February made their concern very clear. The Caribbean Association of Banks have done so in separate statements. Their sense of alarm arises from the fact that, if all correspondent banking relations are withdrawn, the region will be isolated from the rest of the world and will be unable to carry out the most basic of bank transactions. In many Caribbean countries there has been a steady decline in such correspondent banking relations, and there is no sign of an early abatement. Caribbean governments and banks are not alone in their concern. Other regions of the world are also similarly affected. Countries in East Asia, the Pacific, Eastern Europe and Central Asia with significant offshore banking activities, are also affected. What has caused the withdrawal of correspondent relations to the Caribbean and the other regions identified above is the huge penalties that US banks would have to pay if any incidence of money laundering, terrorism financing, or tax evasion passed through them from their respondent banks. Regulatory and enforcement agencies have dealt harshly with such incidents, creating a strong deterrent to taking risks. The simplest form of “de-risking” is to terminate correspondent banking relations. Paradoxically, the very rule-making bodies, such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the Financial Stability Board (FSB) that created the rules and penalties that now terrify US banks and encourage them to “de-risk”, are themselves becoming concerned about the decline in correspondent banking relations. Last November, the FSB released a statement saying: “At the extreme, if an individual bank loses access to correspondent banking services, this may affect its viability and if a country’s banks more generally face restricted access then it may affect the functioning of the Re Thin Business rentaceo@gmail.com Brian G Stone, MBA, Business Consultant dent banking were concerns about money laundering and terrorism financing risks in the jurisdictions of their counterpart banks”. In other words, even though US Banks are aware that, in the case of the Caribbean, organizations such as the FATF and the OECD Global Forum on Tax Matters have found jurisdictions to be compliant with rules and enforcement, they are unwilling to take the risk. The FATF has given an undertaking to the FSB that it will “clarify regulatory expectations, as a matter of priority, including more guidance, on the application of standards for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) to correspondent banking, especially on the customer due diligence expectations for correspondent banks when faced with respondent banks in ‘highrisk scenarios’, as well as additional work on remittances, financial inclusion and non-profit organizations”. That work will be ready in two stages in June and October 2016. Whether it will make any difference to banks in the US is left to be seen. In any event, at the rate at which correspondent banking relations are being local banking system. In addition, loss of correspondent banking services can create financial exclusion, particularly where it affects flows such as remittances which are a key source of funds for people in many developing countries”. The report rightly observes that: “The ability to make and receive international payments via correspondent banking is vital for businesses and individuals, and for the G20’s goal of strong, sustainable, balanced growth”. In the statement, sent to the group of powerful nations – the G20, the FSB stated that a World Bank survey of jurisdictions and banks finds that roughly half of the emerging market and developing economies surveyed have experienced a decline in correspondent banking services. Three quarters of the 20 large correspondent banks participating in the survey responded that the number of correspondent accounts they hold for other banks had declined between end 2012 and mid- 2015. The FSB report did not end there. Significantly, it stated that “the main drivers given by the large banks for their reduction in corresponwithdrawn, any FATF recommendations in October 2016, even if they are helpful, may come too late to help some Caribbean banks that are already reduced to tenuous relations with just one correspondent bank. In this scenario, it is imperative that Caribbean banks cease their reliance on US banks alone for their correspondent relations in the US. It is time that they jointly, in groups, or individually establish an agency of their own in the US to be their correspondent bank and handle their transactions in the US and beyond. They have to ensure that they will be able to do business if US banks abandon them. And, it must be the banks themselves – not Caribbean governments – that undertake the establishment of such an agency. Governments can advocate for the agency with us authorities and provide any non-financial assistance than may be helpful, including diplomatic and political spadework, but it must be the banks that look after their own business. Establishing a Caribbeanowned agency in the US to provide correspondent relations for regional banks is not impossible, though it is difficult and will require investment in time, money and professional advice. An application for such an entity would have to be made concurrently to the Federal Reserve Bank and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). If the application is approved by these two bodies, a licence to operate can then be sought from the Northeast District Licensing Division in New York. There are strict and onerous criteria that would have to be satisfied in each case, including extensive background checks on the banks and their affiliates and reviews of the effectiveness of the regulatory regimes of the jurisdictions in which they are located. The procedure could take longer than six months and would require the banks to dedicate staff or employ qualified consultants to see them through the process. But, there is no swift or easy solution to the present problem. If Caribbean banks believe that there is no risk to US Banks in the provision of correspondent relations, then they should be prepared to take the risk themselves by setting up their own agency to facilitate their business. They might even make more money. Leadership Vs Management? Ask the Military! For many business executives, leadership and management in practice is often welded together under a one-and-the-same definition which effectively diminishes the significant differences and blurs the fundamentals of each. Leadership is not management, nor are managers necessarily leaders! The importance of this truism as it relates to everyday business functions is the recognition by introspection and evaluation of human capital as it relates to performance. A proper analysis of a firms’ performance analytics requires the study of its financial results which is effectively an examination of the decisions made by its leaders and managers. Regrettably, many companies fail to evaluate their decision making processes when performing a root-cause analysis in problem solving. The academic definition of Leadership is “The action of leading a group of people or an organization, or the ability to do this”- Oxford Dictionary. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader”- John Quincy Adams. Whereas Management is defined as “The process of dealing with or controlling things or people”- Oxford Dictionary. A more pragmatic “Re- Think” relative to answering the question of what’s the (significant) difference between leadership and management is managers have subordinates; leaders have followers. On the surface the difference between the two may appears simplistic. In practice they are indeed profound. The famous business guru, Peter Drucker, best defines the difference when he stated that “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Another analogy in operational terms is that strategy is a function of leadership whereas management implements strategy. In the late 70’s I was enlisted in the Toronto Scottish Regiment in Canada reporting to the de facto Commanding Officer, a Sergeant Major of official rank. He was a tough combatant of Canadian Scottish lineage. His explanation of the difference, in military terms, is most instructive and relevant to the business of business. He explained that military leaders convince the troops that dying in battle is a glorious death; and it’s “my” job (as manager) to keep you alive. The analogy interprets leadership as a “can do” culture creator whereas management makes it happen. Digressing a bit onto the stage of entertainment, while staying on point, George C. Scott in his Academy award winning role playing the heroic and most successful Tank Commander in World War 2, General George S. Patton, in addressing the third Army on march to Nazi Germany correlates with the Sergeant Major’s view, but in more colourful theatrical words: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country; We won it by making the other poor dumb bastard dye for his country.” Leadership makes heroes of men; management makes men heroes. In business lingo, for example, outstanding sales performance is rarely achieved without heroic feats of salesmanship - and as every seasoned sales manager knows, such feats are usually attained by a few heroic salesmen/saleswomen. The Israeli (military) security machine is arguably the best in the world. The famous “Raid on Entebbe” (1976) rescue by Israeli commandos of 103 hostages from a jet airliner killed all 11 terrorists with just one Israeli commando fatality, the commanding officer in charge. Leaders in the Israeli military lead by example. They literally lead their troops into battle. True leaders say “follow me”; do as I do not as I say! The US Marines, Army Rangers and Navy Seals training can teach the business world a lot about effective leadership and management. In fact, US military training philosophies have permeated the business world. One example of this is in executive development programmes on team building and emerging leaders. An effective how-to technique, virtually any business can implement to build teams and drive potential leaders to emerge, is the US Marines “no man left behind” training philosophy. CONTINUE ON PAGE 22
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