NADALEEN SINGH

Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter Bruce Gold­ing flew in­to Trinidad yes­ter­day to hold emer­gency talks on Air Ja­maica and Caribbean Air­lines aimed at se­cur­ing the ap­proval of the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) for a US$1.2 bil­lion loan that would be a life­line for the sink­ing Ja­maican econ­o­my.

The IMF has in­sist­ed that Ja­maica di­vest Air Ja­maica as a con­di­tion­al­i­ty of the loan. Gold­ing is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce the agree­ment with the IMF in a high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed speech to­day and the sur­prise vis­it to Trinidad on eve of his ad­dress was im­me­di­ate­ly tak­en by Ja­maican sources to mean that the merg­er or ac­qui­si­tion of Air Ja­maica by Caribbean Air­lines was dis­cussed.

There was no ac­knowl­edg­ment of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Gold­ing's vis­it and the im­mi­nent IMF agree­ment in a state­ment put out by T&T's Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, which said on­ly that the talks "re­lat­ed to both Caribbean air car­ri­ers." Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Mar­i­ano Browne has con­firmed that a meet­ing to dis­cuss Air Ja­maica and Caribbean Air­lines Ltd took place yes­ter­day at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's. Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, is­sued at 6.02 pm, Ja­maica Prime Min­is­ter Bruce Gold­ing and a high lev­el del­e­ga­tion from Ja­maica met with Act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Lenny Saith, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Karen Tesheira and Browne. Gold­ing left T&T fol­low­ing the meet­ing.

In a brief phone call last evening, Browne said: "The meet­ing did take place and the talks took place, but I can­not dis­close fur­ther. What­ev­er is in the press re­lease is the on­ly in­for­ma­tion to be re­leased." Ian Brun­ton, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Caribbean Air­lines, said he was not part of the talks and could not di­vulge any in­for­ma­tion. But in an in­ter­view with the Busi­ness Guardian in Oc­to­ber, Brun­ton said talks about a pos­si­ble merg­er be­tween Air Ja­maica and Caribbean Air­lines were on­go­ing.

"If Air Ja­maica comes–it did come–we were asked to bid on it by the gov­ern­ment of Ja­maica. We did. It ap­pears we were not win­ners in that process, but it has not set­tled yet be­cause the gov­ern­ment of Ja­maica has not made up its mind yet. It can still hap­pen," Brun­ton had said.