PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley said yesterday Air Jamaica was bleeding Trinidad and Tobago “like a chop neck”. “Right now nobody knows what the Minister of Finance is doing by bankrolling CAL. All he is doing is giving them permission to go and borrow money short term. As of now we don’t know how much money they have borrowed and they writing off $200 million and the CAL board is having a generally good time as you see in the behaviour of (vice chairman) Mohan Jaikaran,” Rowley said. He said the airline was now “absolutely bankrupt”.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - CAL chairman Rabindra Moonan yesterday defended his board’s decisions in the midst of financial challenges. The six-year-old state company has found itself managing a billion-dollar debt and having to write off millions in losses owing to mismanagement of the company’s cargo revenues and credit card fraud. In a telephone interview with the Express yesterday, Moonan said the board had “settled down” and was trying to take the organisation forward.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Debate on the motion of no-confidence against Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and the People’s Partnership Government is set for next Monday. Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley who filed the motion, was not prepared to comment on the view that the motion was frivolous. “I will make my case on Monday,” he said, adding that a no-confidence motion was not about defeat or victory but about what is said in the debate.