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In a defeat for medical consultants in the public sector, the Supreme Court has ruled that emergency duty allowance paid to the group as part of their salaries is not pensionable. The court has also ruled against using the allowance to compute. ....
WESTERN BUREAU: As Jamaica closed its borders to United Kingdom flights on Monday, the country’s largest lobby of hoteliers and tour operators has thrown its weight behind the Holness administration’s decision to shut out British travellers amid the emergence of an ultra-contagious strain of the coronavirus that marked the territory as the sick man of Europe. The Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), whose members stand to benefit most from UK tourist arrivals to the island, acknowledged on Monday that the Government was obligated to protect its citizens from a variant of the coronavirus that was still an unknown entity globally. ....
A security guard walks past one of several Jamaica Urban Transit Company buses deployed to transport travellers from the United Kingdom to quarantine in St Ann. Jamaica’s travel ban against flights from the United Kingdom (UK) caught off guard a number of persons who expected to pick up relatives but left disappointed as hundreds of passengers were shuttled off to St Ann under 48-hour state quarantine Monday evening. Though the travel ban became effective close to noon Monday, the Government allowed landing privileges for the flight, which was already en route to Jamaica and scheduled to arrive shortly after 5 p.m. EST. ....
WESTERN BUREAU: The renovation of the beleaguered Cornwall Regional Hospital can be completed by the first quarter of 2022 if the Government speeds up administrative procedures that have hobbled the project, Professor Archibald McDonald has charged. McDonald, head of the oversight committee spearheading the renovation, was responding to Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton’s pledge of a major shake-up in the management of the project in 2021. Tufton rejected claims by construction industry professionals, as well as McDonald, that bureaucratic bungling was to blame for the botched hospital renovation. The minister emerged from a meeting with contractors on Monday defiant that he would push for Cabinet action to rein in runaway spending. ....