A del­e­ga­tion from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da has trav­elled to Bar­ba­dos for talks with of­fi­cials as Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne has in­di­cat­ed that Bridgetown will col­lab­o­rate with St. John’s to sup­port the air bridge be­tween Africa and the Caribbean.

A state­ment is­sued fol­low­ing the week­ly Cab­i­net meet­ing not­ed that Prime Min­is­ter brown has signed an agree­ment with Africa’s largest pri­vate car­ri­er, Air Peace, to boost in­vest­ments in LI­AT 2020 Ltd.

“Air Peace will be­come the fund­ing source for LI­AT (2020) and owns 70 per cent of the shares, while 30 per cent will go to­wards An­tigua and Bar­bu­da at this time. A team from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da has left for Bar­ba­dos to com­mence con­sul­ta­tions on mak­ing a LI­AT (2020) vi­able.

“The Cab­i­net was in­formed that sup­port is al­so like­ly forth­com­ing from Do­mini­ca and St. Vin­cent,” the Cab­i­net state­ment said.

Air Peace is the largest pri­vate­ly owned air­line in Africa with a fleet of over 38 air­craft and over 3000 em­ploy­ees, serv­ing mar­kets in Africa, the Mid­dle East, In­dia, Chi­na, and Is­rael.

In Ju­ly 2020, the An­tigua Bar­bu­da gov­ern­ment said LI­AT 2020 Ltd, which re­placed the cash-strapped LI­AT (1974) will ben­e­fit from an ini­tial in­vest­ment of US $15-20 mil­lion.

Speak­ing to re­porters, Chief of Staff in the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Li­onel “Max” Hurst con­firmed that Prime Min­is­ter Browne had held talks with his Bar­ba­di­an coun­ter­part, Mia Mot­t­ley, adding an as­sur­ance had been giv­en that the coun­try would col­lab­o­rate with the twin is­land na­tion to sup­port the air bridge.

“Bar­ba­dos has in­di­cat­ed its will­ing­ness to work along­side An­tigua in mak­ing the con­nec­tion with the African con­ti­nent , the air bridge that is be­ing built with the African con­ti­nent, Bar­ba­dos is will­ing to par­tic­i­pate.

“And Bar­ba­dos has al­so in­di­cat­ed that on the is­sue of LI­AT 2020 it will al­so pro­vide the kind of up­lift that An­tigua and Bar­bu­da needs and that An­tigua and Bar­bu­da is not go­ing alone. I be­lieve sim­i­lar promis­es of as­sis­tance have been sig­nalled by both Do­mini­ca and St. Vin­cent and the Grenaa del­e­ga­tion from here has al­ready left for Bridgetown “ to com­mence con­sul­ta­tions on mak­ing LI­AT 2020 a vi­able op­tion.

He said dis­cus­sions would be held with of­fi­cials in the Bar­ba­dos Min­istry of Avi­a­tion “that would al­low for the flight that Air Peace will be­gin with, fly­ing from La­gos to An­tigua“ would go on to Bar­ba­dos and may even leave Bar­ba­dos and re­turn di­rect­ly to the African con­ti­nent.”Some of the de­tails are yet to be worked out but we can see the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Bar­ba­dos in this every im­por­tant ven­ture where Air Peace will own 70 per cent of LI­AT and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da will own for the time be­ing 3o per cent.

”An­tigua of course is more than will­ing to re­duce its own­er­ship share in or­der to en­sure that oth­er coun­tries in the Caribbean can have a piece of the pie,” Hurst added.

ST. JOHN’S, An­tigua, Nov 10, CMC – 

CMC/ag/ir/2023