Who has the jet?

THE IDENTITY of the Caricom leader who uses executive jets to commute between islands remains a mystery, but two Caricom nations which may have used this special form of air transportation appear to be Jamaica and Guyana.

Addressing the post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall on Thursday, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said Government may have to consider the future use of a private jet as Trinidad and Tobago moves towards developed nation status. Manning said this issue was the subject of discussions within certain levels in Caricom and there was at least one Caricom leader who uses executive jets to commute between islands. While Manning declined to name the country, information suggested it was Guyana.

When Newsday contacted the Guyanese Consulate in Port-of-Spain, officials there could offer no information to say whether or not Guyanese president Bharrath Jagdeo had used private jets for overseas travel. “I doubt that very much,” one official stated. Officials at the Surinamese Embassy were equally evasive, indicating that senior government officials travel overseas on BWIA or Suriname Airways. However, it was Jamaican High Commissioner to TT, Lorne McD-onnough, who gave some insight into the use of private jets by Caricom leaders. “I have known that Prime Ministers of Jamaica, in certain circumstances where it is difficult and circumstances call for it, have used private jets,” he said. While declining to definitively say whether Jamaican PM PJ Patterson or any of his predecessors used executive jets, McDonnough agreed with Manning that in special circumstances, private aircraft would ensure that any Caricom leader would reach his or her destination on time. However, the Jamaican High Commissioner said “as a rule,” Jamaican prime ministers travel to their destinations on commercial flights. McDonnough also seemed to exonerate Jagdeo, indicating that he once sat beside the Guyanese president on a BWIA flight. Meanwhile, another official at the Jamaican High Commission said there were private companies in Jamaica which offered executive jet services.

In the Commonwealth, Australian PM John Howard is one leader known to use a private jet. A June 28, 2002 Australian newspaper report described Howard’s plane as “smaller than the United States president’s Boeing 747 (Air Force One) and certainly less comfortable than the Murdoch family’s Gulfstream.” Howard’s plane was part of a fleet of two Boeing business jets and three smaller Canadian-built Challenger 604s that will cost Australian taxpayers $31 million a year to lease. Approved by the departments of the Prime Minister, Cabinet and Defence, the plane is “not exclusively for the Prime Minister’s use.” The Australian Governor General, ministers and foreign heads of state also have use of the aircraft “for the next 13 years (the duration of the lease).”