On June 27, 2013 His Excellency Malay Mishrah the Indian High Commissioner to some territories in the Caribbean including Montserrat, made a farewell, his last official visit to Montserrat, where he announced that he had been in the position for the last four years, based in Trinidad and Tobago.
The High Commissioner after being welcomed as “brother and friend” by Premier Meade, recounted, “we have done quite a few things which have carried our bilateral program of cooperation forward, quiet significantly,” for which he said, “I would thank the government of Montserrat and the Hon. Premier in particular for always being very supportive and also understanding in various areas where we could make substantive progress.”
He recalled the MOU on bilateral Cooperation was signed two years ago in Port-of-Spain and that it was a broad framework instrument which was signed to carry our bilateral cooperation in various areas forward.
He reported on the capacity building by which India offers a certain number of training slots to Montserratian candidates to come to India be trained under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation program (ITEC). He said the program has been enhanced whereby they are now giving four, advising, “if we see a good utilization of these slots we will raise it even further…”
The training, he said, came in various areas including IT, small enterprises, accounting and budgeting , personal management, security, climate change, very diverse areas provided by about 50 top Indian institutions.
H E Mishrah spoke to what he said was another significant development, “…we’ve noted is in agriculture. We have felt that there was need for an experts to guide the government in the area of Agro processing and food processing, given that Montserrat does have abundant resources of foods. and if there was some kind of expertise available that could help the local people in generating in their own business and having their own jobs, and making their own products for the markets.”
He then touched on education making reference the supply of computer tablets for children. He has provided the information and added that if GoM would “come back with the order for tablets, this may even lead to some kind of collaboration in manufacturing tablets in this part of the world which would be even better.”
A farewell reception given by the Office of the Premier on the following Friday evening at Ponteen’s Place in Little Bay afforded the High Commissioner to meet 12 residents who have been on courses free of costs to India.
At that reception Mishrah confirmed this at he reaffirmed his government’s commitment to increase the number of available slots for scholarships he encouraged as many people as possible to apply for the courses, that were open to not just public servants but any resident in Montserrat. In addition to the courses mentioned earlier, Mishrah added there were other courses such as leather tanning, forensic science, ICT and legal drafting.
During the reception Claude Hogan, Regional Affairs Officer in the Premier’s office chaired a brief ceremony. The High Commissioner received gifts of appreciation. There were in attendance former students who were beneficiaries of the Indian courses. They included Kenbert Barzey and Roland Irish who thanked the high commissioner for his support in enabling Montserrat to be included in the ITEC programme. Barzey and Irish also encouraged other island residents to research and apply for the courses as they were not only beneficial for learning about a subject but had immense cultural impact and helped to build relationships with people from all over the world.
