Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter

Cuba's President Raul Castro (left) and Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding review a guard of honour during a ceremony at Revolution palace in Havana, Cuba, yesterday. - AP

HAVANA, Cuba:

The Cuban government will continue to offer technical aid and other forms of assistance to Jamaica, despite the questions surrounding the contro-versial light-bulb distribution programme.

Hundreds of the four million energy-saving bulbs, donated to Jamaican to be distributed free, cannot be accounted for while several questions remain about the millions of dollars spent on the project.

On the second day of his four-day visit to the communist nation yesterday, Prime Minister Bruce Golding told The Gleaner that he raised the bulb issue during closed door talks with Cuban President Raul Castro at the Revolution Palace.

Golding said he mentioned the issue in expressing the appreciation of the Jamaican government to Cuba for the assistance it had given and to indicate that the criminal investigation had no reflection on Cuba .

"I sought to assure them that there was no implication whatso-ever of any wrongdoing on the part of Cuban authorities," Golding said. "They did their generous part well; it is in the implementation of the programme at the local level that we made mistakes."

No negative reaction

Opposition member of parlia-ment Kern Spencer, who was in charge of the light-bulb programme while he was a state minister in the last People's National Party admin-istration, is among three persons facing fraud charges in relation to the project.

Golding said there was no negative reaction from the Cuban authorities, who gave the impres-sion that they felt the matter was a Jamaican domestic affair.

The prime minister said President Castro has given the undertaking to increase the cooperation between Cuba and Jamaica in several areas.

According to Golding, the two countries have agreed to further talks to protect their territorial waters from drug smugglers.

arthur.hall@gleanerjm.com