By Stephen Kangal
March 05, 2009
During the RIC hearings that subsequently resulted in the current electricity rate hike I made it abundantly clear that the net effect of the proposed unit rate increase from 15 cents to 35 cents per unit would result in a 45% hike in electricity bills. T&TEC and the RIC under Professor Dennis Pantin used every statistical trick in the book to deny and discredit this percentage increase.
Continue reading Coping with a Quadrupling T&TEC Bill
Dr. Kwame Nantambu
Posted: March 04, 2009
This article seeks to clear the air as to my obdurate professional assertion that there is a direct correlation between soca lyrics and moral decadence, public pornography cum simulation of sexual intercourse and sexual promiscuity in T&T.
The stark reality is that when Lord Shortie introduced Soca music via his 1974 LP titled “Endless Vibrations”, his lyrics were conceived/conceptualized within the context of love; hence, the “Love Circle.” Sadly, some of today’s Soca lyrics have completely transformed the original “Love Circle” into today’s Soca public pornographic Sex Circle as patrons “get ready to juk, juk, juk”.
Continue reading Soca lyrics & moral decadence revisited
By Cherisse Moe
March 2nd, 2009
guardian.co.tt
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) defines child labour as work that exceeds a minimum number of hours, depending on the age of a child and on the type of work. Such work is considered harmful to the child and should therefore be eliminated. There remains no official statistics on the magnitude of child labour in T&T. However, rapid assessment studies conducted by the International Labour Organisation, (ILO), in 2002, uncovered some alarming facts.
Continue reading Child labour in T&T…A well-kept secret?
By Andre Bagoo Monday, March 2 2009
www.newsday.co.tt
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
FIRST it was estimated to cost $40 million. Later, that rose to $148 million. Last September, the figure was revised to $175.3 million. But Udecott documents obtained by Newsday reveal that the cost of the Prime Minister’s Residence and Diplomatic Centre as at December last year was an estimated $244 million. According to a dossier on the project which was submitted by Udecott lawyers to the Uff Commission of Inquiry, the cost estimate for the project, as at December 31, 2008, was $243,961,819.
Continue reading PM’s mansion climbs to $244M
By Raffique Shah
March 01, 2009
FOR too many years we have haggled over what the minimum wage should be in this country: should we pay the poor buggers $9 an hour, or $10? That would amount to less than $2,000 a month, but it’s worth fighting over. For those trapped in this gloomy underworld-not so hidden, since we shop at groceries and stores where they labour every day-it could mean being able to afford an extra “doubles” for lunch, or buying their children the toys they so covet. As far as I am concerned, what we call a minimum wage is in fact starvation wage, a kind of semi-slavery endured only by those who have no other options, except perhaps to turn to crime.
Continue reading Taxing the million-dollar men
By Gerry Kangalee
Food and Fuel Forum
43 Fifth St., Barataria, Trinidad and Tobago
February 18, 2009
The Food and Fuel Forum of Trinidad and Tobago offers, through the General Union of Guadeloupean Workers, UGTG, its deepest solidarity with the LKP, a grouping of forty seven peoples organisations, the workers and people of Guadeloupe as you pursue your general strike against the extreme exploitation that has been the lot of the masses of people in the French colonies in the Caribbean. We in Trinidad and Tobago also suffer the effects of the capitalist economic crisis and strongly empathise with the people of Guadeloupe.
Continue reading Solidarity with Guadeloupe
By Stephen Kangal
February 18, 2009
Those tired-looking and lethargic T&T Soca Stars played as if they were in the twilight zone of their career in San Salvador. They were a disorganized and uncoordinated outfit, lacking- in- both team spirit and fight bunch of footballers as if belonging to the Eddie Hart League. Mind you they had just returned from an expensive exposure to best soccer training facilities in Argentina at enormous expense to the tax-payers of this country.
Continue reading Soca Warriors Caused Me a Nightmare
Newsday Editorial
Wednesday, February 11 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
Contrary to reports that had been bruited around that government while it had moved swiftly to bail out Clico and three other CL Financial subsidiaries had not moved to assist the Hindu Credit Union (HCU) it was revealed on Monday that Government had offered a bail out package similar to the one presented to Clico, but that this had been rejected.
Continue reading Public relations goof
By Stephen Kangal
February 10, 2009
It is patently clear to me that had not CL Financial magnate Lawrence Duprey made his pre-emptive approach to Government in mid-January to mobilize State injection of liquidity into his cash-strapped investment bank, CIB, CMMB and insurance giants CLICO and British American it would have been business as usual to date.
But within the passage of a short time these major financial institutions would have eventually collapsed with catastrophic consequences for the savings of policy holders and depositors as well as for the rest of the economy of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean. The Central Bank has been failing us the people of T&T for a long while. That is why Mr. Duprey the avant garde, visionary indigenous industrialist has retained our admiration. But the Government wants to hoff his crown jewels.
Continue reading Central Bank Governor Williams Must Resign
By Raffique Shah
February 08, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
UP TO ten days ago, Lawrence Duprey was one of most admired businessmen in Trinidad and Tobago. He was not self-made, as some of his peers and predecessors were. He inherited the biggest and strongest insurance company in the country founded by his uncle Cyril. But having taken over the reins of CLICO, he quickly moved to diversify the insurance giant’s vast resources, to venture where no other local entrepreneur had, into the downstream energy sector.
Continue reading Beyond Duprey