Budget debate turns into duel…
By Kyle Jeremiah
October 1, 2008 – guardian.co.tt
The 2008-2009 budget debate took a dramatic turn last night in Parliament, after a war of words erupted between Prime Minister Patrick Manning and Diego Martin-West MP Dr Keith Rowley whom Manning dismissed in April.
Continue reading Manning trains guns on Rowley
By Stephen Kangal
October 01, 2008
On what basis can PM Manning justify spending an astronomical $503m (one percent of the 2009 budget that is equivalent to the sum for the construction of the Tobago power plant) to host the Summits of the Americas and the Commonwealth in 2009 if not to boost his already inflated ego? What diplomatic goodwill and political and economic benefits will accrue to the pauperized people of T&T from hosting these Conferences when we are burdened with a poverty rate of 27%? The poverty gap is widening and pensioners on fixed incomes are ketching their “nennen”.
Continue reading Taxing The Middle Class to Fund Conferences
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 26, 2008
It’s the kind of story that would get a cat vex or make a donkey want to commit murder. Imagine a young, imaginative entrepreneur, someone who does not possess a “gimme-gimme” mentality, comes into town and tells the world that he will build an empire that would make anything Sat Maharaj ever dreamed of doing look like a doll’s house. He starts a credit union and offers interest rates unlike anything the nation has ever heard; at least, not since the days of International Trust when my mother got burned because of her greed. People began to invest in this credit union and before you could say Pan-Dey it was the hottest thing in town.
Continue reading “Tell Me Who to Kill?”
EDITOR: The dismantling of the fuel subsidy has begun, as was predicted by the Food and Fuel Forum, which for the past couple of weeks has been distributing a bulletin linking the dismantling to the upcoming signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
Continue reading Increase in the Cost of Premium Gas
By Stephen Kangal
September 24, 2008
Reasonable citizens and commentators are fast coming to the conclusion that PM Manning has pre-empted the yet-to-determined verdict of the people of T&T. He has now taken T&T, at enormous public expense, diplomatic hype and great bravado beyond the political point of no return on his proposed union with at least three other Caricom States. He justifies this cart-before-the -horse modus operandi on the basis that a private club of which he is the jefe, that is to say the PNM, some fifty two years ago invoked political integration as one of its bye-laws.
Continue reading Point of No Return on Political Union
New voice but same high-spending story
SPEAKING for three hours and seven minutes in what was her historic presentation of a national budget in the House of Representatives yesterday, Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira broke the first rule she established going in. She had pledged not to deliver a lengthy address.
Continue reading 2008 Budget Presentation Highlights
By Stephen Kangal
September 17, 2008
In the face of the unforgivable, non-public disclosure of the text of the August 14 MOU as well as the disrespectful-to-the- people silence on the obligation to outline the compelling economic, political and trade considerations that underpin and drive the urgency of PM Manning’s proposed political union with three OECS countries there has arisen, quite understandably a range of informed speculation on what really motivates the mind of Manning. Many believe that personal (hubris) and subjective (legacy) considerations dominate, determine and drive his political union initiative.
Continue reading Mining the Mind of Manning
EDITOR: I sometimes wonder if my information sources of media, internet etc. are defective. My information suggests that most of the developed economies in the world are in deep crisis, major US corporations e.g. Bears and Sterns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman Bros. etc had to be bailed out by the Federal Authorities. (They are baulking at bailing out Lehman Bros.). The housing market is at its lowest point in decades and unemployment is at its highest in many years. The UK and Canada are awaiting statistical confirmation that their economies are in recession but their populations know full well.
Continue reading Is T&T Above World Economic Crisis?
PM wrong to take part
By Ria Taitt Political Editor
trinidadexpress.com
President of the Law Association, Senior Counsel Martin Daly, yesterday criticised Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s participation in a ‘march’ last Friday at Woodford Square, Port of Spain.
Daly raised the question of whether the Prime Minister had committed a criminal offence.
Continue reading Daly Questions ‘Illegal’ Rally
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
September 15, 2008
While the leaders of the labor/trade union movement should be lauded for attempting to shut down the country on the 8th September, “Day of Protest”, one must, however, posit this protest action within the context of dictatorship politics, political immaturity and those people electoral politics in TnT.
Continue reading Dictatorship Politics in TnT