Tag Archives: T&T Govt

COVID-19, Finance, General T&T, Health, Politics, Property Tax, Recession

The Only Solution

9 Comments

By Raffique Shah
October 04, 2021

Raffique ShahI am writing this column before Finance Minister Colm Imbert delivers his Budget speech and announces measures that government intends to employ to finance its operations over the 2021-2022 fiscal year. What I write here is not new. Other commentators, economists, politicians and informed citizens will have said or written scholarly critiques of the economy, offloaded tonnes of advice and mountains of metrics on the minister.
Continue reading The Only Solution →

Culture, Education, General T&T, Politics

Education for those who want it

10 Comments

By Raffique Shah
September 13, 2021

Raffique ShahFor the second time in as many months I ask a question that is pertinent to this country’s future path, one that we need to answer because it is critical to everything else we do as we forge a road to recovery in the aftermath of the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic and the near-collapse of the national economy. It is this: are we satisfied with our education system which, give or take a tweak here, a turn there, has remained a hugely expensive relic of colonialism that refuses to die 60 years after independence.
Continue reading Education for those who want it →

General T&T, Health, Parliament, PNM, UNC

T&T’s Political Culture Affects COVID-19 Response

11 Comments

By Dr Tye Salandy
September 08, 2021

Dr Tye SalandyI certainly empathize with the government as it is navigating difficult decisions in the management of the economy and society during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, the issues facing the society are mostly not due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but deeper social issues that have never been properly addressed by any of the governments in power. These unaddressed issues of inequalities, flawed models of development and governance have undermined our ability to be resilient, to cooperate in nationally beneficial ways, and to contribute to the decisions that are taken at a national level.
Continue reading T&T’s Political Culture Affects COVID-19 Response →

Finance, Food, General T&T, Health, PNM, Recession

Catapult, club and a bullpistle

2 Comments

By Raffique Shah
September o4, 2021

Raffique ShahNo state of emergency, lift the curfew and let’s get back to normal. We are fed up with Covid-19, 20 or whatever edition or variant is stalking us. No more. Time to show this beast just what Trinis are capable of. We will beat him to death with ‘wining’ and ‘jamming’, drinking puncheon rum. Release the Trini beast, Mr Prime Minister, and we shall show the world how to fight Covid, David, any id.
Continue reading Catapult, club and a bullpistle →

General T&T, Politics

T&T at 59: Jean or Dinah?

12 Comments

By Raffique Shah
August 30, 2021

Raffique ShahIf I were asked to put a human face to a new portrait of Trinidad and Tobago at age 59, I would sketch a decrepit Jean or Dinah, aged beyond her actual years, scowling and regretting her wasted years, waiting to die at the feet of an ungrateful people.

I am not happy conjuring such a sorry image of my native land at a point in its history when it should be bubbling with life, oozing confidence and full of energy befitting a nation that has had a good run, whatever obstacles it may have encountered after it became an independent nation on August 31, 1962.
Continue reading T&T at 59: Jean or Dinah? →

General T&T, Sports

Sports overlords must be made to account

7 Comments

By Raffique Shah
August 08, 2021

Raffique ShahIf you think you cannot possibly get any angrier over the state of sports in the country, what with the annihilation of Team TTO at the Tokyo Olympics, our cricket teams performing way below what is expected of them, and our once-proud football team booted out of World Cup 2026 by some miniscule islands, then read the local football legend’s recently published Everald Gally Cummings, The Autobiography.
Continue reading Sports overlords must be made to account →

Africa, General T&T, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Dr Keith Rowley’s Emancipation Day Statement

12 Comments

By Dr Keith Rowley
Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago
August 01, 2021 – Facebook

PM Dr Keith RowleyHappy Emancipation Day to all the people of Trinidad and Tobago, from the Government, my own family and myself on the occasion of Emancipation Day 2021.

Today, we recognise not just the horrific experience of our African ancestors – but the impact it continues to have on the lives of millions of their descendants.
Continue reading Dr Keith Rowley’s Emancipation Day Statement →

Culture, General T&T, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Glorious day(s) of the happy and the free

5 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 01, 2021

PART 1

The masters were “dam tief”, the Governor an “old rogue”, and the King not such a fool as to buy them half free when he was rich enough to pay for them altogether.

—Port of Spain Gazette, August 5, 1834

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeToday is Emancipation Day. Ashton Ford, one of our respected elders, remembers the impetus that led former prime minister George Chambers to change the Discovery Day holiday (a day that recognised the misdeeds of our oppressors) to Emancipation Day that honours the achievements of our ancestors.

Chambers believed if you named your streets and monuments after local patriots, you encouraged a sense of nationhood and strengthened national identity among the population.
Continue reading Glorious day(s) of the happy and the free →

COVID-19, Food, General T&T, Health

The answers my friends

2 Comments

By Raffique Shah
August 01, 2021

Raffique ShahFact: an overwhelming majority of the 1,000-plus victims of Covid-19 who died of the highly contagious virus were also stricken with non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as heart diseases, diabetes, renal conditions and other preventable ailments.

I do not have the precise numbers of such cases since the Ministry of Health has a policy of not disclosing details of patients in its system. But I think I can safely say that based on the frequency with which “co-morbidities” has been attached to the profiles of the deceased, some 80 per cent fell in that category.
Continue reading The answers my friends →

General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

Car exemption hypocrisy

21 Comments

By Errol Pilgrim
July 25, 2021 – trinidadexpress.com

Raffique ShahJohn Doe is not a government minister, neither is he head of any government department.

Mr Doe is among the thousands of ordinary workers in the public service entitled by law to tax-exempt purchases of motor cars.

Like his counterparts in other statutory bodies and throughout the public service, Doe is a travelling officer entitled – pandemic or no pandemic – to motor-car tax exemptions and a travelling allowance.
Continue reading Car exemption hypocrisy →