Tag Archives: Colm Imbert

Ah bus ah cuss on the PNM

By Raffique Shah
October 10, 2018

Raffique ShahIt’s a huge problem that adversely affects more than half of the population every day, costs the country billions of dollars a year in lost production, adds substantially to our mental and physical health bills—yet no government has had the testicular fortitude to confront it head-on, thus improving the quality and length of our lives.

Traffic jams, traffic congestion, call it what you will, will one day bring this country to a complete halt…full stop. And I dare argue that other than sitting in the now-mandatory air-conditioned comfort of their “rides”, music jamming, mankind “steupsing”, no one would even wind down his vehicle window to complain about this madness.
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Budget: capture every crook and dodger

By Raffique Shah
October 02, 2018

Raffique ShahI am writing this column before the Minister of Finance delivers his 2018-2019 Budget, and no, Colm Imbert and I are not friends, so I can’t call him on the phone and ask for a few tips on some of the measures he proposes to introduce to restrain the population from open rebellion, especially after his boss, the Prime Minister, declared last week that he will put the ruling People’s National Movement on a general election footing from early next year.
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Citizens Deserve the Imbert Treatment Too

By Tyehimba Salandy
July 16, 2018

Colm ImbertThe recent incident of the Minister of Finance Colm Imbert’s son being robbed provided one more example of something that most Trinbagonians know deeply. That is, the law firstly and most responsively serves the elite members of the society. After being robbed on Friday, the phone was recovered on Monday in the Beetham area. Ordinary citizens were understandably outraged because the speedy police action was much different to what they may be accustomed to in similar cases.
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Go after State lands thieves

By Raffique Shah
June 07, 2018

Raffique ShahI was about to write a column on my concerns with the Valuation Division of the Ministry of Finance, which plays a critical role in the implementation of the new Property Tax, when I read the lead story in the Sunday Express that pertained to a number of “hanky-panky” deals involving the distribution of State lands by officials of the Division of State Lands, which falls under the Ministry of Agriculture.
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Imbert’s Casual Cruelty

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 21, 2018

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI am always struck by Colm Imbert’s casual cruelty; his notion that he possesses superior wisdom; is always in the right; and his access to privileged information makes his utterances irrefutable. Such advantages, he believes, give him the right to demean and insult anyone he chooses.

On May 11 he was at his most incorrigible presumably because God blessed T&T with greater accesses to nature’s riches than say Jamaica. He accused Mariano Brown, Patrick Watson, Roger Hosein, Indera Sagewan-Alli, and Maria Dukharan of being “unfair and biased in their criticisms of Government’s handling of the economy” (Guardian, May 13).
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Imbert paints brighter mid-year picture

Economy turning around

By Gail Alexander
May 11, 2018 – guardian.co.tt

Colm ImbertAfter two and a half years of financial adjustment, Government’s now seeing its way.

The economy is turning around, revenue collection is up, the energy sector’s booming and the non-oil sector is also growing, Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced yesterday.
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Imbert Misled Parliament on First Phase of The Property Tax

By Stephen Kangal
July 12, 2017

Stephen KangalTaking into account the startling but incredible disclosures made by the Acting Commissioner of Valuation, Mr Baldeo Ramoutar in his 21st June affidavit filed in the San Fernando High Court, it appears to be pellucidly clear that the Minister of Finance, Mr Colm Imbert deliberately and knowingly misled and misinformed Parliament on the measures being undertaken for the first phase implementation of the Property Tax regime.
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Don’t nail judge to race-cross

By Raffique Shah
May 30, 2017

Raffique ShahFor some time now I have sounded warnings to our tribal leaders, more specifically those in the frontline of the United National Congress, that they are playing with fire by fanning the embers of racial strife that could easily ignite. While we have enjoyed relative harmony in a world wracked by ethnic and religious strife, the absence of war between the two main tribes in this country does not necessarily mean peace.
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Looking for the justification of the May 22/June 5 Deadlines?

By Stephen Kangal
June 09, 2017

Stephen KangalThe Minister of Finance had pulled out of a hat a May 22nd deadline for the submission of the illegal return forms(VRF’s) to the offices of the Valuation Division.

He had further compounded the debacle by extending it to June 5 because Cabinet decided so. Since when Cabinet has to sanction and approve a voluntary exercise that is the sole prerogative of the Commissioner of Valuations?
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Colm created tax confusion

By Raffique Shah
May 23, 2017

Raffique ShahFinance Minister Colm Imbert must shoulder much of the blame for the fiasco that a relatively simple exercise, the submission of information for the valuation of properties across the country, has degenerated into. The overwhelming response by property owners to abide by the law, hence flock the few Valuation Division offices where they could drop off their forms or get help filling them out, should have surprised no one. That the ministry was unprepared for the rush is an indictment against the minister and his senior advisors.
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