Tag Archives: Finance

Corruption, Mismanagement and Waste

July 31, 2010

UDECOTTMadness in Sportt–Anil
Roberts added: “Errors, omissions, impropriety and downright corrupt practices… from the Caribbean Games, which never came off, to the legacy flag at Hasely Crawford Stadium, to the hiring of interns, the leasing of expensive SUVs, duplication of duties/responsibilities and the creation of a ghost roof at the stadium.”

…’Prophetess would be proud’
SPORTS Minister Anil Roberts yesterday literally didn’t know if to laugh or cry as he exposed $65 million in a clutch of dubious deals at the Sport Company of Trinidad and Tobago (SPORTT) in a hard-hitting speech in the Lower House.
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Whirlwind of the Politicisation of the Public Service

By Stephen Kangal
March 31, 2010

PNMIs it not a contradiction that while establishing the rule-unto-themselves private state companies with precious little accountability and transparency in their operating culture to take over the delivery of services from public service entities, we the taxpayers are today inundated with all the sordid details of nepotism, corruption and exorbitant billion dollar and non-accountable disbursement of the public purse by UDECOTT?
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BREAKING NEWS: Calder Hart Resigns

BREAKING NEWS

Calder Hart resigns from Udecott
Calder Hart resigns from Udecott
Calder Hart has resigned from Udecott and all other state boards in Trinidad and Tobago.

HART RESIGNS
ALMOST two years after allegations of corruption were first made against him, Calder Hart yesterday resigned as the Udecott executive chairman and as the chairman of four other state boards he had been appointed to under Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s administration.
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More fiscal discipline

Newsday Editorial
February 11, 2010 – newsday.co.tt
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Financial ComplexPRIME Minister Patrick Manning, at a PNM meeting in Laventille on Tuesday, re-ignited the debate as to how well, or if you like, how badly the Government has been spending public monies.

He raised the prospect of the Government having to borrow to fund its expenditure and thereby possibly incur strange looks from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Manning said the Government had last year suffered a $6.9 billion revenue shortfall, while this year’s shortfall is about $7.8 billion.
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Tyranny of the minority in T&T

Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseTHE EDITOR: The public, unscientific and unfounded notion/assertion by Finance Minister Karen Nunez Tesheira that “the majority of Trinbagonians support the Property Tax Bill’ flies in the face of the slightest scintilla of common sense and intellectual rationality.
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T&T borrowing $13 billion

Peter D Neptune
November 20, 2009 – guardian.co.tt

Karen Nunez-Tesheira
Karen Nunez-Tesheira
From January 2007 to the end of the current fiscal year, Government intends to borrow more than $13.6 billion to finance the budget deficit, pay for several large government projects and to fund the government’s money supply management strategy for the economy. Responding to a question by the Opposition during private members day in the Senate earlier this week, Finance Minister Karen Nunez Tesheira said the government has already borrowed more than $8.8 billion since January 2007, and plans are already being made to raise another $4.77 billion to continue its strategy into the new fiscal year. The funding needs for the next fiscal year include $2 billion from the domestic market, $2.2 billion from foreign capital markets and another $572.3 million in project related loans. She added that the Finance Ministry was in the process of developing a plan for Trinidad and Tobago’s borrowing requirements for the medium term – that is for the next three to five years beyond the current fiscal period.
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Questions over Financial Intelligence Unit Bill

Neswday Editorial
Thursday, October 8 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Bill 2009WE congratulate the Independent and Opposition Senators for exposing the potential pitfalls of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Bill 2009 debated in the Senate on Tuesday, but we wonder whether the Government made sufficient concessions to their concerns.

This stringent Bill sets up the FIU with sweeping powers to investigate any business activity deemed “suspicious,” with hefty fines of up to $1 million and imprisonment for up to three years for someone refusing to disclose information.
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Property Tax Can Off-Set $7bn Budget Deficit

By Stephen Kangal
September 17, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseI am now becoming increasingly convinced that the proposed draconian property tax is conceived to defray most of the estimated $7bn budget deficit in the face of an aggressive attempt by Government to bring all residences including those of the new HDC settlements, agricultural lands including the Caroni two-acre farms and new business places into the new, punitive tax net. One will recall the hike in the price of premium gas last fiscal to cover the costs of the $500m Summit of the Americas. CHOGM is next.
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Transforming a Property Owning Nation into Renters

Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseTHE EDITOR: The onerous, burdensome, sting-in-the-tail and exploitative property tax imposed by the Minister of Finance in her barrel-scraping Budget Statement will have the effect of transforming the mentality of a proud and confident, property- owning, diverse population into a nation of transient renters. From childhood I was socialized culturally into not being a renter. Now I am being forced as a fixed income pensioner, after building and living in my own home, to regard and treat myself pschologically as a renter in my own home. A long term renter has no commitment to his community or country. He is always on the move in search of greener pastures. I do not want to be treated as that.
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The Israel Khan affair

Newsday Editorial
Saturday, August 15 2009

www.trinidadandtobagonews.com

Israel KhanIt was an imperative that Israel Khan should have recused himself from the Uff Commission of Inquiry into Udecott and the Construction Industry. The ten-page letter which he issued to Udecott’s attorneys some days ago appeared to pre-judge the personalities and the issues before the Commission. As a Commissioner, Mr Khan should not have been giving vent to such opinions prior to having them stated in the body of the eventual Commissioners’ Report.
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