Tag Archives: T&T Govt

General T&T, Parliament, PNM, Politics, UNC

Time to heal, reconcile and conciliate

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By Stephen Kangal
July 01, 2021

Stephen KangalThe work and deliberations of the Committee of the Whole on the two Tobago Self Government Bills have been adjourned sine die.

The PMTT has indicated that they may not come back to the House before September and may even lapse by December. This is the low measure of seriousness attributed to Tobago’s autonomy after the obscene “gallerying” of Monday, Tuesday and today Wednesday by Rowley and his gang of copy-cat neophytes.
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General T&T, Labour, PNM, Politics

A Labour Day story

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By Raffique Shah
June 21, 2021

Raffique ShahWith this country’s history largely unwritten, and in many instances unrecorded, I shan’t be surprised if my column today reads like Greek hieroglyphics to most people.

Many of us have an interest in knowing where we came from, this potpourri of races that confuses us more than foreigners. Our only identification mark, I cite Meer and Fuchs, examining our language from a phonetic perspective, is the sing-song prosody linguists insist we expose when we speak.
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Caribbean, CARICOM, COVID-19, General T&T, Guyana, Health

Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana officials in vaccine-use crosstalk

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By Shane Superville
June 18, 2021 – newsday.co.tt

Dr Leslie RamsammyRemarks made by the Prime Minister during a media conference last Saturday led to a heated exchange between officials from the Guyanese government and business community and Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Foreign and Caricom Affairs on Friday.

During his presentation, Dr Rowley referred to a table highlighting the number of vaccines received by all 14 Caricom countries and their associates as of Saturday.
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Business, Finance, Food, General T&T, Labour, Recession, Trade Unions

Digging Out We Eye in Broad Daylight

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By Dr Selwyn R, Cudjoe
June 15, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeA few days ago the Attorney General asked the Parliament to approve a supplementary vote of $118.9 million for his ministry. Barataria/San Juan MP Saddam Hosein asked (perhaps pleaded is a better word) how much money the lawyers (120 local and nine foreign) were being paid and the matters for which they were retained.

From the AG’s angle of vision, such a question was preposterous. He responded: “I would like to place on record that the request for the supplementation is driven by the fact that we are still in the course of settling $141.3 million in arrears from the period 2010 to 2015, during which $444.4 million was expended and arrears of $141.3 million left.”
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Agriculture, Finance, General T&T, Recession

Small exports add up

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By Raffique Shah
June 14, 2021

Raffique ShahI shall not dwell on the many options we have to produce some of the foods we consume and to reduce our heavy dependence on foreign foods for our survival. Far too many reports have been compiled by committees on this issue.

The fact that we have done very little to alter the food production equation in favour of local content or substitutes is a damning indictment against us all—from consumers who insist on foreign brands to farmers who cultivate or do not cultivate, depending on subsidies from government; from cooks who will not soil their hands preparing ground provisions for meals for adults who will die if they cannot get hold of foreign “fast foods” that are devoid of nutrition but laden with unhealthy ingredients and harmful additives that are addictive.
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Agriculture, COVID-19, Finance, Food, General T&T, Health, Recession

Foods for your table

By Raffique Shah
June 07, 2021

Raffique ShahWarnings of food crises post-Covid-19 are dire. According to one study on global food security by the Centre for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), dated March 15, 2021, one year into the pandemic, ‘…at least four countries are facing…famine, …with 13 close behind…’ The study noted that one year ago, the UN World Food Programme executive director David Beasely, warned the UN Security Council of ‘famines of biblical proportions’ and of possibly 270 million ‘people experiencing crisis levels of hunger’.
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COVID-19, General T&T, Health, Politics

Departing on arrival day

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By Raffique Shah
May 31, 2021

Raffique ShahIn the event that you may have just awakened from a Rip shocking it might seem to you, it’s not just T&T; the world is at war…has been for almost one and a half years.

Just so you get right, we have already lost more than 400 lives in the war against Covid-19, with many more wounded, tens of thousands dislocated. Globally, some 3.5 million souls have returned to God, or wherever such poor buggers go, and mankind’s forces have suffered an estimated 170 million light-to-moderate casualties.
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COVID-19, General T&T, Health

Too little poetic justice

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By Raffique Shah
May 10, 2021

Raffique ShahThere are times when I feel ashamed of being Trinidadian. On such occasions, I feel almost like a traitor, having to admit that some of my countrymen are bringing shame and disgrace to our otherwise proud nation.

As the Covid-19 numbers exploded last week from single-digit in­creases to 300-plus daily confirmed cases, hospital beds were occupied at dizzying rates while deaths rose from modest to uncomfortable levels, I felt personally defeated.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T

The need for self-esteem and self-knowledge

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 03, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThe headline read: “It was a bloody weekend across Trinidad and Tobago”.

The news story announced: “From Friday night into yesterday, eight people were killed, pushing the murder toll for the year so far to 113. Victims were found dead in St James, Arima, La Horquetta, Valencia, Curepe, Embacadere, Tunapuna and Petit Valley.” (Express, April 26.) Two more people may have been murdered on that weekend.
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Africa, COVID-19, Finance, General T&T, Health, International, Politics, Recession

Of dollars and sense

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By Raffique Shah
April 26, 2021

Raffique ShahI round off my intervention on the many possibilities we might find in a new post-­Covid economy by reminding readers the pandemic has hammered economies across the world, irrespective of their sizes, in ways never before seen.

Oil was rocked to unimaginably low prices. Stock markets swayed as if in stupor, major commodity prices collapsed to uneconomic levels, and the virus disrupted world production of essential industries, goods and services, leaving governments confused, powerless, defeated.
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