By Raffique Shah
May 10, 2016
Archbishop Joseph Harris’s initiative to petition Government to free from prison petty offenders who have remained on remand for an inordinately long time is laudable and deserving of support.
However, if it’s accepted and implemented in its current form, it would deal an unjust blow to many more accused persons, perhaps several times the number of those who would benefit.
Continue reading Call for reformation
By Raffique Shah
April 29, 2016
I had planned not to address crime in my columns, to waste valuable newspaper space on an issue that, while it grows grimmer by the day, is seemingly intractable.
When last I tackled it, I admitted to have become inured to the barbarism into which the nation has descended. Decapitation, mutilation, suffocation and now on-the-spot cremation no longer shock me.
Continue reading All ah we dead
By Raffique Shah
April 21, 2016
I find it almost amusing that some grocers who are caught dipping their greedy hands deep inside the inside consumers’ pockets, cry foul when their names and outrageously high prices are exposed through advertisements posted by the Consumer Affairs Division of the Ministry of Trade.
In immediate response to being named as selling certain foodstuff way above the norm in the business, they claim the prices attributed to their establishments were wrong, and they issued “corrected” versions that were between $5 and $10 cheaper-per item.
Continue reading Battle against be-suited bandits
By Raffique Shah
April 05, 2016
Posted: April 10, 2016
What I established last week was that Trinidad and Tobago, like most small island states that were once colonised by imperial powers, relies heavily on imported foods for its sustenance.
All our staples-grains (wheat, rice, maize), dairy products (milk, cheese, butter), sugar, edible oils, white potatoes, beans and pulses-come from abroad, mainly North America, the EU, Australia and New Zealand.
Continue reading Descent into imports-dependence
By Raffique Shah
April 03, 2016
Recently, there has been much noise over Trinidad and Tobago’s capacity to produce the foods that we eat.
I use the word “noise” instead of discussion or debate because so much of what is said and written is uninformed.
Continue reading Doomed to importing foods
By Raffique Shah
March 25, 2016
A recent World Bank report ranked Trinidad and Tobago as the country that generates the most “municipal solid waste”, on a per capita basis, in the world.
According to the report, every man, woman and child in this country, on average, every day, generates a mind-boggling 14.4 kilogrammes of garbage:
The world average is 1.2 kilos.
Continue reading Waste worse than corruption
By Raffique Shah
March 16, 2016
Trinidadians are hell, I tell you.
Take their almost instantaneous sympathy with the 600-odd steel workers who found themselves jobless last week when ArcelorMittal shut down its plant in this country.
Sure, that means at least 5,000 family members facing very uncertain times if not utter devastation. Those who have mortgages or rentals could lose the roofs over their heads. Vehicles may be repossessed. Children’s education will be at risk, in particular those who attend university. And ultimately, putting food on the table might be a challenge.
Continue reading Don’t take Mittal’s mill even for free
By Raffique Shah
March 11, 2016
I am relieved to learn that the Cabinet “retreat” in Tobago last weekend did not have as a main item on its agenda achievements of the not-so-new Government during its first six months in office.
If it did, I would have screamed bloody murder, not to add rape of the Treasury, because although I’ve never been to Hotel Magdalena, I should think it’s an expensive place.
Continue reading Rating Rowley’s Government
By Raffique Shah
March 04, 2016
I don’t know if we should be more afraid of banks and bankers or bandits and murderers.
Seriously.
Both strike when we are most vulnerable. They relieve us of our life’s savings, of what we have worked tirelessly to provide for our families, with a callousness that is chilling.
Continue reading Bankers and Bandits
By Raffique Shah
February 24, 2016
The findings of a Commission of Inquiry into the murder of Guyanese intellectual and political activist Dr Walter Rodney, 36 years ago, are an indictment not only against the Forbes Burnham dictatorship that ruled Guyana for 21 horrible years, but also other Caricom governments and countries that never condemned Burnham’s atrocities.
Continue reading Rodney’s ghost haunts Guyana