newsday.co.tt
Sunday, September 30 2007
Diego Martin Central Mp Ken Valley has been rejected as a candidate by the PNM Screening Committee.
Sources said Prime Minister Patrick Manning in his capacity as Political Leader met with the Screening Committee on Friday evening, shortly after naming the election date and recommended to the Screening Committee that the Diego Martin Central constituency executive be instructed to search for a new nominee(s), from which to select a candidate. The Screening Committee’s decision- that the search continue for nominees — has not yet been communicated to the Diego Martin Central constituency executive. The search for a new candidate therefore has not yet started 33 days before the General Election. However sources said Manning had a candidate already lined up. Sources added that it would not be Foreign Affairs Minister Arnold Piggott, but a political neophite.
Continue reading Kenneth Valley blanked
Last week, looking at a television clip of two jokers from Laventille hugging and dancing with UNC officials, celebrating the “strengthening” of Basdeo Panday’s new alliance to fight the PNM, I was almost reduced to tears. A few nights before that sorry sight, Bas was on a platform begging Winston Dookeran to join forces with the fast-fading UNC in order to defeat the ruling PNM at elections which should be called sometime before mid-December. Matters not how he couched this umpteenth attempt to woo back Winston, it was undisguised political vagrancy.
Suspended Chief Justice Sat Sharma insisted yesterday that he did nothing wrong when he spoke about the Basdeo Panday integrity trial to Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nicolls last year.
CHIEF MAGISTRATE Sherman Mc Nicolls stated quite emphatically yesterday that he never took a bribe from anyone in Trinidad and Tobago.
It is a sad state of affairs when mediocrity is the highest standard to which a nation aspires. For as long as I could remember, the people of T&T have bemoaned the poor quality of service they receive from public health, police, education, transportation and virtually all government ministries. So I thought that people would be happy to learn about the poll which shed light on the dismal performance of many government ministers. Yes! A poll was needed to identify these slackers as much as a light is required to see the sun. Nonetheless, the pole confirmed what the public had always known – government ministers are incompetent, lack vision and are incapable of fulfilling the mandates of their ministries. Despite all appearances, they are trapped in a Third World mentality. How else can one explain the sorry state of social services in T&T?
In denouncing some of his Ministers’ current stewardship, it is clear that PM Manning has unwittingly telegraphed that he alone has the exclusive right over the pursuit of fame, power and fortune in politics. The criteria of having a “level head and common sense” for ministerial appointment was never met by the author himself having regard to his weekly blunders and recent display of $200m of regal splendour and opulence. Now a performance audit resulting from a secretive poll is in the PM’s back pocket as the sword of Patos. The results of this suspect poll will take precedence over the democratic will of the respective PNM constituencies in new candidate selection.