By Raffique Shah
September 27, 2017
I continue to focus on issues pertinent to the economy, to chastise the Keith Rowley-led administration for using the slump in the energy sector, hence plummeting government revenues, to moan and complain and blame for their inactivity, rather than being bold and innovative, grabbing opportunities that require little by way of capital investments, but which might yield rich returns.
Continue reading Public transportation a priority
By Raffique Shah
September 20, 2017
The suggestion I made last week to phase out the Port of Port of Spain (PPOS) as a cargo port and expand the Port of Point Lisas (PPL) to become the main such facility in the country, generated much interest and discussion. That, plus the fact that the Minister of Finance will unveil the fiscal 2018 Budget in a few weeks, prompted me to return to the issue of rationalisation of the nation’s ports, and in the context of diversification of the economy, to marine services as having immense potential as a key earner of foreign exchange.
Continue reading Grab Gulf coast opportunities
By Stephen Kangal
September 11, 2017
Minister of Finance Colm Imbert is bent on foisting another layer of ministerial-imposed, badly- conceptualised tax bureaucracy on the hapless and besieged expansive property – owning class of Trinbago by his most recent concoction of a new land- tax regime to temporarily replace the still-legally admissible 2009 Property Tax Act. This Tax Regime has been the Achilles Heel of the PNM in that they bungled its implementation since Proclamation on 31st December 2009.
Continue reading Another Imbertian Bungling on The Property Tax
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 13, 2017
I am a child of labor. In any struggle between labor and capital, I locate myself solidly on the side of labor, since my family labored on the Orange Sugar Estates, Tacarigua, for almost two centuries. Their labor power was exploited ruthlessly by the owners of capital, which is nothing more than dead labor accumulated through the suffering and emasculation of millions of laborers. In Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (first translated into English from German by C. L. R. James, Raya Dunayevskaya and Grace Lee Boggs) Karl Marx pointed out capitalism estranges or alienates the laborer from the fruits of his labor.
Continue reading In Solid Support of Ancel Roget
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 31, 2017
Last Sunday, Jonathan Fenby, author of The General: Charles de Gaulle, suggested that Emmanuel Macron, President of France, was following closely in the footsteps of Charles de Gaulle, founder of the Fifth Republic, by using his office with the same majesty, grandeur, and decorum that de Gaulle did. He clarified: “Both are (or were) very well read, formally courteous and with an attention to detail. Though not as rousing an orator as the general, Mr. Macron uses speeches, as his predecessor of a half a century ago did, as instruments of pedagogy, notably with his address last weekend on the 75th anniversary of the round-up of Jews in Paris, when he did not hesitate to criticize de Gaulle by name for the pretense that the French authorities were not responsible” (Financial Times, July 22).
Continue reading Keith Rowley’s Glorious Moment
By Nikita Braxton-Benjamin
May 19, 2017 – trinidadexpress.com
A HIGH COURT judge on Friday granted a stay of implementation and enforcement of the decision by Government that all property owners were required to complete and submit a Valuation Return Form.
Continue reading Property Tax Axed …judge stops Gov’t
By Jada Loutoo
May 13 2017 – newsday.co.tt
AN ALL out attack has been launched against Government on the implementation of the property tax. In separate strikes, legal letters were fired off yesterday by a battery of lawyers representing three landowners threatening to take Government to court for what has been described as an “ambush” on citizens.
Two of the actions seek to have the courts review the implementation process of the controversial tax while the third is a constitutional challenge to the property tax. In the judicial review and constitutional claims former transport minister Devant Maharaj, United National Congress activist Ravi Balgobin Maharaj and Chaguanas resident Lutchmidat Ramcallie, are asking the Government to hold its hand on the implementation of the Property Tax until it amends the legislative provisions and before the court determines the actions.
Continue reading PROPERTY TAX IN COURT
By Stephen Kangal
May 14, 2017
Since the current discussions began on the yet to be known illegal implementation date of Act No 18 of 2009 Prime Minister Rowley has never uttered anything sensible and correct on this issue. He has never read the two mutually inclusive Acts No 17 and 18. He is at loggerheads with the Minister of Finance and his AG.
Continue reading Rowley Erratic on Property Tax Provisions
Newsday Editorial
May 08, 2017 – newsday.co.tt
IT MAY well be that the $255 million TSTT/Massy deal announced last Tuesday is beneficial to the State, but there is more to this transaction than just signatures on a dotted line. At least two key issues arise. Firstly, there is need for clarity when it comes to appropriate boundaries of the power of state-owned companies.
Continue reading A win-win deal?
By Raffique Shah
April 28, 2017
Trinidad and Tobago is one cantankerous country-we always quarrelling. In fact, we invariably have several quarrels raging at any point in time over issues or personalities such that we go off on tangents, forgetting who or what was in dispute in the first instance.
It is often said that you cannot please all the people all the time. With respect to Trinis, you cannot please anyone anytime. This characteristic is not to be confused with the proverb, “you can fool all the people some of the time…but you cannot fool all the people all the time”. In this latter regard, you can fool all Trinis all the time: just inform them via email that they have won the jackpot in a lotto they know nothing about, and you can relieve them of a “processing fee”.
Continue reading Arithmetic lessons for the Finance Minster