Newsday Editorial
Tuesday, January 13 2009
THE Draft Constitution laid by Prime Minister Patrick Manning at last Friday’s re-opening of the House of Representatives not only alters the mechanics of the Constitution but undermines the most universal tenets of constitutional accountability.
This is the third draft presented by Mr Manning, following a first draft laid in the House on Friday August 18, 2006, and a second draft outlined to the PNM Annual Convention on Sunday July 13, 2008.
Continue reading Dangerous Draft Constitution
IF ever the world needed an economic recession, this is the time. Maybe there is some superior entity that is both omniscient and omnipotent, that saw the excesses man was capable of, left to his devices. And just maybe, that entity decided to call halt to the madness that gripped mankind, from Iceland to Antarctica. Almost the entire world, except for the one billion living in poverty that we can pretend do not exist, engaged in wanton, wasteful consumerism. It was as if we were re-enacting the lavishness of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, or the Court of the Roman Empire in its halcyon days.
I can’t claim to have known anything about Consumer Affairs Minister Peter Taylor until two weeks when he singled out “doubles” as a target for price reduction. That statement signalled to me that the minister was doubly ignorant about his portfolio, maybe even wholly unsuited for the job. Indeed, Prime Minister Patrick Manning, who will read this column from a hospital bed in Havana, may want to consider doubling up on ministers in this ministry by naming a Junior Minister of Doubles.
MINISTER of Planning, Dr Emily Gaynor Dick-Forde, said over $40 million was paid in commissions to the agents who arranged financing of the Waterfront Project, replying to a question by UNC Senator Mohammed Faisal Rahman in the Senate on Tuesday.
So we have come full circle-responding only when the White “massa”, or “missus” in this case, wields the whip. Government has belatedly decided to review its expenditure in light of the global financial and economic crises. The announcement to that effect came immediately after the IMF’s Christina Daseking warned government about its spending spree, saying it must rein in unnecessary expenditure if the country is to weather the global storm.