Category Archives: corruption

corruption, General T&T

Normalising failure and callousness

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 21, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeQuestion: Would you select someone to lead a company or an organisation where, previously, that person had failed in that position and shows no sign of improving his/her leadership skills or comprehending the job-challenges that lie ahead?

This question arose last week when National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds explained why his Government retained Erla Christopher to lead the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service for another year even as crime and disorder worsen and every sign suggests they will get “worserer.”
Continue reading Normalising failure and callousness →

corruption, General T&T

Destination, purgatory

By Raffique Shah
May 14, 2024

Raffique ShahIf the two leading parties, the PNM and the UNC, ignore my challenge for them to make corruption a focal point of the next general election, would this be to their detriment? The answer is no. They will have read my column, of course, and they would be intimately aware that I was correct in everything I wrote in matters relating to racketeering and other very high-level illegal transactions.

I will not, of course, have documents or files to support my allegations. Which means, as a citizen, I do not have the liberty to pursue such matters the way good journalists do. So, if at all any of them wishes to comment, to brand my recommendations for an issue-related elections period, they would have the whole country laughing at me, making me look like an idiot. They, too, will not only lampoon me but they will come after me for whatever pennies I have amassed.
Continue reading Destination, purgatory →

corruption, General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

Living to steal another day

By Raffique Shah
May 07, 2024

Raffique ShahHowever lofty the ideals they may shout from the rooftops, when you get down to base, when you reach the gutter where most of them reside, politics is not about ideals. It is about naked power.

Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher, wrote in his masterful introduction to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth: They bring nothing new, they create nothing new, they simply regurgitate what their masters fill in their heads. Centuries after the great intellects introduced them to concepts such as democracy, you can hear them in the ex-colonies, now independent states, screaming as if they invented the words, “Government of the people, for the people and by the people”; “Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!”
Continue reading Living to steal another day →

corruption, General T&T

Mandate to lock up

By Raffique Shah
April 29, 2024

Raffique ShahSo that readers may get an idea of the sheer size of the monster that is corruption, of how easily the high and mighty as well as the poor and powerless are caught in its web, I cite one of the oldest jokes in parliamentary lore.

Lady Astor, the first woman to sit in the British parliament, was once jokingly propositioned by a drunk Winston Churchill when he asked her: will you go to bed with me for 50 pounds? She did not respond curtly; instead she hesitated, but before she could sidestep the trap Churchill was about to spring on her, he asked: will you go to bed with me for eight pounds? To which she angrily responded: what do you think I am? He replied: we already know the answer to that, we are just trying to fix a price.
Continue reading Mandate to lock up →

corruption, General T&T, Parliament, PNM

Corruption’s demonic face

By Raffique Shah
April 23, 2024

Raffique ShahIn the 40-odd years that I have been writing a weekly newspaper column, I admit that much of my work has been dealing with politicians and corruption. Over the years I have tried to address other issues such as the economy, our education system, crime (how can I not write about crime?), and so on. But I always seem to return to base, in a manner of speaking—meaning politics, politicians and corruption.
Continue reading Corruption’s demonic face →

corruption, Crime in T&T, General T&T

Cradle of corruption

2 Comments

By Raffique Shah
June 20, 2023

Raffique ShahI haven’t given much thought to the local government election due to be held in August, nor have I paid much attention to the ongoing debate on reforming local government, a cornerstone of PNM’s vision for new governments.

In the first instance, besides creating three new boroughs, the Government is seeking to instil the decentralisation of governance, the precise details of which I have not studied. However, I am aware that the contentious issue of property tax which the PNM sees as not only a source of revenue, but more importantly a source of power to the local government bodies, remains a gap between the Government and the Opposition UNC, which is totally against property tax.
Continue reading Cradle of corruption →

Complaints, corruption, Crime in T&T, General T&T, Law, Money Laundering, Politics

MASSIVE CORRUPTION

7 Comments

20 years later: Piarco airport commission of enquiry report finally unwrapped…

By Ria Taitt
May 28, 2023 – trinidadexpress.com

Basdeo PandayIt has remained under wraps for two decades.

The Sunday Express has however obtained a copy of the report of the commission of enquiry into the Piarco Airport Development Project, a subject which has poi­soned the political bloodstream of Trinidad and Tobago with allegations of corruption on a grand scale and counter-­allegations of political witch-hunting.
Continue reading MASSIVE CORRUPTION →

corruption, General T&T, Politics

Is What We Go Put

2 Comments

By Raffique Shah
May 15, 2023

Raffique ShahWhile members of parliament, on both sides of the divide debated, argued, and almost came to blows over a relatively minor issue— in this case, the supplementary appropriation bill— they could not see the herd of elephants in the House, not one in a room, set to stampede demanding an equitable place on Earth. I watched with consternation as MPs got close to blows over the Finance Minister’s proposal to increase expenditure for fiscal 2023, I thought: These people must be mad.
Continue reading Is What We Go Put →

corruption, Crime in T&T, General T&T, Politics

Corruption capital

2 Comments

By Raffique Shah
February 21, 2022

Raffique ShahI am convinced that Trinidad and Tobago is the most corrupt country in the world. There is hardly a person who has not witnessed “wid mih own eyes”, as Trinis would say, or otherwise gained knowledge of, at least one act of corruption in his lifetime, and likelier several such illegal transactions. He or she will have said nothing about it by way of reporting the illegal act to anyone with the authority to act on it.
Continue reading Corruption capital →

corruption, Crime in T&T, General T&T, Media, Police, Politics

FULs no solution to crime problem

5 Comments

By Raffique Shah
January 31, 2022

Raffique ShahIf there was anything shocking about the non-appointment of a new Commissioner of Police, the simultaneous publication of the retired Justice Stanley John’s report and the stench that emanated from the innards of the records room when its files were opened, it was the surprise expressed by citizens over the scandalous state of affairs in the Police Service.
Continue reading FULs no solution to crime problem →