By Corey Connelly
July 27, 2014 – newsday.co.tt
Retired head of the public service Reginald Dumas says Sports Minister Anil Roberts should have resigned forthwith following the tabling of the controversial report on the Life Sport programme in the Parliament on Friday.
Continue reading Dumas: Anil must take responsibility
By Sean Douglas
July 16, 2014 – newsday.co.tt
AGHAST at what he has found in the death of a boy incarcerated at the St Michael’s Home for Boys in Diego Martin, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan yesterday announced he has called on the Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams and Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard to launch criminal investigations into the operations of this Home.
Among the startling revelations is that a female worker took a young male from the Home to her home. She later became pregnant and has since given birth to a baby, believed to have been fathered by the underaged inmate.
Continue reading BOYS HOUSE OF HORRORS
Published on May 20, 2014
Continue reading Corruption, Cocaine and Murder in Trinidad
By Raffique Shah
May 04, 2014
Does anybody remember or know what happened with the scandalous “Section 34” issue? I recall that in the euphoria of the 50th anniversary of Independence, on August 31, 2012, some powerful person had that section of the Administration of Justice Act surreptitiously proclaimed, thereby opening a gateway to immunity (well, almost) for persons charged with corruption in the Piarco Airport matter.
Continue reading Another scandal we’ll forget
By Julien Neaves
February 10, 2014 – newsday.co.tt
ARTS and Multiculturalism Minister Dr Lincoln Douglas has denied claims by Trinbago Unified Calypsonians’ Organi-sation (TUCO) president Lutalo ‘Brother Resistance’ Masimba that Government officials and their friends have been abusing free entry to Carnival events.
“I think it has been reasonable. If you give seven, eight, nine, 10, 20 million dollars to an event, or to support, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that members of Government should expect to go to these events and not be able to take a friend or two,” Douglas said.
Continue reading Minister: So what?
By Nalinee Seelal
January 18 2014 – newsday.co.tt
THE biggest ever drug bust in the history of the Norfolk Port in Virginia, United States was made on December 20 when US Customs Border Protection officers seized 332 kilos of cocaine which originated from Trinidad and Tobago and which carries an estimated street value of US$100M or TT$640M.
The cocaine was stored inside tins of Trinidad Juice Company juices which were part of a consignment of goods that arrived at the Norfolk Port after being shipped from Trinidad. The cocaine, believed to have originated from South America, was hidden inside 700 juice tins bearing the markings of the Cooperative Citrus Growers Association (CCGA) which is located off the Eastern Main Road in Laventille.
Continue reading $640M COCAINE IN JUICE TINS
By Raffique Shah
October 13, 2013
Over the past 40 years, since the first oil boom began in 1973, allegations of corruption against government ministers, other politicians and senior public officials must have exceeded the one-thousand mark. I refer to alleged acts of corruption involving tens of millions of dollars and more, not to petty sums below, say, five million.
Since each corrupt transaction of this magnitude necessarily involves several persons—politicians, contractors, corporations, bankers, public officers—we could easily say that at least 5,000 persons of high standing in the society were involved.
Continue reading Corruption and deception
By Raffique Shah
August 31, 2013
I choose to reflect on the nation’s Independence anniversary through the prism of a glass half-full rather than half-empty. We endure so many negatives in this country—our daily dosage of murder, lawlessness from top to bottom, pillage of the national purse—that if we did not know how to laugh in the face of adversity, we would implode from cerebral constipation.
Continue reading Give thanks, Trini
By Raffique Shah
July 21, 2013
“When thieves fall out, honest men come by their own,” says a centuries-old proverb. I think though, that when friends fall out, dubious men and women tumble into disrepute in unimaginable ways and pillars of political society are reduced to pillars of salt.
Continue reading By-election a blessing
By Winford James
June 12, 2013 – trinidadexpress.com
NEVER mind Jack Warner’s denial, Prime Minister, it is a fiasco. Warner is focused on the rest of the Cabinet blaming him for it, despite acknowledging, in his usual convenient way, the doctrine of cabinet responsibility, but that is a red herring: it is still a fiasco. You could have said “bacchanal’’, “disaster’’, “catastrophe’’, “debacle’’, “shambles’’, “farce’’, “mess’’, “foul-up’’, or “screw-up’’. Yes, “screw-up’’. Everybody knows your government has been screwing up—monthly, weekly—but I’ll take the Italian word and its conservative figurative meaning: “failure in a performance’’.
Continue reading Yes, Prime Minister, a fiasco