Category Archives: Politics

Crime in T&T, General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 8

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 24, 2018

PART 8

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeWhen a government cannot even buy a boat to convey its citizens from point A to point B; select a commissioner of police as its murder rate soars; or be up front enough to tell its citizens the cost of building a hotel it says is in their best interest, then that government has lost its raison d’etre to lead.

Any party that says it represents the interest of a particular group but which, after sixty-two years in existence, that group is relatively worse off than before, then that party needs to question its performance? That party may even need to reinvent itself to accommodate the wishes of that group.
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General T&T, Oil and Gas, PNM, Politics, UNC

Petrotrin: all of them must go!

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By Raffique Shah
July 18, 2018

Raffique ShahBecause of the interest generated by my column last week on State-owned Petrotrin and the fact that the country has awakened to a possible disaster at our doorstep in the fate of the struggling oil giant, I thought I should return to add a few more salient points to the national discussion that will likely determine its future.

I claim no expertise in the oil industry, and certainly not on Petrotrin. However, I have, over the years, tried to educate myself on the hydrocarbons and petrochemicals industries in order to better understand these engines of our economy. Besides accessing information that is available in print and online, I have interfaced with many workers, technocrats and experts to whom I am grateful for sharing their vast knowledge with me.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, Racism Watch, UNC

Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 7

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 18, 2018

PART 7

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn July 14, 2003, my mother took her bath, got dressed, went to the polling station located at St. Mary’s Children Home, Tacarigua, and voted for PNM. Two weeks later she was dead. She never voted for any other party in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T).

When Eric Williams arrived on the political scene in 1954 my mother worked in a white woman’s kitchen. When he defied the colonial powers and proclaimed the dignity of black and brown people (“Massa Day Done,” he proclaimed), my mother saw him as a political messiah and PNM as the vehicle to take her out of a house of bondage and into a land of liberty.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, PNM, Police, Politics

Citizens Deserve the Imbert Treatment Too

By Tyehimba Salandy
July 16, 2018

Colm ImbertThe recent incident of the Minister of Finance Colm Imbert’s son being robbed provided one more example of something that most Trinbagonians know deeply. That is, the law firstly and most responsively serves the elite members of the society. After being robbed on Friday, the phone was recovered on Monday in the Beetham area. Ordinary citizens were understandably outraged because the speedy police action was much different to what they may be accustomed to in similar cases.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, Racism Watch, UNC

Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 6

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 11, 2018

PART 6

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIf one listened to the scholars and scribes, one would think that when the Indians came to Trinidad in 1845 they met a barren land where Africans played and joked around. No one would believe that those Africans, working from sunup to sundown, made William Hardin Burnley, an Englishman who came to Trinidad in 1802, the richest resident slave owner in the West Indies (see my forthcoming book, The Slave Master of Trinidad).
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General T&T, Oil and Gas, PNM, Politics

Frankie, don’t mess with us

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By Raffique Shah
July 07, 2018

Raffique ShahYou’d think with all the entertainment from and excitement over World Cup football in Russia, we’d be spared the drudgery of everyday crime, inexcusable lawlessness and political bacchanal at least for one month. After all, it seems that everyone is riveted to a television set somewhere on “match-days”, which have been every day, almost all day, over the past two weeks. In fact, football fever has intensified during the knockout matches that will climax when new champions are crowned on Sunday, July 15.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 5

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 4, 2018

PART 5

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI have rarely received so many responses to my articles as those I received about my previous column. Once I had the temerity to describe the business activities of the Syrian-Lebanese community I opened up a whole batchak nest unleashing the deadly fury that such colonies contain.

Ant colonies, made up of thousands of insects, are precise, efficient and an organized machine. They behave as a deadly unit. E. O. Wilson, the evolutionary biologist explained, “The activities of the individuals in an ant colony are so perfectly integrated it is almost as though they were part of a single organism. The insects do everything by instinct and they literally are programmed automatons.”
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General T&T, Politics, Recession

The housing conundrum

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By Raffique Shah
June 28, 2018

Raffique ShahAt two ends of the nation’s housing spectrum there are seemingly intractable problems that defy solutions unless the population is prepared to change the cultural mores that have contributed to us facing this conundrum.

At the base, we see tens of thousands of citizens ranging from low-income workers to no-income “lochos” clamouring for Government to provide housing for them. Many among these can afford to pay the subsidised rental or mortgage rates that the Housing Development Corporation, either directly or through certain mortgage facilities, charges for its low-end units.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, Racism Watch, UNC

Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 4

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 25, 2018

PART 4

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeSixteen years hence, Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) will celebrate its two hundredth anniversary since slavery ended formally. As I open my eyes, I am not sure I can see as clearly as the Minister of Finance how the African population will be positioned within the society in 2034.

Last Sunday I argued that by 2030, the Indian population will grow to between 588,000 and 776,000 people or 41 percent of the population; Africans will grow to between 525,000 and 615,000 people but remain about 36 percent of the population; and the mixed population will grow to between 339,000 and 417,000 people or 22 percent. In short, the African population will have dropped from 73 percent in 1803 to 36 percent in 2034.
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