Tag Archives: T&T Govt

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

We know why we are in this mess

By Raffique Shah
March 07, 2022

Raffique ShahThis country is losing large numbers of young people at an alarming rate. No one seems to be intrigued with, or concerned about, their disappearance from their communities and school systems. Yet we hear and see thousands of undocumented citizens make cameo appearances at venues in the forests that are never far from us, and then they simply vanish again, mostly to reappear when next some government agency is distributing food, clothing, grants, etc—and then they’re gone.

I have heard some public officers allude to this bizarre phenomenon that seems completely out of character with the simplicity of our living styles (distinct from our lifestyles), but nothing further is ever heard about them… unless or until something bizarre occurs.
Continue reading We know why we are in this mess →

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

Corruption capital

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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.
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Agriculture, Food, General T&T

Eat smart, beat inflation

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By Raffique Shah
February 14, 2022

Raffique ShahMy final focus on food production for now, on cutting back on imports which stand at approximately US$1 billion per year, adds nothing new, nothing that I, and others more qualified than I, have not said before.

In fact, there is hardly anything I can add to this component of the economy since the challenges remain the same they were decades ago, and governments’ responses, likewise, are like a stuck wax record in a digital player—jarring, unintelligible noises that are offensive to the trained ear.
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General T&T, International, Politics, Venezuela

Probe Coast Guard shooting

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Probe Coast Guard shooting Express Editorial
The shooting incident involving the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard which resulted in the killing of a baby and injury to his mother demands a full and independent enquiry.

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Comment from Kian

I am deeply disturbed by the reporting of the Coast Guard actions against the Venezuelan boat that caused the death of an infant.

As a nation, we need to understand our constitution, institutions and the purpose of their existence and operations. The constitution allows a government (run by politicians), the Judiciary (run by qualified judges, magistrates etc), armed services (army, coast guard, police, air & sea support). The armed services are NOT civilian controlled. In the case of the Army and Coast Guard, they represent our line of defense against armed insurrection, enemy invasion and border patrol.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, Protest

Playing games with people’s lives

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 31, 2022

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt is with regret that I return to PNM’s neglect of its people. It seems that nothing one says or does can make its ministers recognise their tone-deaf responses to the cries of their people. It is, as my mother used to say, “like stick break in dey ears”.

I couldn’t help but feel this way when I read Minister Marvin Gonzales’s response to reporters after he and Port of Spain South MP Keith Scotland visited John John and Sea Lots, with a view to repairing the sewage issues that have plagued the people of the latter area for several years.
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corruption, Crime in T&T, General T&T, Media, Police, Politics

FULs no solution to crime problem

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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 →

corruption, COVID-19, Finance, Food, General T&T, Health, International, Recession

Talk to me about patriotism

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By Raffique Shah
January 24, 2022

Raffique ShahIt didn’t take Nobel Prize-winning economists such as St Lucia’s Sir Arthur Lewis, or the USA’s Milton Friedman or Paul Krugman, to project that as the world economy emerged from an unprecedented virtual lockdown that lasted three, four, who knows how many years during the Covid pandemic, commodity prices, especially those of goods and services that are critical to the recovery of countries across the world, would rise rapidly, putting them beyond the reach of the poorest nations and the poor in every nation.
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General T&T, PDP, PNM, Politics, THA, Tobago

COLONIAL TRAPPINGS

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 17, 2022

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIn June 2001, the Japanese Black Studies Association invited me to deliver an address, “Identity and Caribbean Literature”, at Nara Women’s College, Nara, Japan (see trinicenter.com, June 24, 2001). Before I delivered my address, my host asked me to meet the president of her college, to which I agreed. I had stopped wearing ties because I considered it a useless trapping (literally) of colonialism. However, my host politely reminded me I had to wear a tie if I was going to see her president.
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COVID-19, General T&T, Health

Army of the vaccinated

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By Raffique Shah
January 17, 2022

Raffique ShahI am writing this column on Saturday morning, so I have no idea what the PM would have announced at his media briefing in the afternoon.

But with the drums of political war growing ominously louder by the day, and increasing in volume and tempo, and those who are looking to unseat his Government long before the due date for fresh elections, buoyed as they are by Watson Duke’s sound licking on the PNM in the recent Tobago House of Assembly election, they are doing everything to frustrate him, to goad the PM into calling snap elections, which they believe they can win, whoever “they” may be, whatever their agendas.
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COVID-19, General T&T, Health, Politics

Bring back the ‘Bull’

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By Raffique Shah
January 10, 2022

Raffique ShahNot even George Orwell, who wrote the right-wing classic Animal Farm which summarised workers in power, post-revolution, in the worst possible light, could have scripted the post-Covid tragi-comedy that premiered a few weeks ago, when the Delta variant of the virus first showed what it could do, and now Omicron is breaking box office records, leaving mankind stupefied.
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