By Stephen Kangal
March 05, 2009
During the RIC hearings that subsequently resulted in the current electricity rate hike I made it abundantly clear that the net effect of the proposed unit rate increase from 15 cents to 35 cents per unit would result in a 45% hike in electricity bills. T&TEC and the RIC under Professor Dennis Pantin used every statistical trick in the book to deny and discredit this percentage increase.
Continue reading Coping with a Quadrupling T&TEC Bill
By Andre Bagoo Monday, March 2 2009
www.newsday.co.tt
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
FIRST it was estimated to cost $40 million. Later, that rose to $148 million. Last September, the figure was revised to $175.3 million. But Udecott documents obtained by Newsday reveal that the cost of the Prime Minister’s Residence and Diplomatic Centre as at December last year was an estimated $244 million. According to a dossier on the project which was submitted by Udecott lawyers to the Uff Commission of Inquiry, the cost estimate for the project, as at December 31, 2008, was $243,961,819.
Continue reading PM’s mansion climbs to $244M
By Raffique Shah
March 01, 2009
FOR too many years we have haggled over what the minimum wage should be in this country: should we pay the poor buggers $9 an hour, or $10? That would amount to less than $2,000 a month, but it’s worth fighting over. For those trapped in this gloomy underworld-not so hidden, since we shop at groceries and stores where they labour every day-it could mean being able to afford an extra “doubles” for lunch, or buying their children the toys they so covet. As far as I am concerned, what we call a minimum wage is in fact starvation wage, a kind of semi-slavery endured only by those who have no other options, except perhaps to turn to crime.
Continue reading Taxing the million-dollar men
By Stephen Kangal
February 10, 2009
It is patently clear to me that had not CL Financial magnate Lawrence Duprey made his pre-emptive approach to Government in mid-January to mobilize State injection of liquidity into his cash-strapped investment bank, CIB, CMMB and insurance giants CLICO and British American it would have been business as usual to date.
But within the passage of a short time these major financial institutions would have eventually collapsed with catastrophic consequences for the savings of policy holders and depositors as well as for the rest of the economy of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean. The Central Bank has been failing us the people of T&T for a long while. That is why Mr. Duprey the avant garde, visionary indigenous industrialist has retained our admiration. But the Government wants to hoff his crown jewels.
Continue reading Central Bank Governor Williams Must Resign
By Raffique Shah
February 08, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
UP TO ten days ago, Lawrence Duprey was one of most admired businessmen in Trinidad and Tobago. He was not self-made, as some of his peers and predecessors were. He inherited the biggest and strongest insurance company in the country founded by his uncle Cyril. But having taken over the reins of CLICO, he quickly moved to diversify the insurance giant’s vast resources, to venture where no other local entrepreneur had, into the downstream energy sector.
Continue reading Beyond Duprey
Integrity Commission members resign
In the aftermath of a demoralising court defeat to former government minister Dr Keith Rowley on Tuesday, the four members of the Integrity Commission submitted their resignations to President George Maxwell Richards yesterday morning.
Continue reading Integrity Commission members resign
Food and Fuel Forum
43 Fifth St., Barataria, Trinidad and Tobago
January 23, 2003
The handing over of prime Caroni lands to selected companies certainly raises cause for concern about the government’s agricultural policy and who benefits from it.
Small farmers all over the country have been fighting for thirty, forty and even fifty years for security of tenure. It is the most crucial issue facing farmers today and is the main obstacle in farmers’ effort to produce abundant food for the nation.
Continue reading Farmers Must Defend Their Living
By Stephen Kangal
January 27, 2009
It is imperative on the Manning Administration having regard to the current global financial and economic meltdown that is ravaging all Latin American economies to appreciate that it cannot spend over $2bn to provide an April platform for the conduct of hemispheric multilateral diplomacy as if it is business as usual. Since May 2008 when the T&T Concept Paper detailing the agenda of the Fifth POS Summit of the Americas was accepted, the economic, social and trading conditions in the 34- membership of the OAS including in the USA and the Summit Host, T&T, have deteriorated radically. Latin America is not the same today.
Continue reading Postpone the Fifth Summit of the Americas
January 24, 2009
HDC clears Rowley
In a written submission filed on Wednesday afternoon with the Uff Commission of Inquiry into Udecott and the construction sector, the HDC effectively cleared former planning and development minister Dr Keith Rowley of any wrongdoing in the Cleaver Heights project by attributing apparent million-dollar discrepancies, in the contract total for the project, to “{two errors” contained in a letter of award drawn up by the HDC and addressed to the project contractor, NH International Limited.
Continue reading ‘Udecott bigger than Cabinet’
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 19, 2008
trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
Keith Rowley insists he wishes to clear his name so that his children would know he is an honorable man. The only problem with such a pursuit is this: what happens after he has cleared his name? While his desire is admirable such nobility matters little in politics. I know of no political movement in history that rallied around a party member’s desire to clear his name from infamy. Party members usually rally around causes that crescendo into movements that challenge the foundations of injustice.
Continue reading The Politics of Personal Grievance