By Raffique Shah
February 09, 2016
I don’t think Trinidad’s Carnival is dying, as many people say it is.
For the traditionalists, it’s a case of wishful thinking. They want to see the jarring noise that passes for music, songs that have no melody, only hook lines and tempo, consigned to the dustbin of Carnival history.
Continue reading Carnival in transition
By Raffique Shah
January 27, 2016
It occurred to me some hours after I heard the news that gunmen had murdered two Laventille schoolboys that I felt no emotions over the dastardly act.
I was not saddened or consumed with anger. I was not even outraged over the manner in which the youthful victims were grabbed from their ride home, much the way Hitler’s Nazis separated Jews from Gentiles, or how Israelis now separate Palestinians from Jews, marking them for death, executing them right there in public.
Continue reading Deliver us from evil
By Raffique Shah
January 27, 2016
As a nation, we can do nothing about the plunging price of oil except watch with alarm as crude slides below US $30 a barrel.
Even if we ramp up production, which has fallen by approximately 50 per cent over the past decade, it will make little sense. At this point, it might be better to leave the oil in the wells rather than sell it for peanuts.
Continue reading Destiny in our hands
By Raffique Shah
January 11, 2016
“I don’t know who Jit Samaroo was, but listening to others speak, he must have been a great man…my condolences to his family.”
That was a caller from Princes Town to TV6’s Morning Edition’s host Hayden Blades, who devoted much of last Friday’s programme to persons wanting to pay tribute to Jit, who had died the day before.
Continue reading Humility was Jit’s hallmark
By Raffique Shah
January 04, 2016
In a few months, I shall cross another threshold of aging, scoring seventy years of life and officially transitioning into the status of “old geezer”.
The dawning of a new year set me thinking about the past and the future, although I know I have fewer years ahead of me than behind me. In such circumstance, retrospection becomes the preferred option.
Continue reading Aging in this cussed country
By Raffique Shah
December 29, 2015
I am surprised that so many people are surprised by the termination of services-firing, suspension, the euphemistically-couched “sent on administrative leave”-of several senior government officials, the most prominent being Governor of the Central Bank, Jwala Rambarran.
Clearing the politically-constructed State-stables of partisan appointees is a ritual that occurs every time a government changes.
Continue reading ‘do so ent like so’
By Raffique Shah
December 14, 2015
Central Bank governor Jwala Rambarran was the unlikeliest man to kick the hornets’ nest, but that he did when he named the firms that used the most foreign exchange (forex) over the past three years.
Amidst a cacophony of complaints from businesses and individuals about being denied adequate sums of forex for legitimate uses, Rambarran went on the offensive by identifying the 18 biggest users.
Continue reading Whey the money really gone
By Raffique Shah
December 14, 2015
Last Wednesday, amidst much ceremony but little pomp, Major-General Kenrick Maharaj took his last parade as Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and proceeded into retirement, one month short of his 56th birthday.
Brigadier Rodney Smart was named as the new CDS.
Continue reading Injustice to a soldier
By Raffique Shah
December 07, 2015
This recession did not creep up on us like the proverbial thief in the night.
It was long in the making. In fact, from as far back as the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, when Clico collapsed and the price of oil plunged from a brief high of US $140 a barrel to $30, informed, patriotic citizens were warning governments to go easy on the wild spending, to set aside more savings in the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund, to wean the population off dependency on subsidies, and most of all to diversify the economy from its over-reliance on oil, gas and petrochemicals.
Continue reading Recession was predictable
By Raffique Shah
November 30, 2015
If “Santa Colm” assures the populace that their Christmas will be bright, not blue, then we have no reason to doubt the man.
After all, Acting Prime Minister Colm Imbert is the substantive Minister of Finance, in which capacity he has access to data and information pertaining to the state of the economy, especially Government’s revenues and expenditures, that you and I will not see.
Continue reading Sending the wrong signals