By Stephen Kangal
July 05, 2017
Both during question time as well as during the debate on the definite matter of urgent public importance that the Speaker accorded to the major flooding disaster that occurred in the wake of tropical storm Bret, the Rowley Government on Friday demonstrated the deep divisions and further polarisation that it is fanning and embedding in this country to serve its nefarious electoral agenda.
Continue reading Using a National Disaster to Polarise the Country
By Stephen Kangal
June 09, 2017
The Minister of Finance had pulled out of a hat a May 22nd deadline for the submission of the illegal return forms(VRF’s) to the offices of the Valuation Division.
He had further compounded the debacle by extending it to June 5 because Cabinet decided so. Since when Cabinet has to sanction and approve a voluntary exercise that is the sole prerogative of the Commissioner of Valuations?
Continue reading Looking for the justification of the May 22/June 5 Deadlines?
Justice Seepersad overruled again: Appeal Court makes new order
By Rickie Ramdass
June 07, 2017 – trinidadexpress.com
THE Court of Appeal has overturned another ruling of Justice Frank Seepersad, this one involving whether the State could continue to accept Property Tax valuation forms from citizens.
This morning, the Appeal Court ruled that Seepersad should not have granted an interim stay on the collection process but that the substantive matter for judicial review is still on.
Continue reading Property Tax forms can be submitted/collected
From: Glassie
May 23, 2017
It is human nature to feel more comfortable ‘with your own’. So, an Indian voting UNC or conversely an African voting PNM is not necessarily a sign of racialism but merely a level of comfort with your choice. But when facts are distorted to suit one’s BIASES or to satisfy existing prejudices for purely political expediency, is when the devious nature of racism takes effect.
Continue reading Distorting facts to suit one’s biases
By Raffique Shah
May 23, 2017
Finance Minister Colm Imbert must shoulder much of the blame for the fiasco that a relatively simple exercise, the submission of information for the valuation of properties across the country, has degenerated into. The overwhelming response by property owners to abide by the law, hence flock the few Valuation Division offices where they could drop off their forms or get help filling them out, should have surprised no one. That the ministry was unprepared for the rush is an indictment against the minister and his senior advisors.
Continue reading Colm created tax confusion
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 21, 2017
I am sorry I am only now getting back to Kamal Persad’s response to my article, “Getting It Right” (March 26). I noted: “While Indians were treated in a horrible, inhumane manner…, there is no doubt the Indians were brought to Trinidad to undercut the progress that Africans were making at the economic front.”
Continue reading Spreading Planter Propaganda
By Jada Loutoo
May 13 2017 – newsday.co.tt
AN ALL out attack has been launched against Government on the implementation of the property tax. In separate strikes, legal letters were fired off yesterday by a battery of lawyers representing three landowners threatening to take Government to court for what has been described as an “ambush” on citizens.
Two of the actions seek to have the courts review the implementation process of the controversial tax while the third is a constitutional challenge to the property tax. In the judicial review and constitutional claims former transport minister Devant Maharaj, United National Congress activist Ravi Balgobin Maharaj and Chaguanas resident Lutchmidat Ramcallie, are asking the Government to hold its hand on the implementation of the Property Tax until it amends the legislative provisions and before the court determines the actions.
Continue reading PROPERTY TAX IN COURT
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 18, 2017
PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3 – PART 4
Dr. Rudranath Capildeo, Dr. Eric Williams’s underground companion, tried to console him when he heard about the massive giveaway of the Chaguaramas lands. Dr. Williams informed him it was his party, the United National Congress under the leadership of Kamla Persad-Bissessar that started giving away the land.
Continue reading The Great Betrayal – Part 2
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 27, 2017
Whenever a significant occasion arises, Kamla, in her ethnic enthusiasm, always muddles things up. When she was elected in 2010 she declared that the “hostile recalcitrant minority,” an observation that Dr. Williams made, had become the government of the country. I have argued previously that Dr. Williams was speaking about the behavior of a small segment within the Democratic Labor Party, but this fact has never interfered with the ethnic narrative of discrimination that some of our Indian leaders continue to propagate.
Continue reading Getting It Right
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 26, 2017
In 2011, shortly after the People’s Partnership was installed as a government, the GOPIO asked me to give a lecture on multiculturalism. I emphasized that Trinidad and Tobago will never reach its full potential unless all of us—black, white, Indian and African, protestant and Hindu—accepted our past as our national patrimony. Therefore, I was pleased when, Kamla Persad Bissessar, in her response to Faris Al-Rawi’s attempt to do away with the three-fifths requirement for the passage of certain legislation, recognized that our Independence constitution “was evolutionary and was the result of hard fought negotiations at Marlborough House by our forefathers.”
Continue reading Guarding Our Laws