By Sean Douglas
October 20, 2009 – newsday.co.tt
PULLING no punches as he fearlessly trained his guns on his political leader, Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley yesterday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Patrick Manning, declaring the Udecott scandal was ten times worse than the Piarco Airport affair and warning that come the next General Election, the issue would be about PNM corruption.
Continue reading UDECOTT WORSE THAN PIARCO
October 15, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com
Complainant against PM in wrong courtroom
A PRIVATE criminal charge against Prime Minister Patrick Manning was thrown out by Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls yesterday, because the woman who filed the charge was absent from the courtroom.
Manning, who appeared through his attorney Michael Quamina, later waved to reporters as his convoy stopped for a moment outside the St Vincent Street, Port of Spain courthouse, moments after the dismissal.
Continue reading Case against PM thrown out
By Stephen Kangal
October 13, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
The acquisition of profit-yielding immoveable property especially of land is alternatively referred to in divine terms as Dharti Mata. The accumulation of wealth (arth) that is regarded as a boon derived from and conferred by Lakshmi Mata consistent with the laws of good karma is pivotal to all the tenets underlying the practice of Hinduism. The home is a mandir to Hindus. Any attempt or perception of potential desecration or diminution of its sanctity of the shrine will be resisted by Bala (strength). There is a most powerful bonding and almost religious nexus existing between an owner-built home and its Hindu owner/occupants. That explains why land-based Indians generally are not on the move or highly migratory in habits.
Continue reading Dark Clouds From the Property Tax Overshadowing Divali
By Raffique Shah
October 11, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
SOMEONE determined many moons ago that there are three sides to every story-yours, mine, and the truth. Maybe that person lived in Norway, a country long seen as heaven-on-earth, which has consistently ranked at the top of the world in human development. He (or she) obviously knew nothing of faraway Trinidad where there are 100 sides to every rumour, and maybe more to every truth, if the latter at all exists in this country.
Continue reading On today, Uff tomorrow
Neswday Editorial
Thursday, October 8 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
WE congratulate the Independent and Opposition Senators for exposing the potential pitfalls of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Bill 2009 debated in the Senate on Tuesday, but we wonder whether the Government made sufficient concessions to their concerns.
This stringent Bill sets up the FIU with sweeping powers to investigate any business activity deemed “suspicious,” with hefty fines of up to $1 million and imprisonment for up to three years for someone refusing to disclose information.
Continue reading Questions over Financial Intelligence Unit Bill
By Stephen Kangal – Caroni
October 07, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
This ill-conceived, thief-in-the night and fiscally obscene property tax is being driven and confused by a conflicting and contradictory interplay of the contending forces of fact and fiction. In one fell swoop all proud resident home-owners of T&T have been reduced to fictitious renters paying fictitiously high rents way beyond their (f)actual salaries in order to arrive at an artificial and fictitious annual taxable value (ATV) for one’s fictitiously rented home. They have even thrown in the factual two-month compensatory renting hiatus period to arrive at the fictitious, unreal ATV.
Continue reading Proliferation of Fact and Fiction in the Property Tax Debacle
By George Alleyne
October 7 2009 – newsday.co.tt
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com
It is time for a multi-racial and multi-economic group political party to emerge which will effectively challenge and replace the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) at the next General Election. The country should be prepared to accept that the PNM today is but a simulacrum of the party which the late Dr Eric Williams created.
Continue reading Time to replace the PNM
Newsday’s Editorial
Tuesday, October 6 2009
LAST Friday’s freezing of the Commission of Inquiry into Udecott until the High Court hears Udecott’s case for judicial review on February 8, 2010 may look like a bolt out of the blue, but to seasoned observers it should come as no surprise. While on the surface there is a lot of confusion as to how lawyers for the Commission could possibly have ended up agreeing to such a draconian consent-order with Udecott’s lawyers, we dryly note that it comes on the heels of a long list of past efforts to throw the spotlight of public accountability away from Udecott.
Continue reading Derailing Uff
By Raffique Shah
October 04, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
THE battle over Government’s proposed property tax has intensified. On the one hand, the vast majority of citizens, civic organisations and NGOs have been very vocal in their bid to have government reverse “this oppressive new tax that will pauperise the working and middle classes.” On the other side, the Government has undertaken a media campaign to convince people that the tax is not a new imposition, nor will it be harsh and oppressive.
Continue reading Getting our priorities right
By Stephen Kangal
October 01, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
It is palpably unsettling to witness the pathetic display of Ministers in the Ministry of Finance (not for the first time), Minister Imbert and including Local Government Minister Hazel Manning attacking with full force the credibility and integrity of Finance Minister Tesheira’s “done deal” property tax. This tax reinforced by Finance Ministry vaulting- ambitious aspirants may very well hasten her imminent political waterloo because she has now been relegated to cold storage. She does not speak on her draconian fiscal measure any more. She has been muzzled.
Continue reading Ministers Doing a Demolition Job on Finance Minister Tesheira