A file in the civil law department of the Attorney General (the AG) disappeared. As a consequence, the department failed to put in a defence in a malicious prosecution case. This resulted in a default judgment against the State in January 2023 for sums totaling twenty million dollars. The claimants …

As I close off three weeks of analysis of pan manufacturing, I will refer to the inspiration to be taken from the riveting speech of former First Lady Michelle Obama at the recently concluded Democratic Convention in Chicago. First, however, I am happy to acknowledge and that the quotation with …

“All those initiatives are undermined by the fact that in 2024, the Steelpan Manufacturing sector does not have a dedicated and secured source and supply of high quality drums. “To ensure a consistent supply of raw materials the industry requires in place a drum-producing facility, which will produce drums based …

“All of the things happening recently in the pan world, the national instrument status, the GI (Geographical Indication) certificate, pan month—all of these things hinge upon Trinidad being the birthplace of pan and it presupposes that we have the best quality instruments coming out of Trinidad.” This is one of …

Pan Trinbago has been basking in a new dawn of support for pan in its birthplace. But for some of us there are still clouds hovering over the financing and sustainability of the steelpan, our national instrument. Political grandstanding will not dissipate those clouds. Primarily, we left a significant part …

Joseph Biden, president of the United States, and our former Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who became our country’s constitutionally appointed leader of the Opposition in 2015, have something in common. They have been assessed as electoral liabilities. Biden’s liability was more precisely revealed by the regular opinion polls published in …

Trinidad All Stars Steel Orchestra (All Stars) unconditionally qualifies for recognition as an institution because it has consistently served broader societal functions beyond the performance of musical works on pan. These broader societal functions include cultural innovation and preservation, education and community development. Many other steel orchestras (commonly referred to …

For obvious reasons, this is an appropriate time to point out that the vision for the panyard model did not just reach; and also to remind readers of how long I have been advocating for the panyard model, which I met already established on the ground. A little over 17 …

As readers are aware, I take an empathetic side with those who are dealt blows in a society, which—although mitigated somewhat by the prodigious work of volunteers and the voluntary organisations—has a cruelly indifferent socio-economic structure compounded by unenlightened governance. As recently as April this year, in connection with the …

The report of the investigating team of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) into the death in April this year of seven babies in less than a week in the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of the Port of Spain General Hospital (POSGH) has been delivered. In clear terms it …

At the end of last week’s column, I described the Opposition United National Congress (UNC) after the results of its recent internal election as “the Kamla Persad-Bissesar re-embedded UNC”. In the week since that column was written, factionalism has broken out in the UNC. The governing People’s National Movement (PNM), …

I was brought up in a household that loathed pretentiousness. Had my mother, Celia, been alive she would have been wryly amused at the buss pipe in the new Ministry of Health multi-million dollar palace. The uncontrolled gushing of water can be seen as symbolic of the gushes of words …