Guest Columns

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, …

On Friday January 15, Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi launched a defence for Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s decision not to have Housing Minister Marlene McDonald step down, despite her admission that she enquired about a HDC house for her common-law husband, Michael Carew, in 2008. McDonald was Minister of Community …

Last week, the people of La Brea taught the nation a much-needed lesson in organisation, representation and the holding of power to account. While it was their dramatic protest that caught public attention, the more powerful story was in the multi-layered depth of the community organisation underpinning the protest. Operating …

“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.” The Princes Town caller had phoned in to the TV6 Morning Edition show on Friday, which was devoted to pan arranger Jit Samaroo, who died the day …

In a few months, I shall cross another threshold of ageing, 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 …

The escalating confrontation between the Mayor of Port of Spain and food entrepreneurs at the Queen’s Park Savannah is only the latest example of the historic refusal to recognise, validate and support enterprise and initiative emerging from within the people’s sector. It is undeniable that the mushrooming food court en …

Afra Raymond resigning from JCC is no trivial matter, yet it is surprising how social media comments, and corner talk are missing the heart of the issue. The implications for the future of governance and transparency in Trinidad and Tobago is at serious risk when a reasonable request for transparency …

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 …

Trinidad and Tobago author and historian, Angelo Bissessarsingh, passed away this morning—according to a Trinidad Guardian report—after battling for two years with pancreatic cancer. The following column on Bissessarsingh and his value to the two island republic was written by columnist Sunity Maharaj on 27 December 2015: That he is still …

For the record, yes we can. We can chew chewing gum and walk. We can calculate the implications of dipping into the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund and compute our chances of surviving three hours on high heels. Yes, we can. The idea that there are more serious things to address …

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—or forex—over the past three years. Amidst a cacophony of complaints from businesses and individuals about being denied adequate sums of forex …

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. Presumably, some other adjustments were made, or will soon be …