Tag Archives: economy

“Why does Minister Imbert not address the foreign exchange leakage by the NLCB? According to the terms of their contract, IGT are supposed to transfer technology to locals. Yet, after a 30-year contract, no such transfer has occurred and Trinidad and Tobago continues to lose over US$350m annually.” The following …

Repeat after me: “The Treasury is empty.” “The Treasury is empty.” “Again!” In psychology, there is something called the “illusory truth effect.”  Essentially, it says that a lie repeated often enough becomes believable, not only by persons hearing it but also by the people repeating it. The term only gained …

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” This is one of the first quotes you learn when trying to understand Monitoring and Evaluation. Given current realities in Trinidad and Tobago, it seems applicable. I recently finished reviewing the National Budgets presented during the period …

I stopped watching many TV shows and movies a long time ago because they have apparently run out of ideas and are in the habit of using old shows and scripts—that worked sometime in the past—to see if they would work now. I am now convinced that I should also …

“No minister or prime minister can cause the DPP to prosecute or discontinue a prosecution… No minister or prime minister can instruct the Commissioner of Police to arrest anyone. These offices, which are part of the Executive arm, have their independence explicitly protected in the Constitution as is the Judiciary …

For many people, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s announcement that this country will welcome Dominicans to these shores after Hurricane Maria pummelled that island meant adding salt to an open wound. The reaction on social media was swift and merciless, with many Trinidad and Tobago nationals decrying the proposal and …

“It is completely unacceptable for the Ministry to treat workers with such scant courtesy and disdain. In these recessionary times when jobs are very hard to find, I fear that I shall be on the breadline at least for a little while. And I am at my wit’s end trying …

Once in a store in Canada, I saw a sign that read, “Customer service is not a department…it’s an attitude.” In Trinidad and Tobago, we have a serious problem as it relates to the attitudes of people who have to deal with customers and clients. For years, people have complained …

The gathering storm is a Churchill phrase. Winston Churchill used it as the title for the first volume of his massive six-volume history of World War Two. The historical account is given from his perspective as a discredited politician who saw that Germany would re-arm and go to war but …

It has been a recurrent theme of these columns that there are many cultural factors militating against our country moving toward a better and fairer condition.  Now I have solid company. Terrence Farrell, economist, attorney, author and commentator, has published another book.  It is called: We like it so?—The Cultural …

“I did not want to have to take a loan from the bank but, the way things are going now, I have no choice but to do so and I have already approached a bank. “I’m going into my final semester next year, so I need all my money which …

“They don’t want the people who made the sacrifice to control the commanding heights of our industry. They claim we can’t handle money. We don’t know how to do business. They say we don’t possess administrative skills. “But when we look at all the other businesses, especially those fortunate to …