“[…] For many decades, T&T’s highly productive energy sector funded disproportionately high standards of living in its non-energy sectors, including the public service. However, production in the energy sector has been in decline since 2010, masked temporarily by extraordinary recent increases in energy prices. “[…] In such difficult circumstances, governments …
Read More »Noble: Harden children bound to feel—the story of Trinidad and Tobago
A ‘harden’ child is a stubborn child who has to feel the wrath– usually in the form of ‘licks’–to understand the lesson. Trinidad is a ‘harden’ child—repeating its experiences without learning from them. When the country is splintered and only the rich can survive, you are looking for trouble. You …
Read More »‘The numbers don’t add up’: Dr Farrell on Covid, costs, challenges and consequences
“[…] Non-energy revenues have fallen in 2020-2021 and for next fiscal, 2021-2022, it is going to be worse—partly because people pay taxes on the previous year’s numbers and partly because the recovery is going to be slower than expected because of the state of emergency and the impact of the …
Read More »‘I don’t sleep if I can’t pay our employees’ salaries’; Day in the life of an energy sector manager
“[…] I am responsible for the profit and loss of my unit, so I make sure that my unit has work. If my unit does not have work, I have no work and I have failed in my responsibility. “When month-end comes, I don’t sleep if we have expenses …
Read More »Noble: White Knights or Piranhas? Examining the Petrotrin sale
On 18 October 2018, almost one year ago, a doleful Mr Ancel Roget was pictured, in a photograph supplied by the OWTU, between two prospective partners, announcing their bid to acquire the Petrotrin assets. One company, Sunstone Equities, appeared from the news report to be a facilitator of government-private sector …
Read More »How would T&T respond to a disaster? Col Weekes and US official, Barrera, discuss value of Fused Response test
“Why [the] ANR Robinson [International Airport]? Why not Piarco as usual? Well, we are trying to go away from ‘business as usual.’ “We also spoke about Tobago being a location for an alternate governance if things in Trinidad go down. So we are going to test that as well and …
Read More »Participation paralysis; Daly considers our reluctance to speak to power
We have peacefully changed another Government. Having been disappointed yet again by a previous choice of Government, the prevailing mood of many citizens is that we hope once more for better and fairer governance. It swiftly became the cliché of the day that we “exhaled.” There is however something striking …
Read More »Million 5 on the Visa card; T&T dangerously misled by political financial forecasts
Yes, it was pleasing to see that on nomination day, on Monday August 17, candidates competing in various constituencies in a fortnight, in the September 7 General Election, shook hands, back-slapped and danced. Let us not go overboard in believing that such harmony will be sustained if revenues available to Governments …
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