Our country has been widely shamed internationally by the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard’s fatal shooting of an illegal migrant baby. The use of the label ‘accident’, the premature ducking of responsibility and due process as well as the crude, partisan political exchanges have compounded the shame. For the moment, …
Read More »Daly Bread: Stop mamaguying us about a ‘safe zone’ Carnival, and tell us what the ‘taste’ costs
The government has decided to permit gatherings to participate in the limited forms of Carnival celebrations that it has belatedly decided to promote this season. Perhaps it should drop the ‘safe zones’ pretence. Such zones may not be workable with the freeing-up and ‘leggo’ of Trinidad and Tobago Carnival. There …
Read More »Daly Bread: Governance by manoeuvres and leaks; what next for Griffith and the Stanley John report?
The current Government, having voted in Parliament for the appointment of Gary Griffith as commissioner of police (CoP) on the occasion of his first appointment, clearly no longer wished to have him returned to that office. This should not have been a problem. Griffith had been appointed on a fixed-term …
Read More »Daly Bread: Confusion without conclusion; Govt’s vaccination drive is industrial relations disaster
One of my compères, who hails from the south-west peninsula and who has retained the good sense rooted in many areas of our country, was dismayed at the outset by the approach of the government when the Prime Minister declared Government’s intention to make vaccination a requirement for persons employed …
Read More »Daly Bread: Going out with a bang! AG’s fireworks ‘solution’ exacerbates the problem
Cabinet members Stuart Young, Clarence Rambharat and Marvin Gonzalez are to be commended for taking a public stand on legislation regarding the sale and use of fireworks—in disagreement with the proposed legislation with which the Attorney General is taking centre-stage. The AG has again gone out on a limb, unaccompanied …
Read More »Daly Bread: The AG’s dodgy sea legs make his Govt stumble over Ocean Pelican
The People’s National Movement (PNM) campaigned obsessively in the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) elections on the issue of the suitability of Watson Duke for office, and lost comprehensively. Days later, it began trying to discredit the winning party by reference to Duke’s alleged conflicts of interest. The court …
Read More »Daly Bread: Unending questions, unfinished business
We begin 2022 in the midst of times of intense uncertainty, at least equal to that of wartime but probably bigger because every country in the world is simultaneously a theatre of upheaval. Moreover, the uncertainty is not just a generalised one about the future; it is an uncertainty about …
Read More »Daly Bread: A triumph of legitimacy; PDP’s Farley gave good ‘calpet’ to PNM bullies
Farley Augustine and the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) have interrupted the alarming descent of Trinidad and Tobago into an authoritarian one-party state and I thank them for that. Having comprehensively routed the incumbent People’s National Movement (PNM) in the Tobago House of Assembly elections, in the backyard of its leader …
Read More »Daly Bread: How many more must die while we await vaccination legislation?
Nearly three months ago, in a column published on 5 September, I called on the Government to consider legislative options in the face of the Delta variant threat. I wrote as follows: ‘Given the low rate of vaccination, our population is wide open to death or hospitalisation from the Delta …
Read More »Daly Bread: Excuses feeding failure; reconstituted PolSC must still account for CoP merit list
George Washington Carver was born into conditions of slavery but nevertheless became a prominent agricultural scientist and innovator in crop farming. I mention him in the context of our leaders masking reality with excuses. Carver stated his view in a single sentence: ‘Ninety-nine per cent of failures come from …
Read More »Daly Bread: A land of desperate excuses; what about Johns Hopkins programme, Minister?
‘[…] Given the low rate of vaccination, our population is wide open to death or hospitalisation from the Delta variant…’ That was bluntly stated in my column of 5 September, ten weeks ago, with the foresight that the Government would helplessly wait around—self-praise tying up its brain, while its bouffes …
Read More »Daly Bread: Looking for a new living beyond ‘the old carbon-intensive ways’
As a result of the stated ambition of big business to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 or before, Trinidad and Tobago is not the only country that will have to look for a living other than in the exploration, production and sale of oil and natural gas and …
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