What dollar value would you place on the trauma of being robbed the chance to compete at the Olympic Games? For 20 year old gymnast Thema Williams, it is worth TT$10 million. And Trinidad and Tobago Gymnastics Federation (TTGF) president David Marquez, first vice president Akil Wattley, second vice president …
Read More »Martin Daly SC joins “Team Thema”: Attorneys set for fresh assault on TTGF
The war between 20 year old Trinidad and Tobago gymnast Thema Williams and the Trinidad and Tobago Gymnastics Federation (TTGF) might only be just getting started. Eminent local attorney Martin Daly SC has joined “Team Thema” and will add his expertise to Williams’ legal staff, which is headed by Keith …
Read More »A land of perceptions: Daly SC muses over political spy games and media woes
Sunity Maharaj and I wrote, on the same Sunday last month, about the much delayed revelation of the exercise of so called Ministerial discretion to make State housing available to media personnel. These persons, including high profile journalists, were treated preferentially, at least as far as jumping the queue was …
Read More »Our other oil: How the T&T economy can benefit from arts and culture
The proceeds of our oil and gas production are no longer sustaining the high life. As they say in Grenada, “the money can’t reach.” For decades there has much talk about diversification of the economy, but no action. This is a pity because we have other oil. I refer to the …
Read More »Zig Zag, Zika and severance: How our political system gets it wrong
The currently very serious matters of Zika and the non-availability of severance pay have once again exposed our habit of rarely developing solutions to problems and limiting our energies to combative debate and protest, in the course of which officialdom invariably makes authoritarian pronouncements and tries to take unilateral action. …
Read More »Realities we are not facing: the dangers of disadvantaged conditions in T&T
Even though it is said we have become desensitised, the murder rate is once again front and centre of a very grim stage and we have been told to “brace ourselves for more murders.” This warning contains the grave implication that the authorities are not in control. It is also …
Read More »Martin Daly: the media is insulting our intelligence on HDC scandal
The discovery that a large group of people benefitted from the exercise of ministerial and satellite power in their favour in what appears to be preferential circumstances should undoubtedly have attracted scrutiny from the media. The fact that the benefit was the allocation of houses by the Housing Development Corporation …
Read More »Going on the same way: Daly looks at enduring criminal and economic blights
I have noted with interest the Prime Minister’s statement that it is unacceptable for citizens to be gunned down in cold blood. This was followed by a statement from the Minister of National Security expressing concern about killing and brutality across the country. Regular readers of my columns and those …
Read More »$40,000 can’t celebrate anything! Archbishop Burke and the gimme culture
When I was in the Senate, in 1996, I spoke and voted in favour of the grant of the Spiritual Shouter Baptist Liberation holiday, which was celebrated again last Wednesday. At the, time I referred with affection to Earl Lovelace’s great literary work, The Wine of Astonishment, which tells of …
Read More »Recession inflammation: Daly fears mix of simmering anger and economic strain
The recent departures of Raymond Tim Kee and Marlene McDonald from the respective offices of Mayor of Port of Spain and Minister of Housing respectively are still reverberating around a discussion of what is the degree of inappropriate behaviour that requires departure from office or denotes unsuitability to hold high …
Read More »Protecting the public interest: Daly explains value of Fixin’ T&T and Womantra
On Wednesday last, I gave the third in a series of presentations put on by the Lloyd Best Institute of the West Indies. My presentation was entitled Professional Organisations and the Public Interest. One aspect of my presentation was an examination of why we are so often silent in the …
Read More »A familiar depression: Daly bemoans PNM’s poor communication and belligerence
This time last week, a familiar depression settled on me. It is best described by referring to some of what I wrote in November 2010, six months after the so-called “People’s Partnership Government” was in office. At that time, I suggested: “The bottom line is that a mere six months …
Read More »