Tag Archives: PNM

“[…] The difference between 31st December and 1st January is but a change in date… as we see the old politricks being played out in this new year. Firstly, there was the Prime Minister’s New Year’s Message in which he announced that there will be a series of public consultations …

To all my readers, good morning this New Year’s morning. Can we reach out to each other and resolve to make the ritual “Happy New Year” greeting mean that we will co-operate on a sustained basis to mitigate the adverse effects of the neglect of our needs and partisan political …

What a week! The events that tumbled over each other added to the exhaustion and frustration of the long road from 2020. Do we, as a country, have a clear path to success? Let us consider a few of the incidents. Firstly, the THA’s Chief Secretary announced that he and …

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines la-la land as “a euphoric, dreamlike mental state detached from the harsher realities of life”. In our version, leaders and followers are allergic to facts—inconvenient truths. They look at life through red and yellow-tinted glasses that allow them to possess selective memories. The citizens of La-La …

The immutable law of nature is: what we sow, we will reap. We will not get mangoes if we sow pigeon peas. We always reap later. Sometimes, we sow ochro and have a crop in six weeks. But the crop takes years at other times, as it does when we …

In a powerful editorial last Monday on the occasion of Divali, the Trinidad Express newspaper urged that we look around and see Trinidad and Tobago as it really is: “a country carried by the goodness of its people and their love for this place that we call home”. The writer …

Senior UWI lecturer and former PNM senator Dr Lester Henry passed away last night at his home from a heart attack. He celebrated his 61st birthday on Thursday 20 October. Henry, an economist, was recently appointed to the board of the NGC and attended a board meeting shortly before his …

The presentation and discussion of a national budget usually focus on competing ideas about the future of a country. The process is a statement about the development of the country. In 2020, Branko Milanovic, a reputed US economist, wrote, “the most important role economic policy can play now is to …

A regular reader, who messages me occasionally, opened a WhatsApp exchange about last week’s Budget debate in the House of Representatives with the question: “Have you heard the comments targeted at citizens made in Parliament?” She added: “Honestly, whenever I think they can’t get any worse, they do. I do …

“Words are the clothes thoughts wear” — Samuel Beckett, Irish writer. The Budget debate and its fallout sent me scurrying to recall Beckett’s writings. He is the author of “Waiting for Godot”—a play the late James Lee Wah introduced to me in the early 70s.  The state of play on …

“[…] Trinidad and Tobago is now in possession of three gold medals at the highest level of the sport, which is the true measure of the performance of athletes. “Our failure to properly recognise the 2008 Olympic 4×100 metre champion athletes is incomprehensible, despicable, unfair, unjust, improper and a disservice to …

Having over a long period described the issues confronting us and analysed where they would lead if left unattended, it is deeply painful to see the predicted outcomes dragging us further and further down. So much of what is dangerous and disturbing in Trinidad and Tobago today has its origins …