“[…] In Faris Al-Rawi’s upside-down world, a worker is sent home by an employer in an effort to coerce the worker into accepting the employer’s terms and conditions; and if the worker does not accept, she is deemed to have abandoned the job or been dismissed. “In actual practice, if …
Read More »Noble: Divided we fall; splintered T&T is stumbling carelessly into bankruptcy
The last 21 months have drained our nation’s emotional resources and injected paranoid feelings. Uncertainty and risk are now our constant companions. We no longer have a clear vision of the future. We are exhausted. The constant quarrelling on every front has bewildered us, and we no longer appear to …
Read More »Noble: Fixing our ‘superfluous’ mess; how the Judiciary, President, and Prime Minister stood up
Within the last two years, the world has had two pivotal moments: the arrival of Covid-19 and the development of the vaccine. The virus started small but has taken lives and wrecked economies, changing the way we live forever. Even though ‘Operation Warp Speed’ delivered vaccines way ahead of schedule …
Read More »Daly Bread: Sandals, smelters and steel orchestras—as music stops, T&T must consider future
Our governance arrangements and political style have left us in an uncomfortable void. Our country is not nearly as well managed as we could make it. We have not employed an enlightened combination of the country’s resources, citizen commitment and fairness. There are not many countries that have achieved satisfactory …
Read More »‘No reputable economist would suggest privatising WASA!’: Dr Farrell on WASA, VMCOTT, the fuel subsidy and lay-offs
“[…] No, no—WASA should not and cannot be privatised! There are some entities which are what you call in economics, natural monopolies. For an economy like Trinidad and Tobago, the production of water is a natural monopoly and the state should do it. “[…] We are going to give WASA …
Read More »Demming: Don’t blame public servants for everything; leadership is taking responsibility
It is easy to blame public servants’ ‘mistakes’ for an eight-month delay in appointing the Board of the Trinidad and Tobago Securities and Exchange Commission (TTSEC) as reported in a recent newspaper article. Public servants have become the most recent whipping horse of a government whose inaction contributes to the …
Read More »NJAC: Budget shows Dr Rowley has abdicated responsibility for citizens to ‘rich elites’
“[…] Lacking in creative ideas or solutions, the government has decided to accelerate the process of privatisation and free itself of responsibility for the people’s welfare, wherever it can. “In NJAC’s estimation, what needs to be understood is that with privatisation, there are certain core concepts such as trimming the …
Read More »Noble: Understanding the now; facing the future—T&T needs data to advance
What do Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s rebuke of the civil servants and the closure of Chaguanas’ MovieTowne have in common? Are these connected to the car tax exemptions furore? Why is there chatter about the foreign exchange rate and fear of liquidity and solvency for businesses and our government …
Read More »Dear Editor: Indiscipline begins at the top, PM shouldn’t ‘pick on’ public servants
“[…] The late Gordon Draper, MP for Port of Spain North/St Ann’s West was given leave of absence for almost an entire Parliamentary term to pursue private business. MP Maxie Cuffie fell ill early in his Parliamentary term, was hospitalised for much of it, and suffered no loss of income. …
Read More »NWU: Class struggle is exploding and unrest is coming; workers must pick a side
“[…] Public sector workers, including health care workers, teachers and public servants, have not had a wage increase since 2013. They have not even had the full retroactive payments due to them and owed to them for more than six years. “The widespread use of the contract system has turned …
Read More »Demming: You can’t separate private and public life in communications; Ligoure let herself and CAL down
Years ago, one of my mentors advised me that as a then public relations professional, I could not separate my private life from my public persona—so I had to be on my guard at all times. There is timeless value in this advice and it is even more important as …
Read More »Demming: T&T citizens have six identifying numbers, time to collapse them into one
Most of us have six unique numbers with which we are identified. They are our Board of Inland Revenue and National Insurance Scheme numbers as well as those found on our birth certificate, identification card, driver’s permit and passport. I posed two questions to my friends in the digital space: …
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