Guest Columns

‘Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings.’ These words of Nelson Mandela should resonate as we approach our upcoming budget debate. A national budget is more than an economic forecast; it is a declaration about …

The following is a press statement from outgoing Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) president Dr Sheila Rampersad: Nikki Minaj’s celebrity gangsterism towards Guardian Media Ltd’s (GML) reporter, Sharlene Rampersad is textbook cyberbullying and intimidation of a free press in a young democracy.  While Ms Minaj may be justified …

Where is Trinidad? Thanks to rapper Nicki Minaj, that question topped the Twittersphere recently. This came about after Minaj tweeted that her cousin’s friend had taken the Covid vaccine and ended up with ‘Swollen Testicles’. Her tweet led our hard-working, super-busy minister of health to admit that he and his …

I am not a professional teacher. But I enjoy teaching and have been leading a group of pre-teens in an under-privileged area (what Bishop Harvey called ‘the belly of the whale’) for the last few years.  In the light of the debate about school reopening and the announcement of the …

I have a vivid childhood memory of standing on the pavement with my friends waving our little flags to mark the end of colonialism and the start of Independence. Annually, I walked from my home in Quarry Street to the Queen’s Park Savannah to enjoy the military-style Independence Parade. Later …

“[…] It is well documented that the history of policing in Trinidad and Tobago has been characterised as bearing the undesirable feature of paramilitarism… Joan Mars, Guyanese sociologist and policing scholar, when commenting on policing during the colonial times argued that this model of policing was characterised by:  “An emphasis  …

On the occasion of the 59th Anniversary of the Independence of Trinidad and Tobago, political leader of the Movement for Social Justice David Abdulah is calling on citizens and patriots to embrace the vision of the Second Republic offered by his party. It should be clear to all, says he, …

Trinidad and Tobago did not buy ‘cat in bag’ when we hired Mr Gary Griffith. We knew full well what to expect.  In October 2015, then Minister of National Security Edmund Dillon reported on his predecessor’s bid to purchase armoured vehicles for the police service:  ‘Unknown to the PS and …

“[…] 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 …

“[…] 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 …

“[…] The continuous revolts and burning of the plantations by the Africans, following the Haitian Revolution, removed the profits from the sugar industry and forced England to end the system. This culminated in the Emancipation Proclamation of 1 August 1834. “Trinidad and Tobago, as well as the rest of the …

There was an advertising slogan, ‘You’ve come a long way, Baby!’, in the late 60s that reflected the rising empowerment of women. By the early 80s, a board including two men, inspired by Radhica Saith, ran the first local Halfway House for Battered Women.  Thirty years ago, this week, our …