Guest Columns

Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced an increase in fuel prices with immediate effect. Cue outrage from all quarters in the immediate aftermath. “Cheap Fuel is the bedrock of our society!” they clamoured. “Raise the cost of transport and everything else goes up! It’s common sense!” As tired as these arguments …

If a visitor to your house confessed to you that he is a pluviophile, what would you do? Lock the kids in their rooms, not let him out of your sight and call the police at the first opportunity? Sorry, you got that wrong! That’s a paedophile! Farmers, gardeners and …

In many societies such as ours, there’s a class of people many—though not necessarily all—of whom have university backgrounds. I call them the “Defeatist Class” (DC). Whenever anything remotely progressive comes up, they surface to challenge ideas, customs and models that hold us to a period or paradigm meant to …

My interest in football is at best tangential. But I love drama in all its forms and last night I was perfectly placed to experience it all. As a Trini, I have over the years lived through the Soca Warriors’ ups and downs, and the Jack Warner horror show. As the …

Repeat after me: “The Treasury is empty.” “The Treasury is empty.” “Again!” In psychology, there is something called the “illusory truth effect.”  Essentially, it says that a lie repeated often enough becomes believable, not only by persons hearing it but also by the people repeating it. The term only gained …

A release from the Communications Department advertises the Ministry of Education’s National Consultation on Education. The release, dated 15 February, 2016, identifies the amendment of the Concordat as one of the items on the agenda. What!?!? Amend the Concordat? Absurd! Preposterous!! Why? Because concordats, once signed, cannot be amended without …

With the support of my colleagues from Disclosure Today, I have been conducting research into the underlying commercial arrangements for the State-owned hotels in T&T. Those are the decisive details which drive projects of this nature and from which the substantial public benefits ought to flow. The unhelpful responses from …

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” This is one of the first quotes you learn when trying to understand Monitoring and Evaluation. Given current realities in Trinidad and Tobago, it seems applicable. I recently finished reviewing the National Budgets presented during the period …

So the Finance Minister’s budget presentation is over; we all now know the major highlights. I make no apologies for not offering any red or yellow-tinted responses or comments or analyses. I want to break with the sterile ‘This was good’ and ‘That was bad’ tradition and discuss instead what …

I stopped watching many TV shows and movies a long time ago because they have apparently run out of ideas and are in the habit of using old shows and scripts—that worked sometime in the past—to see if they would work now. I am now convinced that I should also …

For many people, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s announcement that this country will welcome Dominicans to these shores after Hurricane Maria pummelled that island meant adding salt to an open wound. The reaction on social media was swift and merciless, with many Trinidad and Tobago nationals decrying the proposal and …

The discussion currently dominating social media revolves around an offer made by the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, extending an invitation to citizens of hurricane-ravaged Dominica to come to T&T. This, according to the PM, is his idea of lending assistance to a fellow nation in the region. The …