View Point

One year ago I asked: “how are we holding Vincent Nelson, the disgraced British King’s Counsel to his bargain?” The bargain was a plea bargain made with the Director of Public Prosecutions (the DPP). Vincent Nelson pleaded guilty in a corruption case in which Anand Ramlogan SC, a former attorney …

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 …

There’s a coalpot somewhere in my storeroom. And I own a bicycle.  Truth is, I down here long. So I don’t need any advice from any MP about how to prepare for what’s coming. I really down here too long fuh that. And after reading Scotty Ranking’s recent piece on …

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 …

For the last two weeks I have focused on how successive governments—PNM and UNC, or UNC-led—miserably failed us in providing the equipment and specially trained personnel capable of detecting and interdicting illegal firearms importation through the legal ports. We now have an unqualified acknowledgment from McDonald Jacob, the acting commissioner …

The killing of the four Fyzabad youths narrated on the soundtrack of the sad stories of their parents is depressing. These young criminals were in their early 20s. But while we scratch our collective heads, we should recall that these are not the first children involved in murders. In 1993, Prisons …

On Monday last there was another terrifying incident of gun killings in which high powered firearms were used. This took place around 5pm, in the vicinity of the Pennywise Plaza, La Romaine, in the course of an armed robbery of cash in transit.  This Pennywise incident contains many manifestations of …

This week, the shooting to death of the two security guards, Jeffrey Peters and Jerry Stewart, and the four bandits reminded me of Mahatma Gandhi’s quote: “The future depends on what we do in the present.”  It is highly disingenuous to wring our hands and bemoan the state of our …

“[…] On this day as we celebrate its birth, we can point to its many social ills, the current crime wave, the short-comings in our infrastructure, the buckling and impeded education system, our institutions, our faltering work ethic, disregard, in some places, of the environment, etc.  “But on the other …

It ought to be becoming clear to all that the lame excuses which are offered for the dire results of our failing governance are reflections of rudderless leadership, of which we have been excessively tolerant. Public dissatisfaction has condemned the Office of the President to regular memes. I only bother …

One of the most dangerous things in life is to have someone ‘sweet talk’ you while being inauthentic. They say all the right words you want to hear, but the words do not mean a thing!  The Joint Select Committee on the Central Statistical Office (CSO) had words but nothing …