Public transportation is a quality-of-life issue. Sometime in 2015, this statement caught my attention and gave me hope that Trinidad and Tobago was finally beginning to take action to bring our country out of the doldrums of the 20th Century. Seven years later, transportation continues to be chaotic, dangerous, and …
Read More »MSJ: Workers and poor people can’t afford to pay more for transport, withdraw fuel hike
“[…] Minister Colm Imbert said that the $1 increase is so that the burden of adjustment can be equally shared between the Government and people. This is utter rubbish. “The real issue is how is the burden of adjustment to be shared between the rich and the poor—between those who …
Read More »Dear Editor: Doesn’t NIB chairman’s appointment violate NIS Act? Whose side is Govt really on?
“Patrick Ferreira has been appointed chairman of the National Insurance Board [despite being] chairman of Furness Chemicals Ltd, Furness Shipping & Marketing Ltd and Furness Personnel Services Ltd [and] CEO of Furness Rentals Ltd, Furness Properties Ltd and Furness Investments Ltd. “[…] Do you think that this business tycoon is …
Read More »MSJ: The PNM and UNC have ‘colluded’ to kill Bill to regulate campaign financing
“[…] The MSJ condemns the PNM and UNC, as they have in effect colluded to kill the The Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill. “[…] If it ever becomes law, it would require political parties to be registered similarly to companies and mandate that parties present audited financial statements and …
Read More »Demming: Thanks for transparency, Imbert; now we need repercussions for Scoon party boat
‘When the lights go on, the cockroaches scatter’, is what popped into my mind when I read about the Ministers of Finance, Health and Trade and Industry, the Attorney General and the Adrian Scoon party boat issue. A special restaurant licence was issued to businessman Scoon without the approval of …
Read More »Imbert tried to stop Scoon’s ‘special restaurant licence’, Govt opens investigation as Finance Ministry breaks ranks
How did party promoter Adrian Scoon get a special licence to hold a boat party on MV Ocean Pelican on Boxing Day? Minister of Finance Colm Imbert today appeared to break ranks with Cabinet colleagues over the controversial boat party as he revealed that he instructed the Ministry of Finance …
Read More »Noble: The smartest guys in the room; will Angostura, Industrial Court and Integrity Commission pay price for hubris?
In 2001, Enron—named the ‘most innovative company ’ by Fortune magazine for six consecutive years—collapsed. Enron’s chairman and chief executive officer, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, were two arrogant and belligerent men who believed they were the ‘smartest guys in the room’. They believed that, through their sheer cleverness and …
Read More »Thompson sees seventh heaven despite deficit, imminent Property Tax and RATT
The budget presented by the Honourable Colm Imbert, minister of finance in the current PNM administration, is his seventh such offering. Not for the first time, he has offered the country a deficit budget, to the tune of $TT9.096 billion, resulting from expenditure in the sum of $TT52.429b and revenue …
Read More »MSJ: T&T Budget should reveal vision for our country and the society we want for our children
“[…] Many people do not believe that their lives will be better as a result of the Budget… An MSJ Budget would have been structured so that the man and woman on the street could understand, follow, see where we are and see where we are going and feel how …
Read More »Dear Editor: What Imbert’s new SME proposal may reveal about political behaviour
“[…] So many workers are already under pressure from employers who do not remit their contributions and now, instead of encouraging the NIB to vigorously pursue employers who engage in this criminal act, the government is telling them it’s okay to leave workers unprotected when they have need to access …
Read More »Demming: Will Imbert’s bottled water move make T&T the Caribbean’s laughing stock?
A friend from up the Caribbean laughed at me on Monday evening and, unable to find any sensible defence, I was terribly embarrassed. Making bottled water exempt from VAT, she remarked with a loud chuckle, is ‘a level of worldliness which only you Trinis understand’. Eight of our Caribbean neighbours …
Read More »Noble: Faced with ‘a right-wing coup’ involving the PolSC, the CoP and the AG, someone had to act
The drama surrounding the contract of the Commissioner of Police reveals our nation’s values, tests the strength of the commitment we make to our institutions, and shapes the character of our country. We take our democracy for granted and point to the 1990 attempted coup as a sure sign of …
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