Tag Archives: Dennise Demming

A friend recently lamented the advantages people who live in the north of our island have over people who live in the south. My impatient response showed my disgust with these silly discussions about north v south, Indo v Afro, prestige v secondary schools, Westmoorings v Beetham and the full …

It’s January 2021, and I can only reminisce and fill the silence of pan-less evenings with musings about what can be done to make magic in 2022 or possibly 2023. January is usually my month for late evenings filled with the repetition of steelpan notes and chords, deciphering the phrases …

So Gregory Aboud jumped out of his corner and suggested that we have a carnival celebration and everybody wants to kill him because, primarily, they say it is too little too late.  Is it possible that he is too far away from our perceptions of who can speak about carnival …

A little more than 33 months ago, before Ms Paula-Mae Weekes was elected president of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, she was at the top of her game serving in another jurisdiction.   Today she is publicly expressing her disappointment at the absence of good governance for the people …

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 …

I grew up hearing an anecdote that the late former member of parliament for Diego Martin West, Johnny O’Halloran, and a contingent went to Venezuela to negotiate the purchase of a boat, and the only member of the contingent who could translate Spanish into English was the cook. So, the …

Our history records Trinidad and Tobago’s fisherfolk dodging bullets from or being arrested by Venezuela’s Guardia Nacional for supposedly being in Venezuelan waters. Today we continue to metaphorically dodge different kinds of bullets from our Venezuelan neighbours. For years, the back-and-forth confrontational posturing was a trickle—the fisherfolk dispute, or the …

After 58 years of leadership in both parliamentary and mayoral elections, and 16 or 17 development plans, it has been decreed that the city of Port of Spain will finally be transformed into a shiny new metropolis in north Trinidad. It is a welcomed announcement, but like other similar declarations, …

The following column is based on the author’s participation in the online forum by the Trade and Economic Division of the Department of Economics, the University of the West Indies, St Augustine on the topic The Funding of Tertiary Level Education in Trinidad and Tobago: My favourite quote about education …

I can blame Covid-19 for feeling stuck, but that would not be entirely honest. That feeling of ‘stuck-ness’ has been happening for a while and Covid-19 has only made it more intense.  My observation of Parliament, via the Parliament Channel, often evokes the thought that I have heard this before; …

If we are interested in an equitable and just society, we have to be interested in governance which begins with having a shared vision of the future based on common values and aspirations.  Ideally, when citizens are engaged in developing that vision, they feel committed to its realisation. The last …

Every time I board a ‘PH’ taxi, my heart races because I am not sure I can trust the driver not to harm me. This experience is not unique to me. Several women and girls have the same experience but are faced with no alternative because we have a dangerous, unregulated, …