“Mr Rambarran was found by the Court to be guilty of NON-DISCLOSURE in filing his claim. In his media release of December 26th, 2015, he failed to disclose that he had been invited to meetings with the Minister of Finance prior to the revocation of his appointment. Additionally, in his …
Read More »Shhhhhh! The stony shell of silence that surrounds Sandals’ entry into the sister isle
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 …
Read More »AV Room: e-CON-omics 101: Budgeting should be from bottom up, not top down
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 …
Read More »Dear editor: Our budgets lack originality and our Finance Ministers don’t understand ‘diversification’
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 …
Read More »Forex 101: Dr Farrell explains foreign exchange market and Central Bank’s role
“No minister or prime minister can cause the DPP to prosecute or discontinue a prosecution… No minister or prime minister can instruct the Commissioner of Police to arrest anyone. These offices, which are part of the Executive arm, have their independence explicitly protected in the Constitution as is the Judiciary …
Read More »Board Games (Part Two): Afra Raymond continues look into State boards
Part One of my look into State boards prompted a series of extremely interesting responses, so I will continue this examination of the State Controlled Agencies. This term includes State-owned Enterprises (SoEs) such as UDECOTT, Caribbean Airlines and Education Facilities Company Limited (EFCL), as well as Statutory Agencies like WASA, TTEC, CDA, …
Read More »Radicalising chance for change: how Sammy’s example can help T&T economy
Among the many points to be distilled from the West Indies’ Twenty20 victories is that the solution to any Caribbean problem often lies beyond the boundary of the problem as usually defined. This is as true of our cricket as it is of our economy, politics or, indeed, any other …
Read More »Whey the money really gone: Shah identifies our other big users of forex
Central Bank governor Jwala Rambarran was the unlikeliest man to kick the hornets’ nest. But that he did when he named the firms that used the most foreign exchange—or forex—over the past three years. Amidst a cacophony of complaints from businesses and individuals about being denied adequate sums of forex …
Read More »Rambarran v PNM Gov’t exposes lie of Central Bank’s ‘independence’
Just when we most need our leaders to stand together and assume their joint responsibility for guiding T&T through the rough waters of an economic downturn, we get instead a fireworks display of cheap shots. Hostile relations between a Dr Keith Rowley-led Government and the Governor of the Central Bank …
Read More »Jwala must go: Fixin’ T&T rejects calls for private resolution with Central Bank governor
Civic watch group, Fixin’ T&T has reiterated its stance that Central Bank governor Jwala Rambarran must leave his post immediately and rejected any suggested that his impasse with Minister of Finance Colm Imbert could be resolved behind closed doors. Fixin’ T&T insisted that Rambarran no longer has the confidence of …
Read More »Weathering the storm: Raffique gives his financial forecast for T&T
Tomorrow’s Budget presentation by Finance Minister Colm Imbert is the most eagerly anticipated Appropriation Bill in many years. The main reason for heightened interest is the depressed state of the economy. With low oil, gas and commodities prices, hence lower-than-normal revenues accruing to government, citizens are waiting to see just …
Read More »Participation paralysis; Daly considers our reluctance to speak to power
We have peacefully changed another Government. Having been disappointed yet again by a previous choice of Government, the prevailing mood of many citizens is that we hope once more for better and fairer governance. It swiftly became the cliché of the day that we “exhaled.” There is however something striking …
Read More »