TTMA IN THE NEWS
TTMA looking forward to Budget Day
The Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers Association (TTMA) is looking forward to budget day after Tuesday’s announcement by Minister of Finance Colm Imbert that Trinidad and Tobago’s foreign reserves are back over $7 billion after receiving US$644 million via Special Drawing Rights from the International Monetary Fund. In a release on Wednesday, the TTMA said this development supported its Export Manufacturing Strategy to double non-energy exports by 2025. The association said, “The US$644 million in additional Special Drawing Rights from the International Monetary Fund, which can, from an accounting perspective, booster T&T’s reserves, allowing for further assistance to be afforded via the EXIM Bank to the manufacturing sector. Such a boost to the manufacturing sector will serve as additional armoury toward promoting and sustaining diversification and exports in the country.” Read more here
NEWS
Angostura donates $350,000 in food vouchers to families affected by covid19
Angostura has donated over $350,000 in food vouchers to families across the country through over 20 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and schools. In a release, it said the company has partnered with the NGOs and schools to provide relief to families affected by the covid19 pandemic through its Resilient Together initiative. “The fallout from the virus has left many families without food on their table,” Angostura said. Read more here
POLITICS
PM: SoE not needed to win elections
The Prime Minister rejected Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar's claims that the state of emergency (SoE) was being extended for another three months to give the PNM an advantage in the next Tobago House of Assembly (THA) election, which could take place later this year. Dr Rowley did so on Wednesday as he opened debate on a motion in the House of Representatives to extend the SoE by a further three months. The motion was passed without Opposition support. Read more here
Labour Minister denies claims of mandatory vaccinations for public sector workers
The government is not examining mandatory vaccinations for public sector workers, says Labour Minister Stephen McClashie. His comments yesterday, came after United National Congress (UNC) MP Rudy Indarsingh on Wednesday called for Government to say if it is preparing law or regulations for mandatory vaccinations in the workplace. Indarsingh was speaking in Parliament’s debate on a motion to extend the State of Emergency. It was passed with Government votes alone as the Opposition abstained from the vote. Read more here
BUSINESS
Rise in number of pluck shop operators
There has been an increase in the number of poultry pluck shop operators despite the Covid-19 pandemic, Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture Avinash Singh has said. He said the local poultry cottage processing industry was currently in a good place, but with the continued efforts of all it involved it could be better. He said the sector has the potential of becoming a model industry which other jurisdictions can follow. Read more here
REGIONAL
First Pfizer-vaccinated teens urge colleagues to take ‘COVID jab
The first set of teenagers to receive their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine have urged their colleagues to follow suit and take the ‘jab,’ in order to guard against the debilitating effects of COVID-19. Those persons received the vaccine on Thursday, during the rollout of the government’s vaccination programme which targets children ages 12 to 18 years, at the St. Stanislaus College. During an interview with the Guyana Chronicle, 15-year-old Ramon Cummings, the first male teenager to be administered the American-manufactured Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine locally, expressed his support for the COVID-19 vaccine, noting that it will enable students to return school. He said that while the vaccines are instrumental in the reopening of schools, it has a greater impact on individual lives. For this reason, he charged other persons to get vaccinated. “Please get vaccinated, it is not only about you, but about your family and the community,” Cummings said. Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
Biden in turmoil as blast in Kabul raises leadership questions
America's longest war is ending as it began, with the nation mourning the dead of a terrorist attack and an outraged President vowing to hunt down the culprits in Afghanistan. The bloody coda to a tortured 20 years -- the loss of 13 US troops and at least 90 Afghans in blasts outside Kabul's airport on Thursday -- exemplified the human tragedy and ultimate futility of a conflict that failed in its core purpose: purging Afghan soil of terrorism. In a cruel irony, the latest Americans to die perished in an attack conceived in the very same land as the al Qaeda assault on September 11, 2001, that triggered the war they were trying to leave. Read more here
27th August 2021