Daily Brief - Monday 17th September, 2018

NEWS

Business consultant warns of ‘water-bottle’ culture in labour

Business consultant Maxine Attong says labour is treated like a commodity in TT, and can be best described as ‘water-bottle culture’. She was addressing the Association of Professional Engineers of TT (APETT) conference on re-booting the economy at Cara Suites, Claxton Bay, San Fernando, on Friday. Read more here

9,000 workers will be affected—OWTU

The Oil­field’ Work­ers’ Trade Union says it fears that 9,000 work­ers would be di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by the clo­sure of State oil com­pa­ny Petrotrin and has sig­nalled that it will be ex­plor­ing all pos­si­bil­i­ties in­clud­ing le­gal ac­tion, to get the Gov­ern­ment and the Board of Petrotrin to re­verse the de­ci­sion to shut down the com­pa­ny. Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion and Re­search Of­fi­cer of the OW­TU Ozzie War­wick said the union had al­so known that the plan was to ex­it all 3,500 work­ers since the pre­sen­ta­tion made by Petrotrin chair­man Wil­fred Es­pinet to the union on Au­gust 28. War­wick said, “This is ex­act­ly what the union was say­ing. We have al­ways said they are plan­ning to send home all the work­ers.” Read more here

Earthquake fallout: Trinity Cathedral Cross comes down

The Cross atop the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port of Spain has been taken down as it was at risk of falling following last month’s magnitude 6.9 earthquake. The 200-year-old Cathedral suffered extensive damage during the quake both on the exterior and interior. Read more here

 

POLITICS

Opposition accuses govt of planning refinery sale since 2015

The Opposition is “fast afoot” to prevent the government from implementing its plan to decommission Petrotrin’s Pointe-a-Pierre refinery, senator Gerald Ramdeen has said, even as he admitted there was not much they could do. “The truth about it is the Opposition is not in power, so we are not in a position to say we can impact a decision made by the Cabinet and the Government to sell the refinery. But as has been demonstrated before and should not be taken lightly, when the people of TT come together for a common cause against any administration, it is the people who have the power to influence the decisions of what happens in this country. If (Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley) thinks he can make this decision that will affect over 100,000 families in this country at his whim and fancy, that’s not going to happen,” Ramdeen said at the Opposition’s Sunday media conference, yesterday. Read more here

Minister: Only 5 schools remain closed

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia is dis­miss­ing as “un­true” re­ports that 27 schools re­main closed fol­low­ing the Au­gust 21 earth­quake. Gar­cia told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day on­ly five schools re­mained closed and all ef­forts are be­ing made to en­sure that those schools are opened as ear­ly as this week in some in­stances. Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Lovell Fran­cis, who al­so spoke with the T&T Guardian, said the Guayagua­yare RC School will be opened to­day while class­es at San Juan North will start by to­mor­row and class­es will re­sume at the Bar­rack­pore East and West Sec­ondary Schools by Wednes­day. Read more here

Farmers driving' vanity vehicles' says Rambharat

Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat says a considerable percentage of the vehicles acquired by so-called farmers under the Ministry’s current incentive structure, were “vanity purchases” which “never ended up on a farm or with fruit, vegetables or fish on it.” It was the reason, said Rambharat, that in 2016, he commissioned a comprehensive review of all existing incentives and sought, with the support of the Minister of Finance, to introduce a new agricultural incentive which he hoped would “raise the bar” and be the “model” for financial support to serious farmers. Read more here

 

BUSINESS

Earnings and acquisitions

This week, we at Bourse review the most recent financial results of Scotiabank Trinidad and Tobago Ltd (SBTT). Additionally, we take a cursory look at recent developments on the local market surrounding Read more here

 

REGIONAL

Social Revolution - Phillips Promises Policies To Reverse Inequities

People's National Party (PNP) President Dr Peter Phillips yesterday promised that a future government formed by his party would oversee a social revolution for the education sector, to reverse the economic inequity ravaging the society that has pitted classes and groups against each other. Phillips, addressing the public session of the party's 80th anniversary conference at the National Arena in St Andrew yesterday, pledged to pursue a slew of new policies, including the introduction of the first-in-family scholarship programme, land reform, help for contract workers, and equity in duties offered to foreign companies as against local companies. Read more here

 

INTERNATIONAL

Florence has filled rivers, roads and houses. And it's still raining.

Small streams look more like rivers. Rivers like raging torrents. And city streets and stretches of interstate highways -- dotted with rescue boats -- like free-flowing waterways. That's the reality in wide swaths of eastern North Carolina in the watery wake of Hurricane Florence. As towns and cities struggle to cope with flooded homes and buildings, power outages and trapped residents, what is left of Florence is dragging itself north, dumping heavy rain as it moves into the southern Appalachian Mountains Monday morning. Read more here

Typhoon Mangkhut: Miners and families buried by landslide

Rescuers in the Philippines are digging through mud to retrieve bodies buried by a landslide that hit as Typhoon Mangkhut battered the country. At least 32 people in the mining town of Itogon, in Benguet province, were crushed in a single shelter. Teams are digging through the rubble with their bare hands, passing blocks of concrete and pieces of wood down a 50ft line to clear the area. Typhoon Mangkhut is now weakening over southern China. Four people were killed in the province of Guangdong - three by falling trees. Read more here

17th September 2018

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