TTMA IN THE NEWS
Survey: Full, part-time workers lose jobs in COVID-19 shutdown
A joint survey of the T&T Coalition of Services Industries (TTCSI) and the T&T Manufacturers Association (TTMA) has found that as a result of the country’s COVID-19 mitigation measures, 36 per cent of the businesses surveyed have terminated full time employees and 55 per cent have terminated part time or contractual employees. Mostly small and medium enterprises (SMEs) took part in the survey which was done to assess the economic impact of COVID-19 on services and manufacturing sectors. The survey found that 91 per cent of total respondents employed on average between one to 50 part-time or contract employees and 70 per cent of all respondents employed between one to five persons part time or on contractual relationships. Read more here
NEWS
TT’s UWI students abroad receiving money for food
Communications Minister Donna Cox announced that US$300 has been wired to UWI campuses in Barbados and Jamaica to each of the 184 TT non-scholarship students there. Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said all Caricom countries accepted covid19 "as a definite threat to our way of life in Caricom." They made their respective statements at the virtual health news conference on Wednesday. Cox said on Monday, US$300 was wired to the UWI campus bursars in Barbados and Jamaica. This money, she explained, will be distributed to each of the 184 TT non-scholarship students who are at the UWI campuses in those countries, allowing them to buy food. Read more here
Oxford ranks T&T high on ability to end lockdown
T&T has been ranked second in the world in terms of its readiness to end stay-at-home measures but the Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh is insisting our guards should not be let down. The information was revealed in an April 23 University of Oxford study entitled “Lockdown rollback checklist: Do countries meet WHO recommendations for rolling back lockdown?” According to the Lockdown Rollback Checklist portion of the report, T&T is currently sitting second only to Vietnam on readiness to readiness to reopen activity following shutdowns implemented to fight the virus’ spread. The statistics in the study were based on six categories of measures governments need to have in place before rolling back ‘lockdown’ measures as outlined by the World Health Organisation (WHO). It used a colour code to measure the rating, with the brightest gold representing the least ready and the darkest blue indicating the readiest. Read more here
POLITICS
PM: Additional compensation for nurses not being considered right now
The Prime Minister said Government is not, at this time, considering requests for additional compensation for nurses and health care workers on the frontline in the fight against covid19. He was responding to a question from Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. Dr Rowley said, however, Government is giving “the assurance that all our health care givers and persons in the frontline will avail themselves of the best that the country has to afford." Read more here
Economist warns T&T heading back to IMF
T&T will end up in an International Monetary Fund-supported programme by next year, economist Marla Dukharan has predicted as she said the $15.5 billion deficit being projected by Finance Minister Colm Imbert may just be the tip of the financial iceberg facing the country. “We will have to go to the IMF by next year just like Barbados had to,” the economist said. Dukharan made the statement as she anticipated that the size of this country’s fiscal deficit may realistically be even $5 billion more than the latest projection by Imbert. Speaking in the Parliament on Monday, Imbert said that this country’s fiscal deficit for 2020 is now expected to expand to $15.5 billion. “Accordingly, our fiscal deficit for fiscal 2020, which was originally estimated at $5.3 billion, is now expected to expand to $15.5 billion, $10.2 billion higher than was envisaged in our FY 2020 Budget,” Imbert stated. Read more here
BUSINESS
Shiraz Khan: Food security must be priority
In the current market, a barrel of milk costs more than a barrel of oil. So president of the Trinidad Unified Farmers Association Shiraz Khan believes now is the time for Government to take serious and immediate steps to invest money, land and people in the dairy farming industry. “In agriculture, if we don’t act immediately, we will face serious problems,” Khan said. “For over 30 years the farming industry has been the bastard child of our society. But if we care about this country, we will not wait for a three-month committee to get a report, then act on it.” Read more here
Time to get the economy moving
Today the transition committee appointed by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to come up with plans on how T&T will navigate the severe economic contraction brought on by the fall-out from the coronavirus pandemic will present their initial report to the government. As far as we know the committee was subsequently broken up into smaller sub-committees and is expected to guide government on two things, how to avoid a total meltdown of the T&T economy and how to ensure that the country moves forward on a more sustainable and resilient path. Read more here
US upset over 4 TV networks
Trinidad and Tobago has been put back on to a watch list by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) for the failure by the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT) to take enforcement actions against local cable operators broadcasting US free-to-air networks locally. Read more here
REGIONAL
‘Jodian died a terrible death’ - First-time mom had heart failure
First-time mom Jodian Fearon “died a terrible death” from heart failure exacerbated by last-minute pregnancy-related stress at The University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), the medical doctor hired to observe her post-mortem has revealed. Further, the attorney for Fearon’s family has challenged assertions by Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton that a preliminary assessment has indicated that The UHWI, Victoria Jubilee, and Spanish Town hospitals all followed the protocols for the transfer of patients from a private to a public health facility. Jephthah Ford, the medical doctor hired by Fearon’s family, told The Gleaner last night that he was present as a team of three doctors conducted the post-mortem on the body of the 21-year-old woman at The UHWI. Prior to the procedure, Ford said he was allowed to view Fearon’s medical records. Read more here
COVID medical team on high alert in Port Kaituma
A MEDICAL team comprising eight members operating under four tents screens every individual passing in and out of Port Kaituma (PK) on a daily basis. While no positive COVID-19 cases have been reported at the Region One (Barima/Waini) location so far, those on the health team are working hard to help residents adhere to social distancing and other safety measures. Marissa Mendonca works as a rehabilitation assistant at the local health centre, but her duties lately have come to include traveling to the various health tents to do screening. One of the tents has been set up at the toll gate, which sees in the vicinity of 300 persons being screened daily. Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
Where did it go wrong for the UK on coronavirus?
he British government is on the brink of missing a crucial target in its fight against coronavirus. A headline-grabbing aim of conducting 100,000 daily Covid-19 tests by the end of April is unlikely to be achieved, with the government saying that only 52,429 had been carried out on Tuesday, two days before the deadline. Capacity is available for about 73,000, Downing Street says. Government sources argue, with some justification, that the target -- up from about 10,000 a day at the beginning of the month -- was always incredibly ambitious, and the fact that capacity has been expanded so quickly is a huge achievement. Read more here
Coronavirus: New York funeral home puts corpses in lorries
Dozens of bodies have been found stored in moving lorries in New York, authorities say, after passersby complained of the smell. The Andrew T Cleckley Funeral Home in Brooklyn had rented trucks and put about 50 corpses inside with ice. One official quoted anonymously in the New York Times said the home's freezer had stopped working. Police were called to the scene and sealed off the area. A refrigerated truck later arrived. Workers in protective suits were later seen moving bodies. It is unclear if these were victims of the coronavirus. But officials and funeral homes have struggled to cope with the huge numbers of dead in New York, the worst-affected state in the US. More than 18,000 people have died in New York City alone, according to Johns Hopkins University data. As a whole, the US has more than one million confirmed cases of coronavirus, more than any other country. Read more here
30th April 2020