TTMA IN THE NEWS

Expect to feel the effect of coronavirus in the next two months

The lo­cal busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is brac­ing for the im­pact of the coro­n­avirus, from the im­ple­men­ta­tion of con­ti­nu­ity plans to lo­cat­ing al­ter­nate sup­pli­ers to ad­just­ing busi­ness mod­els; lo­cal play­ers are work­ing ve­he­ment­ly to en­sure their sur­vival as in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts warn “the worst is yet to come.” The omi­nous pre­dic­tion was made in an ar­ti­cle pub­lished in Har­vard Busi­ness Re­view ear­li­er this month, doc­u­ment­ing the dele­te­ri­ous im­pact of Covid-19 on glob­al sup­ply chains. Read more here

Manufacturers brace for ‘corona’ lash

The Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers Association (TTMA) is bracing for the impact of the coronavirus on trade which is expected to be felt within the next four to six weeks when supplies of raw materials from China will either be halted or slowed. Read more here

NEWS

No panic, but hoarding

Consumers continue to sweep up stocks of gloves, hand sanitizer and other items that can prevent or limit exposure to the coronavirus, whenever it reaches TT. In Port of Spain on Wednesday, Quik Pharm pharmacist Alana Bosland said several cases of N95 masks sold out during the course of the week. There are approximately 300 masks to a case. She said people were buying entire boxes of 10 or 25 masks, and she was now restricting the number of masks people could buy. This was especially needed as suppliers’ stocks are low and they are limiting the amount that pharmacies could buy for resale. She said medical professionals from private doctors’ offices have also come in to buy masks. Bosland said people were also buying cold medicines and vitamins and stocks in some common ones such as Vitamin C chewables were also running short. Read more here

No more wine, holy water at RC Masses

The Ro­man Church in Trinidad and To­ba­go has ceased serv­ing wine among sev­er­al oth­er pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures as the threat of the spread of the coro­n­avirus looms large over the Caribbean. Some of the oth­er ma­jor changes tak­ing ef­fect yes­ter­day in­clude Holy Com­mu­nion on­ly be­ing dis­trib­uted in the hand and not on the tongue. The arch­dio­cese al­so stat­ed that no holy wa­ter, usu­al­ly present at the en­trance of church­es, will not be dis­pensed for mem­bers of the con­gre­ga­tion. The sign of peace will al­so no longer be a hand­shake, with the church en­cour­ag­ing parish­ioners to “make a small bow in­stead”. Ro­man Catholic Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don said the mea­sures were im­ple­ment­ed be­cause the church is tak­ing every pre­cau­tion pos­si­ble as the coun­try braces for the pos­si­ble threat. How­ev­er, on­ly on Tues­day, the arch­dio­cese had re­leased a state­ment say­ing it would not be chang­ing its litur­gi­cal cel­e­bra­tions just yet. Read more here

POLITICS

Online payslips for MOE staff

Ministry of Education staff no longer have to wait months to get their payslips but may access them online. Minister of State in the Ministry of Education Dr Lovell Francis made that announcement at the launch of the VCCE Community Challenge at the Carenage Boys’ Government Primary School on Tuesday. Francis said the ministry has been working and planning to go paperless for a few months and the new online system started from February month end. He said the ministry has approximately 26,000 staff members and they no longer have to go to the office for their pay slips. Read more here

Deyalsingh's COVID-19 warning to citizens...

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh is urg­ing cit­i­zens to “use com­mon sense” to pro­tect them­selves against COVID-19, es­pe­cial­ly if they are think­ing about trav­el­ling through or to coun­tries where con­firmed cas­es have been iden­ti­fied. Deyals­ingh spoke about cit­i­zens’ per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, safe­ty pre­cau­tions and trav­el as the virus con­tin­ues to spread glob­al­ly dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the min­istry’s Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters yes­ter­day. “I am ask­ing the pop­u­la­tion to ex­er­cise com­mon sense in trav­el­ling. If you ab­solute­ly have to go on a long in­ter­na­tion­al com­mer­cial flight, go. If you can de­lay that, if you’re go­ing to a birth­day par­ty, a wed­ding, a fete, think twice but if you ab­solute­ly have to trav­el, you have to trav­el. That is the best com­mon-sense ad­vice I can give about trav­el­ling,” he said. Read more here

BUSINESS

Elizabeth Ammon, a leader at C&W

She's one of the few women senior executives in telecommunications in TT but senior manager of C&W Business, Elizabeth Ammon's wealth of experience, passion and confidence in her ability means she's proud to inspire and represent. Ammon spoke to Business Day about what it's like to transition from a technical capacity to the boardroom and encouraging more young women to join STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) programmes at school. What's it like being a woman in tech in the Caribbean? You always hear about the disproportion between men and women internationally, but what has been your experience in the Caribbean? Read more here

REGIONAL

Charles Sr Quitting - Veteran Politician Stepping Down As Speaker, MP Shortly

After decades of contribution to the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and country, veteran politician, trade unionist, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Pearnel Patroe Charles, will be relinquishing the gavel within weeks, bringing the curtains down on a near lifetime in representational politics. A reliable source told The Gleaner that Charles has signalled that he might not stay on as member of parliament before the start of the Budget Debate later this month. With Charles’ impending departure, Parliamentary Secretary Robert Morgan is expected to be the front-runner for the seat when it becomes vacant. Pearnel Charles Jr, who emerged victorious in a by-election face-off with independent candidate Dereck Lambert for the Clarendon South Eastern seat on Monday, told The Gleaner earlier this week that he was looking forward to spending even a short period with the elder Charles, his father, in Parliament. Read more here

Nation awaits Region 4 results

Guyana awaits the verification of Statements of Poll (SOPs) belonging to polling stations in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) before the final declaration of the results of Monday’s general and regional elections, even as the process was suspended twice on Wednesday due to disagreements on how they ought to be tabulated and the unavailability of staff respectively. There was much commotion outside the tabulation and media centre of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on Wednesday, after discrepancies were noted in the tabulation of the region’s SOPs. The process was therefore halted at around 15:30hrs by Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield. The matter drew the attention of leaders and representatives from all political parties; members of the diplomatic corps; international and local observers and the GECOM Commission and staff which all made their way to the centre located at the Ashmins building, downtown Georgetown. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Etsy removes coronavirus content

E-commerce website Etsy has removed merchandise on the platform that references the coronavirus, Buzzfeed News reports. Some of the items removed include shirts with taglines like "I survived coronavirus 2020" and "I don't have coronavirus, I'm just drunk". An Etsy spokesperson said the site had also prioritised taking down any listings that "claim to protect against coronavirus", adding that "we have also taken down hundreds of items that attempt to exploit the developing coronavirus situation". Read more here

Democrats fear a 2016 repeat in 2020

After Joe Biden's stunning comeback on Super Tuesday, the Democratic Party is once again facing the nightmare of 2016: a collision course between its establishment candidate and Bernie Sanders that could leave the party fractured and weakened come November. Four years ago, some of Sen. Sanders' most ardent supporters -- including many young voters -- stayed home on Election Day, rejecting Hillary Clinton as their nominee. This campaign cycle, many of the Vermont independent's supporters are still deeply distrustful of a Democratic establishment that they believe wrested the nomination away from Sanders. But while Clinton and Sanders fought a long, drawn-out battle four years ago, the swift coalescence of Democratic Party figures around Biden has been far more overt and catalytic. Read more here

5th March 2020

Back