NEWS
The Living Dead
Forget ghost gangs in CEPEP. It’s now a case of the living dead. About $25 million in payments have been gobbled up annually under the Food Card programme by persons long deceased or who have migrated, Minister of Social Development Cherrie-Ann Crichlow-Cockburn disclosed yesterday. “Persons would have been using food cards that would have been granted to recipients who would have either migrated or would have died or they would have just passed them on to friends and family,” the Minister said, as she briefed the nation on a temporary suspension of thousands of cards. She did so at the weekly post Cabinet media briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair. The abuse of the card appeared to have been unearthed during a process of implementation of a biometric system, started in 2014, which was meant to tighten wastage. Crichlow- Cockburn said about 46,296 were in receipt of Food Cards after a period of enrollment between July 2014 to July 2015. Read more…
PSA boss kept in detention over rape claim
Public Services Association (PSA) president Watson Duke spent the night in police custody after being detained in relation to a rape allegation made by an attorney working with his organisation. Accompanied by his lawyer, John Heath, Duke had surrendered to detectives of the Port-of-Spain Criminal Investigations Department (CID) at the Central Police Station, St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain, around 2 pm yesterday. Bombarded by a group of media personnel at the entrance to the station, a seemingly unfazed Duke promised to comment on the accusation upon his exit. However, after several hours, Heath came out of the station without his client, who, sources said, was detained for interrogation. Read more…
Need For Speed
Good news for motorists. The Government is “actively pursuing” the proposal to increase the maximum speed limit to 100 kilometres per hour (kph) on the Churchill-Roosevelt, Beetham, Uriah Butler and Solomon Hochoy highways. The enforced highway speed limit is 80 kph for cars and 65 kph for cargo vans and pick-ups. The Government will be looking at other roads as well, acting Prime Minister Colm Imbert said at yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair. Read more…
POLITICS
Best Law to Tackle Crime
Following on the heels of temporary Independent Senator Justin Junkere’s explanation to this newspaper, on why he backed the controversial Strategic Services Agency (SSA) Bill, Independent Senator Ian Roach yesterday said he voted with the Government, since the Bill is the best piece of legislation to tackle crime. Of the nine Independent Senators in the Upper House, seven voted against the Bill in a marathon sitting on Tuesday, while Junkere and Roach voted with Government, giving it the simple majority needed for the Bill’s passage. It now has to be assented to by President Anthony Carmona, before becoming lawful. Junkere on Wednesday, told Newsday he supported the Bill because he trusts the government, any government, to do right by the people. Yesterday, it was Roach’s turn. “It is not a perfect bill, but I believe it is a beginning and there are checks and balances to deal with issues of abuse in the expansion of the emit of the SSA,” Roach said. Apart from checks and balances’ provisions made under the Interception of Communications Act, he said, the courts were also very independent and transgressions may be dealt with there. Read more…
Suruj awaits action from Carmona on SSA Bill
The Opposition will be keeping an eye on President Anthony Carmona to see if he will exert the powers he believes he has as it relates to the Strategic Services Agency (Amendment) Bill 2016 being assented to on the basis of a simple majority. The controversial bill, which was passed in the Senate earlier this week with the help of two Independent Senators Hugh Ian Roach and Justin Junkere, still has to be assented by the President. Tabaquite MP Dr Suruj Rambachan said yesterday he was dissatisfied that the Government pressed ahead with the legislation in its current form, despite objections by seven Independent Senators and civil society groups which asked for more consultations, checks and balances. “Is this the way the PNM intends to govern for the rest of their term?” Rambachan asked. He said the two Independents who voted with the PNM ought to be reminded that their responsibility was far more than they appeared to appreciate. Read more…
Al-Wari: Ludricous, undignifed attempt against senator
Ludricous and undignifed! That is how Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi described temporary Opposition Senator Gerald Ramdeen’s “attempt to cast aspersions” on the appointment of Justin Junkere as an Independent senator. The Attorney General stated that Ramdeen was seeking to do something which was beneath the dignity of the Senate, “which is to use intimidatory tactics against a member who had exercised his constitutional right to vote”.
Al-Rawi said this was tantamount to “bullying tactics”. “It is a naked, unbridled, unfair and unjustified attack against a member of the Independent bench and the population should take careful note of it,” he added. Read more…
BUSINESS
PS: TT backs ‘small vulnerable economies’
Several obstacles to trade can be removed by the including TT within the World Trade Organisation (WTO’s) designation of “small vulnerable conomies”, that is, nations so small as to be subject to economic uncertainties and environmental shocks, said a Trade Ministry top official yesterday. Norris Herbert, acting Permanent Secretary, gave the keynote speech at the Commonwealth Caribbean Consultation on Recent Developments in Trade (Post-Nairobi) and Regional Integration at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of- Spain. By way of background, he said that last December in Nairobi saw a historic agreement on agriculture export competition, whereby members will cut the use of agriculture export subsidies and curb other export-support measures that distort trade. Herbert said the designation can help combat threats to TT posed by both the state of China’s economy and by non-tariff barriers. “We consider the rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) a major challenge in the context of progress at the WTO, particularly the Chinese economy and their standoff with the US,” said Herbert. Read more…
Bashing multinationals an increasingly common practice
“There are many pockets of unhelpful discord that I believe work against growth and prosperity. For a few minutes, I will highlight one area that I can speak to with a fair amount of knowledge and data. I speak of the current and increasingly common practice of bashing multinational companies,” Christie told AmCham members. He told reporters after his speech: “There are quite a few things that I have observed even in the press about multinationals not working for the country of Trinidad and Tobago, taking things out but not putting things in, so without attribution to any specific person, those are the comments that I’m sure others would have seen, and we don’t find those particularly helpful or in the spirit of partnership and co-operation.” Read more…
REGIONAL
Tax Break For All - No PAYE Worker To Be Excluded From $1.5 Million Relief Plan - Shaw
Minister of Finance and Public Service Audley Shaw yesterday unveiled a modified version of the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) campaign promise of a $1.5-million income tax break, which will now apply to PAYE earners across the board. "We are extremely pleased that one of the first and very important measures this new Government has now enacted is to grant tax relief to hard working Jamaicans," Shaw declared as he opened the Budget Debate in the House of Representatives. The finance minister told the House that, instead of immediately as promised on the campaign trail, the income tax threshold would be increased to $1.5 million over two financial years and now embrace more than 100,000 persons who were not initially captured in the plan. Shaw said the first tranche, an increase in the threshold to $1,000,272 from the current $592,000, would take effect on July 1. The adjustment to the income tax threshold will result in an increase of as much as $8,490 in monthly take-home pay. Read more…
Venezuelan government denies funding left-wing party in Spain through St Vincent bank
In a statement on Thursday, the Venezuelan embassy in St Vincent and the Grenadines denounced as a forgery a payment order purporting to show that $272,325 had been transferred on March 11, 2014, to Euro Pacific Bank Limited in Kingstown, for the benefit of Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the Spanish left-wing political party Podemos. Last Friday, the Spanish daily newspaper OKDIARIO published a document that it said proved that Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro was complicit in making the payment to Iglesias. The embassy noted that the Euro Pacific Bank had also denied that it had received a transfer of the funds in question or that it held an account for Iglesias. “In addition Mr Iglesias has spoken about these false accusations and announced that he will take legal action against Okdiario.com. He argues that the facts reported by this medium are false and based on forged documents, that neither he nor any member of his family has accounts in tax havens,” the embassy said. Read more…
INTERNATIONAL
Hezbollah commander Badreddine killed in Syria
Dying for gold: South Africa's biggest ever class action lawsuit gets go ahead
The most striking thing about Joseph Mothibedi is his voice -- it is raspy, a metallic whisper. It's the sound of a man slowly dying. His thin fingers trembling, Mothibedi leans over his simple hot plate and puts a tea kettle on the boil. The 58-year-old former gold miner looks reduced in his old blue work shirt. It hangs off his bony shoulders as he spreads margarine on a slice of white bread for afternoon tea. He slowly sips it in his barren brick house near an old mine-dump. "Just listen to my voice," he says, "I have problems with my lungs. I can't even walk fast or far. It is very hard for me." Read more…
13th May 2016