DAILY BRIEF
FRIDAY 26TH JUNE, 2015
NEWS
Seales suspended
Inspector Michael Seales, secretary of the Police Social and Welfare Association, has been sent off duty for alleging, in a television interview, a conspiracy by the People’s Partnership Government to “provoke” police officers and call a state of emergency (SoE) to delay the September 7 general election. Acting Commissioner of Police (CoP) Stephen Williams yesterday disclosed he had suspended the outspoken Seales and has assigned Assistant Commissioner of Police Deodath Dulalchan to investigate the inspector for public misconduct stemming from his comments on TV6’s Morning Edition show on Wednesday. Seales was being interviewed about the salary negotiations for police officers with the Chief Personnel Officer who was not budging from a 14 percent offer, after an initial proposal of nine percent. Read more...
Colman blames lawyers for delay
Sir Anthony Colman, the lone Commissioner in the Commission of Enquiry into the failure of CLICO and related companies, has written to President Anthony Carmona criticising the competence of two attorneys employed at the Commission. This, he said, has led to the delay in submitting a report. Colman wrote, “…of the three local attorneys two proved to be so incompetent, inexperienced or lacking in any sense of professional responsibility that they became unavailable or only partially available.” The Commission’s legal team, which earned $12,000 a day, included Counsel to the Commission Peter Carter QC, instructing attorney at that Celeste Jules, Gerald Ramdeen, Varun Debideen and Shankar Bidaisee. They were selected by former attorney general Anand Ramlogan. Read more...
Vasant: No more life certificates for NIB
FROM today, pensioners and other National Insurance Board (NIB) claimants will no longer need to supply a “proof-of-life” certificate twice yearly but rather their status will be checked by the NIB automatically checking the death-certificate records of the Ministry of Legal Affairs. So said Minister of Communications Vasant Bharath at yesterday’s post-Cabinet news briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister, St Clair. “This of course will provide great relief for the 80,000 senior citizens that I mentioned who have to go to offices twice a year to be able to prove that they are still alive,” said Bharath. The change will benefit some133,000 people, who have had to send in their proof-of-life forms to claim long-term benefits, including retirement pensions, survivors benefit, invalidity benefit, death benefits and disablement benefit. Read more...
POLITICS
COP condemns Mirror shooting
The Congress of the People (COP) has condemned the shooting that took place at the Mirror newspaper office in Curepe on Tuesday by a lone gunman and expressed the hope it was not a deliberate attack on press freedom.Condemning the shooting, COP Political Leader Prakash Ramdhar, in a release, said, “Any attack, in particular a violent attack, on the media must be condemned in the strongest possible way. Freedom of the press must never be compromised.” Noting that the newspaper’s editor could not confirm any motive for the shooting, he said, “We have to hope that this is not a deliberate attack on the media.” It is important that the police investigate the issue urgently, he said. Empathising with the affected staff, Ramadhar said, “We must constantly remain vigilant to preserve our democratic rights.” Read more...
Warner: PP ’fraid to lose
Although wanted in the United States on fraud charges, Independent Liberal Party (ILP) political leader Jack Warner believes Government Ministers, including Housing Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal and Transport Minister Stephen Cadiz, calling on him to leave the country was their fear that the People’s Partnership Administration would lose the September 7 General Election should he continue his campaign against the Government across the nation.“They could only win the election if I am not here, they cannot win it any other way,” Warner said at a cottage meeting at Moruga Main Road, Indian Walk on Wednesday night. ILP chairman Rekha Ramjit, one of Warner’s lawyers, pointed out that the United States had not filed its request for the extradition of her client to the Attorney General’s office almost one month after he had been arrested on a provisional warrant. Read more...
BUSINESS
NGC wants to be global investor
National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (NGC) president Indar Maharaj said the company wanted to be a global investor in order to generate income for the country. Indar spoke at a presentation at NGC’s headquarters in Couva on Tuesday, before taking media on a tour of the Point Lisas Industrial Estate, as a means of enhancing the media’s perception of the company, and to better understanding the natural gas industry Maharaj said: “I think to a large extent the gas master plan which the Ministry of Energy has commissioned and I know it’s almost completed, will to a great extent now determine a policy in terms of gas allocation. I think we will find the solution although it might not be an immediate solution, but I think we will find the solution to some of the problems in there.\Read more...
Tourism can drive T&T’s diversification
The tourism sector must play a leading role in the economic diversification of T&T, Andrew Welch, president of the Trinidad Hotels Restaurants and Tourism Association said yesterday. “I am seeing the millions of opportunities for us in T&T from tourism. Our sector has the ability to drive diversification in T&T. We are sitting on an industry where the sky is the limit and those who are willing to fly will achieve. “T&T is poised to do just that and we the stakeholders have agreed that it will happen. Together with the Ministry of Tourism and the Tourism Development Corporation, we are pushing to make this the lead industry for diversification in T&T,” he said yesterday at the launch of the 2015 Tourism Awards at Jaffa’s at the Queen’s Park Oval, Port-of-Spain. Read more...
Labour shortage in agriculture
Food Production Minister Senator Devant Maharaj is concerned about the general lack of interest by young people in agriculture and he says that issue, as well as labour shortages in the sector, must be addressed in the short and medium term. Maharaj raised the issue in the feature address at launch of the Agriculture Now Training Unit’s (ATNU) Workforce Assessment Centre. The ceremony was held on Wednesday evening at the Ministry of Tertiary in Port-of-Spain. Maharaj said T&T’s agricultural community was affected by a depleting workforce because farmers were getting older. He said the situation was so severe that some farmers had to bring in Guyanese labourers but they left as soon as they found other employment in T&T. Read more...
Tourism officials to meet in T&T
T&T will host high-level tourism officials and representatives from key regional and international organisations July 22 and 23 when the Directorate of Sustainable Tourism of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), hosts its 26th Meeting of the Special Committee on Sustainable Tourism (SCST-26). The meeting will explore avenues for the promotion, growth and continued sustainability of the regional tourism industry. Delegates will discuss advances made and the way forward in implementation of the Sustainable Tourism Work Programme. Results of the Regional Co-operation Mechanism of the Sustainable Tourism Zone of the Greater Caribbean (STZC) project, an initiative being implemented with co-operation and assistance from the Regional Council of Martinique and the INTERREG IV Caribbean Space Programme, will be presented. Read more...
REGIONAL
Caribbean banks say EU blacklist could hurt region’s financial institutions
Regional banks are concerned that the European Commission’s listing of Caribbean countries among the world’s worst tax havens could hurt the region’s financial services sector. The Caribbean Association of Banks (CAB), a community of banks and other financial institutions in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), says the list has caused it “grave concern”. The Commission, the European Union’s executive body, released a list of 30 non-cooperative, non-EU jurisdictions – including more than a dozen from the Caribbean – that had been identified by at least 10 EU member states. The EU subsequently sought to clarify that the list was only a compilation of members’ lists and was not a new one.Read more...
INTERNATIONAL
Hollande: 1 dead in France terror attack, severed head found with message
One person has been beheaded and two people injured in a terrorist attack at a gas factory in southeastern France, French President Francois Hollande said Friday. In a televised address from a summit in Brussels, Belgium, he called the incident a "pure terrorist attack." Hollande said a body had been found, along with a severed head with a message. A suspect has been arrested and identified, he said, and a large contingent of police has secured the site. The attack took place just before 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET), he said, when a vehicle was driven at high speed into the factory site and into a building housing gas canisters. "There is no doubt that the intention was to provoke an attack, an explosion," he said. Hollande expressed his condolences and solidarity with the victims of the attack. Read more..
26th June 2015