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
17th September 2018