NEWS
Aranguez group: Help landless farmers
Help landless farmers in TT. Aranguez United Farmers Association president Pundit Satyanand Maharaj made this call at a news conference yesterday. Saying the number of landless farmers outnumber registered farmers, Maharaj said the Agriculture Society of TT's records show there are 1,800 registered farmers in the country. But he added that many farmers were not registered "because they need to find a piece of land to register." Maharaj claimed there are many tenanted farmers in TT who are at the mercy of their landlords. He said there were places in TT where the lands that farmers occupied were owned by someone else. Read more here
Audit uncovers lack of accountability by national pan body
Close to $ 4 million was paid out by Pan Trinbago to FCL Financial Ltd and its CEO Daniel Lambert over a three-year period with barely any paper trail found by auditors to justify these mammoth payments or any semblance of a formal agreement. An audit report by Ernst and Young raised further questions over Pan Trinbago’s handling of its finances under the former president Keith Diaz and other Central Executive Committee (CEC) members between the period 2013-2016. During an interview with Ernst and Young in December 2017, Lambert said his company had been engaged to look at the platform in which Pan Trinbago operated and to assist the organisation in moving from an informal to a formal structure. Read more here
POLITICS
Minister: More labour laws early next year
Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste-Primus expects that by the first quarter of 2020, at least four pieces of legislation will go before the Parliament to promote a sustainable environment for sustainable enterprises, economic growth and decent work for all. Speaking at the Cipriani College of Labour and Co-Operative Studies graduation on Friday, Baptiste-Primus said several pieces of industrial-relations legislation were being reviewed. They included the Retrenchment and Severance Benefit Act, Occupational Safety and Health Act, national workplace sexual harassment policy and the Cipriani College of Labour and Co-Operative Studies Act. Read more here
Young: Info on ISIS refugees must first be verified
National Security Minister Stuart Young said on Sunday that information in the public domain about T&T nationals who left to join ISIS must first be verified but acknowledged that some of the evidence was disturbing. He was responding to a report carried by Amandla Thomas-Johnson in the Middle East Eye (MEE). Young said the ministry was scrutinising all data to ensure there was verification before taking any action. The report stated that over 100 Trinidadians, including children, were being held in an overcrowded Al-Hol camp in northern Syria. “As Minister of National Security, I am ensuring that the relevant authorities are conducting verification and information gathering exercises and I will say that some of the evidence obtained so far with respect to some Trinidadians who went to join ISIS is very disturbing.” Read more here
BUSINESS
Earnings increase
This week, we at Bourse review the full financial year performance ended September 2019 of banking giant NCB Financial Group Ltd (NCBFG) and half year (HY) results of Non-Banking Finance stock JMMB Group Ltd (JMMBGL). Read more here
REGIONAL
PM: Corruption Warning To JLP
Buffeted by a wave of public criticisms in the wake of at least two major scandals bedevilling his administration this year, Prime Minister Andrew Holness delivered a stern warning to the hierarchy of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) on the weekend. The prime minister admitted that the “real” job of a representative can easily be forgotten. “That is the challenge now, when it becomes about ourselves, that is when we become permissive of corruption. That is when we become accepting of corruption … when we lose sight of the voice, the vision and the vote of the people,” Holness said, as he sought to take on the issue of corruption which the Opposition People’s National Party has been hammering since the Petrojam scandal broke earlier this year and forced Dr Andrew Wheatley to resign as energy minister. Read more here
ICJ gives Venezuela ultimatum
Venezuela has 10 days left to inform the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on its participation in the oral arguments on whether the court has jurisdiction to hear the case filed by Guyana – Arbitral Award of 1899 (Guyana v Venezuela). Guyana’s Foreign Secretary Carl Greenidge made the disclosure while lecturing on the Guyana-Venezuela Controversy at the University of Guyana, Turkeyen Campus recently. In his in-depth presentation to the law students, the foreign secretary said Venezuela has until Thursday, November 28, 2019, to inform the ICJ whether or not it will be putting forward oral arguments on the court’s jurisdiction to adjudicate the matter. Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
Hong Kong Polytechnic University: Protesters arrested as they run from campus
Trump attacks another witness as his impeachment defense faces new tests
President Donald Trump's impeachment angst led him to fire off a new attack on a key witness and threatens to deepen in the frenetic week ahead with crucial testimony scheduled from officials caught in the middle of the Ukraine storm. But as is perpetually the case with the President, a brew of competing scandals and controversies will jostle for attention in Washington. That includes fallout from a mysterious and unscheduled trip to a hospital on Saturday, his fight against efforts to reveal his tax records and an apparent new tactic -- firing off searing attacks on witnesses who criticize him in televised hearings. Read more here
18th November 2019