NEWS
Local farmers being prepped to export to US
Local farmers were being trained and prepared to have their fresh produce exported to the US says National Agricultural Marketing and Development Corporation (Namdevco) CEO Nirmalla Debysingh-Persad. She was speaking yesterday as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) examined the audited accounts of Namdevco for the period 2008-2011 during a meeting at the Parliament building, Port of Spain. Debysingh-Persad said Namdevco sent a team to Canada to begin the registration process and seek opportunities to trade with the country. She said under food safety and export Namdevco was currently developing a good agricultural practices programme for TT that was certifiable and would be audited by foreign auditors. Read more here
Crackdown on illegal quarries, two held
Commissioner of State Lands Emeris Garraway-Howell and a team from the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands and Fisheries yesterday swooped down on two illegal quarries at Vega de Oropouche in East Trinidad. Acting on intelligence Garraway-Howell and her team together with police officers from the Northern Division Task Force Central Area went to a remote area where an illegal operation began about two months ago. The team, however, was off to a rocky start as they did not get the prompt assistance and support from the T&T Defence Force as initially promised. Read more here
POLITICS
Buy, don’t rent vehicles
In an attempt to minimise cost, opposition senator Wade Mark suggested that the Ministry of Works and Transport invest in maxis and heavy-duty vehicles at the Port of Port of Port of Spain instead of renting, as that would be more costly in the long-term. Mark made the statements during a Public Administration and Appropriation Committee sitting at Parliament yesterday in which he questioned why officials of the Port Authority spent over $2 million between 2006 to 2018 on the rental of maxi taxis for the transportation of port workers. Read more here
Minister welcomes President's education overhaul call
Education Minister Anthony Garcia is welcoming the call for a better education system as suggested by President Paula-Mae Weekes during the President’s Medal Award Ceremony 2018 Tuesday at NAPA. “Her Excellency’s view is shared by us at the Ministry as it coincides with the work that the Ministry is currently carrying out to improve the education system," Minister Garcia said. He added: "We have been able to, over the past three years, not only shift our focus to prioritizing literacy, numeracy and penmanship for all of our school-aged children, but also provide our students with the opportunity to excel in sports as well as the visual and performing arts. We have emphasised the importance of holistic teaching and learning and this is being reflected in the outcomes of our students. In this past academic year, we recorded the best performance in ten (10) years”. Read more here
BUSINESS
Another brick in the wall
Some surly, some bouncing off walls; children bring joy and frustration in equal parts. Lunch kits, stationery and the all-hallowed school bag are banged about or artfully arranged. All part of the start of the new term this week. The world is changing rapidly with increasing automation: the robots are coming. This will require wholesale education reform if we are to adapt. Before doing so, we must learn to read. The Adult Literacy Tutors Association (ALTA) and the University of the West Indies last reckoned that up to 23 per cent cannot read well enough to go about daily tasks – like reading a medicine label or a newspaper headline. Read more here
Sunwing interested in Magdelena Grand
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has met with a high-level executive team from the Canadian-based Sunwing Travel Group, just weeks after Sunwing began a service from Toronto, Canada to Tobago. The meeting took place today at the Diplomatic Centre, St Anns. The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) said that Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hunter, Vice President Daniel Diaz and Executive Vice President, Business Affairs Sabah Mirza represented Sunwing at the meeting. The statement by the OPM said discussions focused on Sunwing’s interest in an increased presence in Tobago including an interest in the operations of the state-owned Magdalena Grand Beach and Golf Resort. Read more here
Monteil and Duprey in $444m payoff deal
More than $400 million worth of shares was transferred by former CLICO Investment Bank (CIB) chairman Andre Monteil back into the company in exchange for it to negate a $78 million loan he had acquired to facilitate one of his own companies in 2007. Read more here
REGIONAL
$30M OVERRUN - Public Made To Cough Up $80m For Local Gov't Ministry's Tardy Renovation Works, Cites Auditor General
Poor planning and failure to do adequate due diligence have resulted in the public coughing up an additional $30 million for renovation work at the Hagley Park Road, St Andrew, offices of the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development. This caused the cost of the contract to move from $50.66 million to $80.66 million, the Auditor General's Department (AGD) has revealed. It was cited in the AGD's annual report for 2018 that 15 months after signing a lease agreement for the property, the ministry used what is called the 'Direct Contracting - Emergency' method to engage a contractor on March 15, 2018, to renovate 18 specified areas of the building, or 28,533 square feet, at a cost of $50.6 million. The contract specified that works would commence on March 9, 2018, and end on March 29, 2018, or lasting just 21 calendar days. Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
No way out: Trump walks out, Dems remain firm
Donald Trump's hatred of looking foolish and Democrats' conviction that they have a winning hand is leaving the President with no way out of the stalemate over his border wall. That means hundreds of thousands of federal workers, in limbo in a government shutdown that is within days of becoming the longest on record, are about to pay a heavy price when their paychecks don't arrive as normal on Friday. Far from moving toward a resolution, the shutdown, which started in the old Republican Congress and has stretched into the new Democratic House majority, is becoming more intractable by the day. Read more here
DR Congo presidential election: Outcry as Tshisekedi named winner
10th January 2019