NEWS
Minister: Go ahead, swipe your card
Finance Minister Colm Imbert yesterday assured the public that they can continue to use credit and debit cards at gas stations operated by State-owned National Petroleum (NP) to pay for their fuel from today onwards. Commenting on a decision taken by some gas stations dealers not to accept card payments and only take cash, Imbert said, “This has a direct effect on the credit card issued by the Government for the Government’s fleet.” He said this fleet includes vehicles used by the Police Service, other Protective Services and government ministries.” Saying this decision by some dealer could ground the Government’s fleet, “if this is allowed to proceed unfettered, “ Imbert declared, “As Minister of Finance, I will not allow that because the card is issued by the Ministry of Finance and there is an agreement with respect to the use of the card.” As a result, Imbert said, “We have issued instructions to all the gas stations that are owned and operated by NP....that they are to continue taking credit cards and debit cards and so on.” He added this action has, “reduced the number of possible stations that could do this (only take cash payments), to a relatively small number.” Read more here
Ria spotted in Venezuela
As Venezuelan news site Tane Tanae reports that missing Debe hairstylist Ria Sookdeo was sighted in Tucupita. Her father, Frankie Rajkumar, is pleading with investigators to go across there to search for his daughter. In a text message yesterday, corporate communications manager of the T&T Police Service Ellen Lewis said they had no information on Sookdeo being seen in Venezuela. However, she said Interpol would now be engaged to assist in the investigation. Speaking at his home yesterday, Rajkumar said he was at the Miracle Ministries International on Wednesday night when the news came over the television. Read more here
‘Public to access facilities, beach and car park at Pier 2’
The public will have access to the public facilities, public beach and public car park in the Pier 2 area in Chaguaramas, Minister of Finance Colm Imbert said yesterday. And a car park lease which would have seen the Government paying $300 million over a 30-year period while getting a mere $360 in income over the same period, has been squashed, Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young said yesterday. Both men were speaking on the issue of the controversial Chaguaramas leases at yesterday's post-Cabinet news conference at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair. Imbert said he would speak in generalities because the ink had not dried on the revised arrangement yet. He focused on one particular lease involving the Waterpark project, which he said the Prime Minister quite rightly believed privatised the waterfront and alienated the public from it. Read more here
POLITICS
Young: Jobs for security officers
Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) Stuart Young yesterday said jobs are being found for members of a security agency which once provided security for the OPM, the Official Residence of the Prime Minister and the Diplomatic Centre. He made this disclosure during the post-Cabinet news conference at the OPM in St Clair. Young said the reduction of members of this service over time was taken by the Cabinet. Read more here
Lecturer wants probe into Carmona on housing $$
In an historic move and in the midst of what she claims are death threats, University of the West Indies lecturer, Rhoda Bharath, has written to acting Commissioner of Police (CoP) Harold Phillips requesting a criminal investigation be launched into President Anthony Carmona and Chief Personnel Officer, Stephanie Lewis. Bharath has written the commissioner about the issue of the housing allowance granted to Carmona and which she said remained unresolved for two years. The investigation, she said, should centre around possible misconduct in public office. The letter to the CoP was written for Bharath by her attorney, Justin Phelps. It contained the advice of Queen’s Counsel Cathryn Mc Gahey who Bharath retained early this month concerning whether a request to the CoP to investigate the President, his secretary, Esther Daniel-Liverpool, and the CPO was justified. Read more here
Govt: Plenty questions on poverty report
The Government has many questions and concerns on the Poverty Report, not the least of which is the methodology used to get information. And this is why the Government, which had the report since February, did not make it public. The report was published exclusively in the Sunday Express, which obtained a copy of it. Speaking at yesterday's post-Cabinet news conference, Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young said the report was at the Finance and General Purposes Committee (F&GP) of the Cabinet. “It has received a lot of our attention... That is a report that was commissioned under the former administration. As soon as it was brought to our attention, we made a number of very critical questions... And the responses and answers we have gotten, we are not at all satisfied with, as to how that report was compiled, but it is still before that committee,” he said. Imbert, who is chairman of F&GP, said it was a 2014 report and any of its findings would relate to the previous period (2010-2015), so it had nothing to do with the present period. “That was issue number one,” he said. Read more here
BUSINESS
New CNG incentives coming
To stimulate demand for compressed natural gas vehicles, NGC CNG Company Limited has set a target of November 1 for increased conversions to CNG as the company rolls out its integrated marketing campaign. NGC CNG president, Curtis Mohammed said an announcement will be made shortly about new CNG incentives. He was speaking at a signing of the memorandum of agreement between D Rampersad and Company and Private School Transport Association of T&T (PSTATT) at Chan Ramlal Street, Chaguanas, on Wednesday. “We are going to be moving our focus from the new vehicle supply points—because the private sector could easily handle that—to conversions. In T&T we have about 800,000 plus vehicles registered. Most of those vehicles are not electric, they are gasoline and diesel and they can be converted to CNG. That’s actually where most of our target would reside and that’s where it is right now,” he said. Read more here
Foreigner most likely to buy ArcelorMittal
The purchaser of the ArcelorMittal steel plant in Pt Lisas will most likely be a foreigner, according to the liquidator in charge of selling the plant, Christopher Kelshall. Kelshall told theExpressyesterday that although advertisements have been displayed locally, the target market was an international one. Read more here
REGIONAL
'Heartbroken' - Family, Friends Of Murdered JC Student Struggle To Cope; Peaceful Protest Set For Monday
When Xavier Francis, father of slain Jamaica College (JC) student Nicholas Francis, gave him the location of his lunch money before he headed off to school on Wednesday morning, he had not even the slightest thought that that would have been the last time he would see his only child alive. "The last time I spoke to him was in the morning when he was leaving, and he asked me for his lunch money. I had some money on the dresser and I told him to take his lunch money out of it. He took it up and left," Francis told The Gleaner. Nicholas was killed by a man attempting to rob him on a Coaster bus near the JC school gate on Old Hope Road in St Andrew. The police yesterday said Quacie Hart, of an unknown address, was wanted for the murder of the 14-year-old student. Hart was asked to immediately turn himself in to the St Andrew Central Police Station. Read more here
CARICOM region urged to 'take a big view of agriculture'
Stakeholders in the regional agricultural sector have been urged to take “a big view of agriculture” as Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations continue to highlight the importance of food production to its economic and social development. The call on Wednesday by executive director of the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), Barton Clarke, came as he addressed the opening ceremony of Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA), which is taking place in the Cayman Islands until Friday. “We are in this business together. This business of addressing the challenges of addressing food and nutrition security for the Caribbean and all the people therein and this is a business that requires us to increase production and trade, to take a big view of agriculture,” Clarke told delegates. “At the same time, not leaving out the many small farmers that we have and recognising that our breath of undertaking, not only includes agriculture but also includes forestry and fisheries.” Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
ISIS 'executes' 232 near Mosul and takes 'thousands as human shields', UN says
ISIS has "executed" 232 people near Mosul and taken tens of thousands of people to use as human shields against advancing Iraqi forces, the UN says. A spokeswoman for the UN's human rights arm told CNN that the terror group had carried out the mass killings on Wednesday, punishing people who had defied its orders. "On Wednesday ISIS executed 42 civilians in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul. Also on Wednesday ISIS executed 190 former Iraqi Security Forces for refusing to join them, in the Al Ghazlani base near Mosul," said Ravina Shamdasani, of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Read more here
Nato sends a message to Russia
28th October 2016