The protest took place almost one week after the successful completion of bpTT’s Juniper project at TOFCO’s fabrication yard at the Labidco Industrial Estate.

The Juniper project is a US$2 billion investment in Trinidad and Tobago and one of BP’s largest start-up projects in 2017.

Under a blistering early morning sun, dozens of placard-bearing residents chanted traditional union songs such as “We shall Overcome” while simultaneously calling for employment opportunities.

La Brea Village Council president, Marlon Greaves, said one of the main reasons for the protest action was due to the lack of job opportunities for persons living in the neighbouring fence line communities of La Brea and Vessigny.

“The community has been supporting this project from inception, and promises were made to ensure the fence line people were given first preference for the jobs, but that is not happening,” Greaves said, adding, “there is a breakdown in the process, they utilising the Ministry of Labour and they finding it problematic using the Ministry of Labour, and the people from the area not getting the job opportunity.” “So the people came out today to have a peaceful protest because we are in support of the project but they just want to ensure that what was promised to them that they receive it,’ he said.

Greaves observed that La Brea residents were often stigmatised as not having employable skills saying a significant number had worked on the billion dollar Juniper project.

“There is a stigmatisation that they cannot do the job, but TGU was built here, the Juniper project just finish, so the people just need the opportunity to prove themselves,” he said. A meeting is expected to take place on Monday between the community and the company to hire persons from the community.

Caribbean Gas Chemical Limited (CGCL) is a joint venture enterprise led by the consortium of Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company Inc., Mitsubishi Corporation and local conglomerate Massy Holdings Ltd and would oversee the project development stage of the proposed Natural Gas to Petrochemicals Complex at Union Industrial Estate, La Brea, Trinidad.

“We (relatives) did not get a chance today (yesterday) to visit her school to talk to teachers or students to find out if they heard or knew anything.

So far, her cell phone is still switched off and so all calls are going to voicemail. Ever so often I still dial the number hoping to get an answer,” Mariah’s aunt, Natalie Baptiste, told Newsday.

On January 16, shortly after 5 am, Mariah left her mother’s home at Khan Trace in Fyzabad to attend classes at El Dorado. The mother, Crystal Baptiste, had accompanied Mariah “out the road” and watched her board a San Fernando-bound PTSC bus.

On arrival at San Fernando, Mariah telephoned her mother saying she was going to board a taxi to go Mount Hope. On arrival at Mount Hope, Mariah again telephoned her mother saying she was going to board a final transport (a car) to go to school.

That was the last conversation the mother and daughter had and relatives later learnt that Mariah never showed up for school that day.

In a statement issued on Thursday, the UWI Socialist Student Conference said youth and development are central to the UWI SSC advocacy, therefore any system that undervalues, harms and limits the possibilities for growth and the stability of a child ought to be challenged and discontinued.

It said that “Continuing the practice of child marriage continues to violate a child’s right to education, health, and equality and to live a life free of violence and exploitation.” According to the statement, the UWI Socialist Student Conference said, “We cannot make decisions about the lives of our children based on party affiliation and cultural practices simply for an uncritical commitment to “tradition”. Bureaucratic foot dragging and political partisanship have created a context of weak political leadership on providing protection for children and girls in the law on this matter.

The girls of this country are being attacked psychologically and physically and we need to put an end to it starting with the amendments to this bill and simultaneously change the way we understand and treat the girl child collectively.

We challenge the adults in parliament to listen to the majority voice of youth nationally against child marriage.”

The workshop is being hosted by the Port of Spain Office of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), in conjunction with the Counter Trafficking Unit of the Ministry of National Security. The training session is taking place at the Kapok Hotel, in Port of Spain.

Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Social Development and Family Service, Joy Persad Myers, in an address said while crime prevention and crime plans are developed with a focus on enforcement of the law, prevention of crimes through finding its root causes is also vital. Among the areas being covered over the four days are National and International Legal Frameworks, Global and Regional Trends, Victim-Identification Process, Criminal Matters and Victims’ Rights, Instructional Training Methods and The role of the Trainer.

A release from the Ministry of Planning and Development (MPD) said that objective of the collaboration is to develop a comprehensive plan to more effectively monitor, evaluate and remediate potentially contaminated sites, particularly in southwest Trinidad.

Discussion began on Thursday and among those present were Environmental Management Agency (EMA) Chairman, Nadra Nathai-Gyan, and Managing Director Hayden Romano, Petrotrin’s President Fitzroy Harewood, Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries Permanent Secretary Selwyn Lashley, and Ministry of Planning and Development, and MPD Deputy Permanent Secretary Beverley Khan.

Nathai-Gyan expressed support for the initiative which, she said, is aligned to the EMA’s mandate.

All parties confirmed their commitment to fostering a proactive approach to environmental management.

The meeting agreed that a draft terms of reference (TOR) for the engagement would be developed as a priority.

The TOR will define the responsibilities of all the parties in relation to implementation of the plan. The identification and assessment of all the possible sources of oil contamination (land and sea-based) from Mosquito Creek to Icacos, were also discussed as important considerations for the TOR.

The parties agreed to co-opt technical support of other local agencies/organisations to ensure that the undertaking is of a national scope and is relevant to current and emerging priorities.

A release from the Ministry of Planning and Development (MPD) said that objective of the collaboration is to develop a comprehensive plan to more effectively monitor, evaluate and remediate potentially contaminated sites, particularly in southwest Trinidad.

Discussion began on Thursday and among those present were Environmental Management Agency (EMA) Chairman, Nadra Nathai-Gyan, and Managing Director Hayden Romano, Petrotrin’s President Fitzroy Harewood, Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries Permanent Secretary Selwyn Lashley, and Ministry of Planning and Development, and MPD Deputy Permanent Secretary Beverley Khan.

Nathai-Gyan expressed support for the initiative which, she said, is aligned to the EMA’s mandate.

All parties confirmed their commitment to fostering a proactive approach to environmental management.

The meeting agreed that a draft terms of reference (TOR) for the engagement would be developed as a priority.

The TOR will define the responsibilities of all the parties in relation to implementation of the plan. The identification and assessment of all the possible sources of oil contamination (land and sea-based) from Mosquito Creek to Icacos, were also discussed as important considerations for the TOR.

The parties agreed to co-opt technical support of other local agencies/organisations to ensure that the undertaking is of a national scope and is relevant to current and emerging priorities.

The index measures the perception of business people and country experts about corruption in the country. It does not measure perceived corruption in the private sector. However, Transparency International recognises that the private sector is generally the source of the bribes paid to public sector workers, therefore it is equally to blame for TT ’s poor corruption perception.

The surveys were conducted over 24 months, essentially between 2014 and 2015, by five reputable and international institutions. Of 176 countries surveyed, TT was ranked 101 (2015: 72 of 168), the lowest among Caricom countries, except for Guyana and Haiti. On a scale of 100 to 0 where 100 is perceived to be very clean and 0 perceived to be highly corrupt, TT scored 35 (2015: 39).

There is the well-known saying that “a country gets the government it deserves”. That could be adapted to “a country gets the Corruption Perception Index it deserves”.

In our case, many individuals and leaders of corporate TT who have been complaining about government corruption over recent years are probably hanging their heads in shame over our country’s poor performance in CPI 2016. I would like to ask them: What, except for complaining and blaming others, have you done to fight the cancer of corruption in TT ? I suspect the majority have done nothing, which is par for the course in TT .

On the other hand, the Trinidad and Tobago Transparency Institute (TTT I) has been doing plenty (www.transparency.

org.tt) but with little recognition or support from those who complain the most. Since 1998, TTT I has been the only TT civil society organisation dedicated to fighting corruption through its promotion of transparency and integrity in public life.

A few members fight corruption in the trenches because it is a battle that has to be won if we are to leave our children a better country. Other members lend their support in the background through their membership fee.

It is understandable that many concerned people may not want to join TTT I members in the trenches to fight corruption but individuals and corporate TT can and should support its work by donations and/or becoming members for a small annual fee.

Let us put our money where our mouth is and make TT a better place.

Victor Hart via email

Watson Duke’s intentions may be clear. However his rhetoric is but a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

The already beleaguered Public Services Association president must now demonstrate that he is more than just hot air. He is most certainly brash and boisterous, and while this may work for union representation, the THA is dignified and is so guided, and so must he.

What the years have shown is that occasionally — and particularly in challenging times — some voters tend to react to changes.

The People’s National Movement had a drawdown of its approval rating as a result, so considering all the challenges and unreasonable demands, the elected State officials, having managed to stave off austerity measures, in itself is testimony of responsible governance, romped to a resounding election victory.

Colin Fortune Arima

Gerald Agostini via email

The general objective of the programme is to support the positioning of TT as a renowned location for global provision of Information Technology enabled Services (ITeS) so as to provide exports and jobs in the sector.

The project will target companies and entrepreneurs in the ITeS industry who are currently exporting and wish to expand or local companies that wish to compete internationally; support our diversification thrust.

At the outset it is important to identify the gamut of company types that such a definition, ITeS, covers. A report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that classifies the IT industry allocates 12 major areas for IT services.

One of these is business process management under which ITeS fall; these are traditional business activities that are enhanced or encouraged by other IT services/infrastructure, eg outsourcing of call centres or accounting or legal services. In another space I referred to these services as those for which we may have a comparative advantage as regards the client countries to whom we offer these services.

The activities of the Government’s ITeS programme are quality control and productivity improvements and management systems required by the target markets (eg ISO 9001).

The programme will also finance a survey of the ITeS companies operating in TT and those foreign companies that express an interest in investing locally and conduct a gap analysis to determine the specific needs for short-term technical training to increase the availability of qualified human resources.

Today the digital technologies that span the components, the required coding, telecommunications and their interconnections are all service technologies that underpin many of the modern-day innovations.

Hence, we should indeed be considering also the development of products and services that exploit the integrated use of these digital technologies.

For example, there was a need to improve the power factor of nonlinear arc furnaces in the steel plant. Using the digital technologies it was possible to smooth the electric demand by switching heating or lighting loads to compensate for the variation in the nonlinear arc furnace loads. The same technique was used in Dubai to minimise the size of electric cables in an unpredictable loading environment.

If we are to compete in the global market we either have to provide a service/product that the market leaders find less financially attractive to get involved in (benefit from a comparative advantage) — for example India’s ITeS out-sourcing or back-office processing — or offer a differentiated or novel product or service.

Given the limited human resource at our disposal, the class of IT that could give the greatest returns is one which makes us globally competitive; one in which we use the digital technologies to underpin the innovations in a priori chosen technologies/industry sectors.

Competitive advantage is acquired by what you do with the knowledge and the coding skills. For example, Israel is world renowned for its integrated IT products, but they are in one major area — security systems which are novel and globally competitive.

Locally, we have received patents (for novelty) in such systems where the invention is about, for example, improved DC motor control and in copyright, the control of power factor and peak power demand in nonlinear arc furnace loads in steel mills. They were all imbedded IT use, but the fundamental characteristic was that they derived their novelty from ideas in specific technologies (eg automatic control).

Hence, the Global Services Promotion Programme should be upgraded, or included in the country’s proposed innovation policy, which requires a foresighting exercise to choose the technologies/ industries in which we see ourselves acquiring both comparative and competitive advantage.

The programme attempts to put in place some aspects of an innovation system but ignores the fundamental requirements of centres of excellence, small and medium-sized enterprises creation, venture capital funding that would facilitate our diversification effort into IT.

Mary K King & St Clair King St Augustine