Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley expressed his disdain for the system introduced in 2013, while speaking at a PNM public meeting at Market Square, Point Fortin on Wednesday night, and said that the government is considering repealing the system.

“It was not genuinely any reform,” Rowley said.

“What it was, it was an attempt to use their arrangements to benefit a political party that might have not gotten any seat on a corporation. But at the time that they did that, they were afraid they would get no seat in Point Fortin, no seat in Diego Martin, no seat in Arima and so on.” The proportional representation system, introduced for the first time in the country’s history in 2013, allocated aldermen to regional corporations based on the number of votes earned in the election.

For a party to have one alderman, the party needed to earn at least 25 percent of the votes.

Rowley said that the system was implemented so that the Partnership could increase their chances of having a representative in the corporation through whom they could work.

“The existing law says that once the corporation ends and even before it ends, the minister controls local government and the minister controls the corporation and if they had got one alderman in Diego Martin, the Minister would have controlled the Diego Martin Corporation.

“If they had gotten one alderman in Point Fortin, it was their intention that the Minister would control the corporation even though the PNM had all the seats. That was their intention, you know?” But we have noted that intention and therefore it looks very likely, on consideration, that we are going to repeal that piece of foolishness.” The PNM political leader also said that the law which demanded that persons being considered as aldermen have their names listed and published before the elections, was intended to let the public know who aldermen were but actually caused “unnecessary confusion”.

“You know our people. We feel a-how very easily. So if I ask you to put your name on the list because I think you would be a good alderman in the borough, and you go in there with six, five other people, and they choose four and the other two were not chosen, they feel hard done by and of course some might even get angry. You create discord.” Despite the legislative changes, said Rowley, the PP still failed in their plan to win aldermen in Arima, Point Fortin and Arima.

“So the system failed. Their nefarious intention failed and I am sure that on November 28, when you come out to vote, the existing arrangements would not allow them to get any aldermen either.” In response, former Works and Infrastructure Minister, Surujrattan Rambachan, told Newsday, “That mechanism that was proposed by us was done so that we can have more people represented at local government and particularly the interest of minority parties who are often excluded from representation at local government.” Rambachan, the Member of Parliament for Tabaquite, added, “The fact that the prime minister cannot understand the philosophy of such an important piece of legislation that advances democracy and the opportunity for participation of the greatest number of people in the political process is regrettable.” He accused the PNM of being backward in still wanting to have a winner take all system.

As a result, Moses stated, “We’ll need to issue new documents … valid documents.” He said a meeting scheduled between officials from the TT embassy in Caracas and officials from the Servicio Bolivariano de Intelligencia National (the agency holding the five men) and the Venezuelan immigration authority did not materialise as planned on Wednesday.

He said his understanding was had that meeting happened, the five men could have returned home either today or next Monday.

“We are very hopeful that shortly such a meeting will be held and that will allow the actual issuance of the travel documents.

In short order thereafter, the persons could travel to TT,” Moses said.

He told reporters that while embassy officials have been treating with these detained people on an ongoing basis, they “have not been allowed visiting rights over the past year but we are hopeful that shortly that will take place.” Reiterating that the five men have been receiving whatever consular services they require from the TT embassy in Caracas, Moses said he was advised that the men are in good health.

“Overall we are very hopeful that they can be reunited with their families in TT,” he added.

Moses reminded reporters that the men were charged with conspiracy and espionage.

Acting Attorney General Stuart Young said things are in place for when the five men return to TT.

Stating that legal officers and national security officers have been properly briefed on the men’s situation, he said, “When the Venezuelan authorities return them to TT, we will deal with our nationals as they arrive.” Young added this would involve some kind of debriefing but he declined to give any further details, citing national security reasons.

On the eight people detained in Turkey who are believed to be TT nationals, Moses said, “Two of them don’t have valid travel documents.” He said these individuals are being held at a Turkish immigration facility and certain requirements need to be met before they can travel.

He reiterated there are a number of young people in the group and the group was “held trying to cross the border into Syria under suspicion of belonging to groups that are deemed to be illegal.” Moses declined to comment further, for security reasons.

However, the January 20 date of Trump’s swearing-in ceremony now allows enough time for the best bilateral efforts to work out a smooth handover of power and to assuage anxious segments of the US electorate.

Fortuitously, despite perhaps the most bitter campaign within living memory of US presidential elections, both Trump and Clinton, plus outgoing President Barack Obama, have each called on the electorate to heal its divisions.

Trump’s victory speech was conciliatory, praising Clinton’s hard work and service to country, and calling for unity among all, as he morphs from political bruiser into a President of all Americans.

“Now is time for America to bind the wounds of division. We have to get together,” said Trump. “To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people. It’s time. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be President for all Americans, and this is so important to me.

“For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, I’m reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.” The Trump camp yesterday called on America to wipe the slate clean of recent political spats to now make a fresh start and give Trump a chance.

Clinton, in a concession speech of grace and magnanimity, urged a peaceful transition to a new Trump administration.

“We must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our President,” she advised. “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power. We don’t just respect that. We cherish it.” President Obama on Wednesday lamented Clinton’s loss but urged all to be Americans first and patriots first, ahead of party loyalties.

“We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country,” said Obama of Trump. “We all want what’s best for this country.

That’s what I heard in Mr Trump’s remarks last night. That’s what I heard when I spoke to him directly.

And I was heartened by that.” This goodwill from the three leaders must be digested by electors in a deep introspection as to the nature of US society.

While Trump’s loose rhetoric in the campaign was pinned down by liberal media to tar him as racist, sexist and a religious bigot, leading to a narrative whereby his election win is the US electorate shifting towards a more intolerant, xenophobic stance, we can only hope for an alternative and less pessimistic narrative.

This alternative is of a not-so-intolerant electorate who in backing Trump simply did not believe him to be as bad as painted in the popular media, however much he himself had played up a bad boy image.

Time will tell.

Meanwhile, we salute Obama and Trump for the conciliation that characterised their White House talks yesterday.

Trump hailed Obama as “a very fine man,” while Obama told Trump, “If you succeed, the country succeeds.” “My number one priority in the next two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our President- elect is successful,” Obama pledged.

Trump replied, “Mr President, it was a great honour being with you and I look forward to being with you many, many more times.” If little TT can boast of peaceful handovers of governance, we are confident the US, with maturity forged from hundreds of years as a country, can now do so too. An unstable USA is not good news for Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean and, indeed, the whole world.

To say this was a complicated election is a gross understatement.

This happened to be an election between two hugely unpopular and often dishonest candidates: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. To say this election came down to race is oversimplifying a litany of American woes.

Without a doubt, there are WASPs (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants) who feel like an endangered species and voted for what they perceived to be their own self-preservation. Some voters clung to a sense of nostalgia.

They longed to return to a time when they felt a sense of control because they perceive that the new tapestry of ethnicities that define the US to be unravelling their experiences of the past defined by comfort and pride.

The problem is we can’t reclaim those bygone days. The world has moved on.

This election demonstrated how angry Americans are and how marginalised the middle class feels. People feel fed up with not being able to make ends meet; with working longer, harder hours — often shifts that prevent them from getting a second job — and getting less pay.

Yes, you can throw sexism, racism and xenophobia into the mix and pin that on many people who voted for Trump, but those three evils do not define the US.

The US that I know is defined by its independence, fairness and resilience. These three qualities will see us through the troubled times ahead.

You only have to look at the Civil Rights Movement and the election of Barack Obama as President of the US to know how many brave people have stood for independence and fairness. Many people have put their lives on the line for those principles. In trying times — including economic, political and environmental disasters — Americans have proved to be a resilient people.

The US is a country that is really made up of 11 nations — separate areas defined by their history and their ethnicity, and yet it manages to function as a whole with differences that keep surfacing over time. The US began as a shaky confederacy of 13 colonies that functioned as separate countries, and it formed a union that met its challenges and ironed out its differences — not always quickly or perfectly, but most often to a workable degree.

This is the only election I have ever voted in which made me feel sad, scared and worried about what the future holds. It was totally void of the values I hold dear: honesty, integrity and fairness, yet I know these values exist and they will resurface in US culture.

It is an election which will define the US well beyond the fouryear term that Trump will serve because he will likely be appointing four Supreme Court justices.

He will choose conservative justices who will leave their mark on society for the next 50 years.

And yet, this is an election that has renewed my sense of duty to a country that I have not lived in for some time. I don’t take my history or my citizenship for granted.

I know there is work to do and I have to find ways to make a difference in both countries that I hold dear : Trinidad and Tobago and the US.

Let the work of healing begin.

A number of things can take place within that four month period.” Young gave no hint as to what those things could be but reiterated, “I guarantee to the population that there is very good reason why there has not been service of these documents as yet and why these documents have not been made public as yet.” On the alleged threat by John and Ramdeen, Young said, “There is no procedure within which you can be forced to serve proceedings.

The Government has been very, very careful not to indicate who the defendants are. That is for a very specific purpose that you are permitted to utilise before serving proceedings.” Told by a reporter that John allegedly claimed Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi released documents to the public without disclosing any information, Young replied, “Why is Miss John so anxious? The AG released absolutely no documents whatsoever.

So until there has been service of the proceedings I think everyone should allow the process to take place.” Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley first spoke about the high court action at a post-Cabinet briefing at the OPM on November 3. He raised the matter in response to a statement by Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar who claimed a zero percent offer which Finance Minister Colm Imbert spoke about at a conference on November 2 was a declaration.

of war against hard-working citizens.

“Yes the government has declared. war but the war is not on. government employees or the. working class. The war we have. declared is on corruption and on. those people who have made it a. career of stealing public money,” Rowley said. He added that at the exact time that Imbert was speaking on the zero percent position, the Office of the Attorney General was filing, “the first action by the government against persons who have improperly removed money for their own benefits.”

According to reports, officers led by Snr Supt Totaram Dookhie and including Cpl Lutchman and others executed a search warrant at the guest house and detained the foreigner after a search of a room booked in his name resulted in the seizure of US$168,000; an electronic device used to skim ATMs and a quantity of bank cards among other items.

The man was taken into cusotdy and was being questioned at the Fraud Squad office in Port-of- Spain.

Police sources said the Bulgarian is believed to have entered the coutnry at the end of October and linked up with local criminals involved in the ‘skimming’ operation in which devices are placed in ATMs which then ‘read’ the personal identification codes entered by persons wishing to withdraw money from their accounts via the ATMs. The information is then transferred onto a dummy bank card which is then used to clean out the unsuspecting person’s bank account of funds. Police have sourced the services of an interpretor to assist in the interrogation process.

Sources revealed that the abandoned house where the suspect was held was once occupied by persons who were forced to flee that home by a well-known gang leader of the area.

The suspect and some of his associates are believed to have been using that house as a hideout after several illegal acts were committed.

Newsday understands that the suspect was taken to the Port-of-Spain CID and was expected to be interviewed by officers of the Criminal Gang and Intelligence Unit, yesterday.

The cellphone was handed over to officers of the Cyber Crime Unit and police believe that after the man is questioned they may be able to unearth some high-powered weapons in circulation along the East-West Corridor.

The arrest was made by a party of officers from the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) under the supervision of Snr Supt Rajkumar.

The same team of officers also went to a house in Barataria shortly after 11 pm on Wednesday and found a fully grown marijuana tree in a flower pot in a bedroom occupied by a 24-year-old Venezuelan man.

The owner of the house and the Venezuelan man were taken into custody. The latter is expected to be deported soon.

He said it is crystal clear how the seven percent online tax will apply, being chargeable only to end-user consumers as defined by the Electronic Transactions Act, passed under the former People’s Partnership (PP) regime.

Accusing the Opposition of feigning ignorance over that Act, he said it is time to raise the standard of debate in the House.

“The (online) tax is applicable to a consumer, who brings in a good by air transportation using an electronic transaction and the good is enterred from a transit shed,” Imbert said. “It has nothing to do with the person who is passing through Piarco (Airport) with a suitcase.

It is also patently obvious that if somebody buys a gift for you and ships it through, that is not something that is acquired by an electronic transaction originating in TT.

“The whole intent of the measure is to dampen demand for foreign goods that create leakage of foreign exchange out of TT, so if someone in the US buys something using their own US$ in the US that has not an iota on the foreign exchange situation in TT. “If you are importing things for your business – raw materials for distribution and sale and retail- those items are subject to the online tax. It is simply for a consumer who buys something on Amazon or Best Buy or any of these online retail stores for their own personal use, not as a distributor, wholesaler or businessman.” “Online shooping is not a good thing for a developing countrybecause it contributes to economic leakage,” he added. Otherwise he refuted Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal’s complaint that the proposed corporate tax hike on earnings over $1 million will be a disincentive to private firms building public housing. Imbert also said a registered trader in houses is exempt from tax, so the tax-hike does not apply to such persons, and that Moonilal should know that. The House adjourned to Friday November 18 at 1.30 pm to deal with the Gaming Bill.

She said she was not prepared to prolong the matter any further and instructed attorneys to adhere to the court’s time-lines for the filing of submissions.

Defence attorney Criston J Williams, who has raised the objections to evidence which the prosecution seeks to introduce at the inquiry, has until November 17 to file his written arguments and the State was given until November 24 to respond. The inquiry has been adjourned to November 24, as well. Those charged with murdering Seetahal are former LifeSport coordinator Rajaee Ali, his brothers Ishmael and Hamid Ali, Devaughn Cummings, Ricardo Stewart, Earl Richards, Stephan Cummings, Kevin Parkinson, Leston Gonzales, Roget Boucher, and Gareth Wiseman.

Rajaee Ali is also charged with being a gang leader while his wife Stacy Griffith is the lone woman before the court. She is charged with committing an act for the benefit of a gang. Seetahal was shot dead behind the wheel of her SUV after being ambushed by gunmen along Hamilton Holder Street, Woodbrook, on May 4, 2014. The prosecution is being led by Senior Counsel Gilbert Peterson, Assistant DPP George Busby and Elaine Greene, while Criston J Williams, Karunaa Bisramsingh, Joan Osbourne and Randal Raphael appear for the accused persons.

The teens, aged 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 were allegedly held in a marijuana field located off Arena Road, Freeport by officers of the Central Division Task Force during an anti-crime exercise in the area on Wednesday. PC Kristian Khan of the Central Division Task Force laid the charges against the youths.

Approximately 350 marijuana trees were allegedly uprooted and destroyed. The boys have been described by police as school dropouts.

Magistrate Joanne O’Connor adjourned the matter to December 8.