The company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the PSTATT on October 25, one which NGC CNG said “will cover the incentive that will be valid until December 31, 2018.” Under the MOU, the first 40 drivers who purchase a new OEM CNG vehicle receiveTT $15,000 in fuel for a period of two years. Drivers who convert their existing diesel vehicle to CNG, will receive $7,500 in fuel for a similar term.

NGC CNG noted that diesel/CNG conversions typically have half the natural gas consumption of a gasoline or 100 percent CNG vehicle.

In all, 440 PSTATT members are being targeted and the total outlay for this incentive is $3.6 million.

NGC CNG is “leading a national initiative to switch to CNG from liquid fuel and represents its investment into this market segment to have new CNG users come onboard.” Its President, Curtis Mohammed, speaking at the MOU signing, said the company believes “the public transportation segment is critical to CNG’s nationwide adoption.” “In particular, the schools and young minds connecting with the fact that there are cleaner fuel options will auger well for firmly inculcating the right mind-sets,” Mohammed said.

Public Relations Officer of PSTATT, N’Dale Young, also spoke of the benefits of converting to CNG.

“We are not only able to offer drivers an alternative to price hiking in such a season but in some cases, may even be able to facilitate some reduction; although we are aware that accessing such benefits will require some start-up costs.

The PSTATT is pleased to be a catalyst of the movement to induce the use of cleaner fuel in our public transport system, not only towards the ecological benefits of reducing hydrocarbon emissions, but also to introduce innovative means of sustaining transport costs in an adverse economic climate where the end user (i.e. the parent) usually bears the total burden,” Young stated.

The NGC CNG will now be focusing more on getting drivers to convert their existing vehicles. Mohammed explained that this was the more cost effective option.

“Conversions represent a lower capital outlay for any owner/ user of a vehicle.

From a national perspective, there is less investment required via the conversions route than the new vehicle route. We believe that the new NGV (Natural Gas Vehicle) option is already taking root with the maxi taxis and we expect further growth with the PSTATT,” Mohammed said.

If fully subscribed, 440 PSTATT drivers would represent approximately 50 percent of the total number of vehicles registered to transport school children.

PSTATT’s stated mission is “To provide safe and efficient transportation services through fostering, promoting and fulfilling the needs of parents, students and/or personnel and school bus operators in Trinidad and Tobago.” NGC CNG a subsidiary of NGC, was incorporated in 2013 to accelerate the demand for CNG as an alternate vehicular fuel. In September 2016, the first registered CNG Maxis were launched.

At the same time, the dishonest media have forced him to concede to “political correctness”. Over the course of the long bloody 18-month suffrage he has honed himself and his message. What formerly seemed bigoted and outrageous, now seem coherent and conceivable. Here are ways in which this candidate has reconfigured himself, his message, and shifted the ground under CNN.

The wall: It is no longer a wall to stop Mexican aliens, illegals, convicts, rapists. It is a wall to protect illegal entry by Mexicans. And drugs.

An anti-open-borders wall. A wall to defend US sovereignty, from terrorist attacks. To defend the rights of those waiting in line for legal entry.

He has made subtle shifts all along the line to make his wall policy less reprehensible. He has also paid a visit to Mexico; and has discovered that he can work with the Mexican President.

Suspend Muslims: His initial call to suspend all Muslims from entering the US, until “we know what the hell is going on,” has shifted. He now speaks of “extreme vetting” of immigrants from those nations “prone” to producing terrorism. He insists on a pragmatic policy of d?tente with Russia to counter the Islamic State (also called ISIS), “radical Islamic terrorism”; but does not say, “We are going to knock the hell out of ISIS.” Afro-American and Latino rhetoric: Trump’s platform rhetoric on Afro- Americans has changed. They are no longer “these” or “those” people.

Or seen as antagonists. A lead CNN interview had sought to portray him as favourable to the Klu Klux Klan.

He has now vowed to bring education, jobs, factories to the inner cities.

He has vowed to “fix” poverty; to work on the ground, with a new contract for amelioration. He has repeated: “What do you have to lose?” He now uses vital, actual statistics to describe the deplorable living conditions of this “constituency”.

Left, liberals, blacks: The Trump phenomenon has destroyed the masks of many of the spokesmen for the left, liberal, and proverbial black agendas. These CNN “experts” and “contributors” have sold out their professed principles for the partisan cause of Clinton.

If they are anti-war, why do they support the hawk, the war candidate? If they are anti-Wall Street, why do they support the Wall Street candidate? If they are anti-establishment, big trade deal, big lobby, why are they supporting the candidate who makes pacts with these interests? Partisan and race politics have trumped mainstream left, liberal and black agendas; weakening and destroying their credibility.

CNN the fixer: As Trump has reformed, honed his agenda, CNN has been caught fixing the questions for the presidential debates.

The phony war: The Obama/CNN network has invoked a phony war in Iraq, late in the day, “against IS” in Mosul. It is a phony CNN+White House propaganda war because it magnifies considerably the dangers involved, with CNN staff walking over alleged IED minefields. It has been choreographed, primarily, to give the impression of success, strength; to halt Trump; to absolve the administration from their Middle Eastern debacles; and will cause more civilian deaths than anything else. Democratic terror.

The Augean stables: There is something rotting in the State of Denmark. The Augean stables need to be flooded out. We will drain the swamp. There is something holy, missionary, therapeutic, healing, cathartic about flooding out the stables.

The Clinton-CNN compact, ancient king and pope, is contaminated.

Trump has promised a new contract to curb the establishment; term limits for members of Congress, for example. He has been continually shedding skin, topping up himself, his game, his slogans. He has inspired the curiosity, the daring of the American imagination: the thirst for renewal, the fresh; the bold, the appetite for risk.

What will Trump actually do if he wins the White House? The question is mesmerising.

Trump has his CNN deniers banging on a cardboard replica of himself.

As the candidate has progressed, they have been left demonising an old Trump, a myth of their imagination, a chimera long gone. They are shuffling and jabbing at spaces long vacated.

Will Trump actually help America and the planet? American problems are deep-rooted, historical, systemic.

The objective conditions remain: a dependence on war, and an uncompetitive high-wage economy. When trade fails, empires resort to war.

If Trump beats CNN, the chief gospeller of America’s war machine, tomorrow, he will have to keep on doing so over and over again.

The owners have been for years tying their boats on weekends onto some wooden pilings abandoned by the Americans since World War Two.

Recently, the boat operator has built an illegal large wooden shack and cut off all the pilings at water level.

Now there is nowhere to tie the boats and the pilings which extend way out into the bay cannot be seen as they are now just under the surface of the water.

Death is on the way.

Pleasure craft whose owners are not aware of these pilings are going to start crashing into them and causing serious injury and death of children.

The Chaguaramas Development Authority, the Coast Guard, the Harbour Master and the Marine Police have to take immediate action and place marine markers to warn of this newly created marine hazard.

DR DAVID SALINGER Maraval

Councillors should also pay similar visits to these facilities that fall within their respective jurisdictions to familiarise themselves with the operators, staff and occupants and to offer assistance and support if needed.

Furthermore, it should be mandatory for such establishments to be registered and licensed with the local authority, and applications for annual renewal of licences should be accompanied by a recommendation from the councillor along with reports from the building inspector, public health officials and municipal police for the consideration of the council.

Should these reports contradict each other or run contrary to the councillor’s recommendation, then most likely something is amiss and the application should be deferred for further investigation and consideration.

Senior citizens’ home and day-care centres that are not registered and licensed should be inspected and made to comply with the necessary approved standards or face closure.

In my view, there is sufficient legislation in place to combat this violence perpetrated against our young and elderly, which has plagued our society for so many years.

What is clearly needed is to address the lack of human resources.

For one, there is a dire need for an infusion of trained social workers into the already overburdened system. This lack of social workers has been allowed to go on for years without adequate intervention.

What is urgently required is the adoption of “the prevention is better than cure approach” by placing more of these trained social workers in the field not just to detect the abuse but take the necessary measures to prevent the abuse.

However, elderly and child abuse is not only limited to senior citizens’ homes and daycare centres. It is found in the homes of the rich and poor as well.

Therefore, what is of paramount importance in the fight against this social evil is a civic- minded and alert citizen response to such abuse wherever it rears its ugly head. Citizens must report such known incidents to the relevant agencies.

It will be difficult for legislation and law enforcement to take root in the absence of an alert citizen response to the problem of elderly and child abuse, therefore an education and sensitisation drive needs to be mounted.

RISHI LAKHAN via email

His Excellency addressed the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community at the Chaguanas Borough Corporation last month and told them that no one race should feel superior or inferior over the other, in much the same way, that the country’s First Peoples must know that they are special to Trinidad and Tobago.

Chief Ricardo Bharath-Hernandez led members of his community to the Chaguanas Borough Corporation hall for a function dubbed “Champion of Peace”, to commemorate October 14 as a day of recognition for the First Peoples’ of this country.

Carmona bemoaned the fact that for a group of people whose ancestors have inhabited this country for hundreds, even way before Christopher Columbus, the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community were only celebrating 26 years of official acceptance of their identity, and 16 years of First Peoples’ day of recognition. “This type of maths simply does not add up.

And when it does,” Carmona said, “it tells a tale of woe and historical obscurity.” Carmona recalled for the community, that his paternal Venezuelan great-grandfather, was a Warao.

The Warao are Amerindians of the First Peoples’ of the Amazonia region along the Venezuelan mainland. The president described, “They are of the genre of cocoa panyol – deep brown, hard-faced men and women who worked on cocoa estates in Erin, Arima, Rancho Quemado and Palo Seco. My DNA is inextricably bound to the First Peoples and I do feel a deep sense of connection and bond to this culture, heritage and sometimes, to your sense of outrage.” Carmona told the Bharath-Hernandez group of the Santa Rosa First People’s community, that he was indeed taken back by the fact the it was cabinet note that gave recognition of this country’s First Peoples, and it did not occur out of the normal flow of what His Excellency described as “the natural flow of circumstances and historical consciousness”.

He said, “Why are the First Peoples’ all over the world subjected to this type of psychological torture, humiliation, marginalisation and denigration of having to fight for their own innate identity and recognition in order to be accepted by the outside world.” Carmona admonished citizens on how the country’s First Peoples are treated, perhaps how they dress, their intricate culture and their lifestyles. And, there might be a sense of hyprocisy, in that people do love their traditional food such as the paemi, arepa and pastelles.

He drew reference to the Maori peoples of New Zealand, where the ‘Haka’ is the war cry of sporting bodies there, and even becoming fully integrated in that society where citizens of all races, do the chant.

Carmona told the gathering that they must not lose hope that their advocacy to earn their rightful place, will bear fruit.

The Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago signed the Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on April 22, 2016, and ratification is receiving the active attention of the Cabinet, a release said.

In this regard, Trinidad and Tobago has submitted its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement, which is a commitment to reduce overall cumulative greenhouse gas emissions from the major emitting sectors of the economy – power generation, transportation and industrial sectors – by 15% by 2030 from Business as Usual (BAU), which in absolute terms amounts to one hundred and three million tonnes (103,000,000) of carbon dioxide equivalent.

To this end, the Ministry of Planning and Development is in the process of developing an implementation plan for the NDC, including a framework for monitoring, verifying and reporting, which is scheduled to be completed in January 2017.

In addition, the Ministry of Planning and Development is currently engaged in the formulation of a Climate Change Action Plan for Trinidad and Tobago involving, inter alia: • revision of the 2011 National Climate Change Policy • development of strategies for mainstreaming climate change into national development • building capacity at the institutional and community levels in terms of mitigation and adaptation strategies and increasing public awareness Trinidad and Tobago will be represented at the Twenty-Second Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22); the Twelfth Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 12) and First Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 1) taking place in Marrakesh, Morocco over the period November toda to 18 November, 2016 by a delegation of officials from the Ministries of Planning and Development and Foreign and CARICOM Affairs.

The draw is expected to take place today, at a media conference at Balisier House at 10am. This year’s competition would feature a second song category where finalists would have to perform a vintage social/political commentary calypso that they would know of only when it is drawn for at today’s media conference.

In a release issued to the media, the political party said, “Just over 65 calypsonians and songwriters responded to the PNM’s call for entries to the upcoming 60 anniversary competition.” The competition is a wider of the party’s 60th anniversary celebrations.

The release said over the past year the party has celebrated its anniversary with a number of activities including multi-religious events, constituency conferences, the Heliconia Foundation’s 60 years through art, a family day in Tobago and an exhibition at NALIS.

The party’s deputy political leader, Joan Yuille Williams said, “It was like 60 for 60. We are extremely pleased by the response of the public in such a short space of time.” “Imagine,” she said, “in just two weeks many of them recorded new music.

It was overwhelming.”

Speaking at the launch of NGC’s Bocas Literature Festival at the Tradewinds Hotel in San Fernando on Saturday, Loquan spoke about the importance of local and regional literature and pressed for greater visibility of the art form which he said, has been gaining more international acclaim over the last few years.

Loquan said, “There is a clear appetite for Caribbean literature.

The Caribbean collective has such a textured history, such cultural wealth that feeds compelling themes and complex characters. Why not relish in the cadence of our language and the riotous colours of our landscapes set in rich prose and poetry? For instance, why don’t we push for more local and regional titles to be read in schools?” Loquan praised Bocas founder Marina Salandy Brown and her team of less than six people for their task in organising the festival each year and contributing to the resurgence of Caribbean literature, both locally and internationally.

He said,”What Bocas has done is uncover treasures that may have otherwise idled in anonymity. I am certain that in the years to come, as the festival expands its audience, we will see more phenomena in the region, not simply because it inspires people to write, but because people who have written are stepping forward, finding an avenue for exposure in the Bocas Lit Fest.” The event also celebrated a year of achievement in Caribbean literature.

Writers Vahni Capildeo, winner of this year’s Forward Prize for poetry, and Danielle Boodoo- Fortune, winner of the Wasafari New Writing Prize for poetry, were in attendance alongside former Commonwealth Short Story Prize co-winner, Sharon Millar and local literature legend Michael Anthony. This year, Bocas has partnered with the Miami Book Fair international, the largest literature festival in North America, and will be sending 11 Caribbean writers to participate in the Fair’s new programme “Read Caribbean.”

According to a member of the board, when dorms on the premises were demolished a year ago, people were concerned that they had closed. She said people have their own ideas about the Home, and the Open Day allowed them to get a feel for what the Home is and does.

Therefore the Open Day was part of the Home’s strategic plan to have the institution better understood by the community.

It was also a way for the 35 children residing at the Home to socialise, and for members of the public to see the children in their own environment.

Residents of the St Michaels Home for Boys and the St Jude’s Home for Girls were also invited to take part in the activities which included a bouncy castle, games, booths from the Children’s Authority and the Centre for Human Development, an alumni booth, a craft display by some the Home’s children, and performances by both current and past residents of the Home.

The party, which boasts of representing the labour movement, launched its Local Government election campaign at the San Fernando City Auditorium, Harris Promenade, San Fernando yesterday.

In delivering the feature address, MSJ political leader, David Abdulah, dismissed both the ruling PNM administration and Opposition UNC as not being interested in reform of the Local Government system saying both parties were only interested in keeping power in the “hands of a powerful small elite.” “Real reform has to do with giving people power where they live and that is in their communities,” Abdulah said, and noted that the PNM had produced a number of papers on Local government reform, starting with a white paper in 2004.

“We can’t trust the PNM when they say reform that is real,” he said, adding, “because the culture of the PNM has always been that of a maximum leader.” He said there were only two contenders for the borough of Arima and Point Fortin and that was the PNM and the MSJ saying the Point Fortin borough was being referred to as the borough of sorrows after 30 years of PNM control.

And citing a newspaper report which alleged a pay out of millions of dollars to certain contractors, Abdulah called for an audit by the Board of Inland Revenue into those contractors to ensure that the were paying the required taxes. “We want to see the BIR audit every one of them…that is justice but we are not likely to see that in Trinidad and Tobago today,” he said.