Petrotrin trounced Paragon 12-3 with Evan Farrell tallying six goals – in the third, fourth, sixth, ninth, 16th and 20th minutes, while Solomon Eccles (second, sixth and 40th) and Wayne Legerton (13th, 14th and 34th) adding one apiece.

Kiel Murray (19th), Isaiah Scott (22nd) and Joel Daniel (33rd) were the goal-getters for Paragon.

However, it was a completely different story when Petrotrin squared off against Malvern, with Malvern romping to a 11-3 victory.

Teague Marcano notched a beaver-trick (first, 24th, 27th and 36th), while Kristien Emmanuel (ninth, 23rd and 35th) contributed a hat-trick. Also among the scorers were Tariq Marcano (sixth and 22nd) and Daniel Byer (34th and 40th).

In related news, the lists of semi-finalists were announced by the TT Hockey Board. Shandy Carib Magnolia, Paragon, Malvern and Harvard Checkers will feature in the women’s section, while Queen’s Park, Malvern, Paragon and Fatima will participate in the men’s division.

The semi-finals will take place on Saturday and Sunday.

Other Results – Men’s Division – FATIMA (3) – Jordan Vieira 10th, 15th; Che Modeste 19th vs DEFENCE FORCE (1) – Javon Woodward 40th.

MALVERN (6) – Teague Marcano 11th; Kristien Emmanuel 15th; Daniel Byer 24th; Kieron Emmanuel 28th, 30th; Jeshajah Drayton 35th vs QUEEN’S PARK (6) – Jerry Bell 2nd, 18th; Shawn Lee Quay 6th, 20th; Jordan Reynos 23rd, 36th.

DEFENCE FORCE (5) – Dylan Francis 6th; Shane Legerton 24th, 38th; Neil Lashley 26th; Marcus James 39th vs PARAGON (5) – Cogie Butler 10th, 26th; Syl Sinnette 19th; Isiah Scott 24th; Kiel Murray 27th.

QUEEN’S PARK (8) – Shawn Lee Quay 2nd, 4th, 22nd; Kadeem Fortune 8th; Marcus Pascall 13th, 20th; Jerry Bell 16th; Michael Durity 17th vs FATIMA (1) – Jordan Vieira 10th.

QUEEN’S PARK (4) – Kadeem Fortune 24th, 26th; Aidan de- Gannes 28th; Raphael Govia 33rd vs PARAGON (2) – Kiel Murray 8th; Syl Sinnette 30th.

Women’s Division – PARAGON (4) – Kristin Thmpson 1st, 5th, 20th; Gabrielle Thompson 19th vs HARVARD CHECKERS (3) – Yesenia Luces 8th, 21st; Reyah Richardson 33rd.

SHANDY CARIB MAGNOLIA (4) – Kaitlyn Olton 13th; Saarah Olton 23rd, 38th; Savannah de Freitas 38th vs MALVERN (4) – Krizia Layne 20th, 20th, 24th, 30th.

The girl was taken to hospital a few weeks ago after she complained of severe pain in her abdomen.

When doctors examined her, they discovered she had a ruptured colon as a result of a severe beating.

Members of the Western Division were called and a 39-year-old nurse was questioned in connection with the alleged beating.

Emergency surgeries were done on the toddler who was placed on a life support machine. Her parents were told she may not have made it, but she began showing signs of progress and was taken off the life support machine.

Her parents believe that prayers and the support from doctors and staff at the hospital are responsible for their daughter still being alive.

Thirty-nine-year-old nurse, Roxanne Oliver, who was charged with two offences connected to the beating of the child has already appeared in court for the offences.

C&W is a full-service communications and entertainment provider operating in the Caribbean and Latin America .

This internationally recognised information security standard has rigorous requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually improving a company’s Information Security Management System (ISMS) .

“By achieving compliance with ISO 27001, C&W continues to apply best practices in data security which demonstrates its commitment to protect the most valued asset of enterprises large and small: their information. It’s part of a number of measures to meet customer and market requirements in all geographies in which C&W operates,” said Shuja Khan, chief commercial officer, C&W Communications .

The certification is valid for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) and Security Operations Center (SOC) services. Achievement of this standard was the result of a 12-month organisation-wide effort .

In preparation for the independent audit, C&W Business conducted comprehensive internal audits and risk assessments to ensure all required controls were in place. The independent audit was performed by DAS, a UK based audit firm accredited by UKAS. According to Khan, “C&W Business will continue investing to ensure our infrastructure is safe and resilient to any potential attacks, and to honour our obligation to our customers and other stakeholders that the company will be vigilant in keeping our customers’ data safe and secure.”

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced the appointment of the new board during an early morning news conference at Piarco International Airport on September 1 as he left the country for a week-long vacation and medical checkup in California, USA.

Rowley said achieving this turnaround will call for “a certain amount of resolution, a certain amount of robust examination and a certain amount of acceptance that the situation is very serious.” He said that Petrotrin had run up huge debts, “significant liabilities which the company cannot now discharge” and those liabilities have to be paid by the Minister of Finance even while the minister is struggling to pay other expenses of the country.

He said the first of those debts is a single payment of US$850 million which comes due in 2019, with a similar but smaller payment to be paid shortly afterwards. While the company is carrying these huge debts, Rowley pointed out that its oil production has been falling considerably and its infrastructure is old and poses concerns, including safety issues and the risk of oil leaks into the Gulf of Paria which could pollute the Venezuelan coastline with “huge consequences.” Rowley said the cost of cleaning up an oil spill of such magnitude could bankrupt the country.

He said the company’s refinery was also a cause for concern, because at current oil prices, it was refining oil at a loss. He said it was questionable whether the current arrangement under which the State has to give Petrotrin money to buy oil to refine and lose money doing so was sustainable.

He described them as serious issues, adding if they are not addressed promptly and creatively they can threaten the country’s financial arrangements and result in the downgrade of Trinidad and Tobago as a whole, which in turn would increase the cost of borrowing when the country needs to borrow.

Rowley said that Petrotrin needs to begin drilling for oil almost immediately.

“Oil is in the ground and if you don’t drill you don’t get it. Petrotrin has not been drilling, has not been able to drill largely because of its serious financial constraints, and if you don’t treat with those financial constraints your very existence is to be questioned because if you cannot drill…an oil company that cannot execute a drilling programme and bring oil onto the market is on the wrong track.” He said “significant” sums of money would have to be spent to upgrade Petrotrin’s infrastructure, beginning with the parts which are of greatest priority and is one of the earliest matters the board will have to deal with.

He named Reynold Ajodhasingh as vice chairman. Other Board members are: Joel Harding; Nigel Edwards; Anthony Chan Tack; Linda Rajpaul; Eustace Nancis; Randhir Rampersad and Selwyn Lashley Rowley said these men and one woman had been carefully selected for their business experience and expertise in their chosen fields. It was not a clean sweep, as the prime minister admitted that two members of the previous board had been re-appointed. “We were looking for a particular skillset and in looking at the skillset we brought in new people and we kept some people.” He said in the Cabinet discussions it had been decided to rotate the board members so that the entire board is not changed at the same time. He added that it wasn’t possible to do it this time but in the future “a certain number of persons would come off the board and a certain number would stay so that at any given point in time you would have continuity on the board.” Reached by Business Day for comment, Espinet said the board had not been appointed nor sworn in as yet and so he could not speculate as to what their priorities would be. He said that upon being sworn into office he imagined the Government would give directions on its objectives for the company. He declined to discuss the operational requirements, saying they all seem pressing. Nevertheless, Espinet said it was clear that Petrotrin is not viable in its current form and the first thing the board will have to do is establish credibility so that it could bring governance to the process of managing the company.

He said the committee set up by the government to study the company was very clear that nobody could come in from the outside, read a few reports and come up with a solution for Petrotrin.

He added that Petrotrin is very big and complex, and the committee was very clear that a system and structure of proper governance is what is required. The question is how to give the company’s stakeholders the comfort that what is going to be done is going to be done properly.

According to Espinet, the board will have to get clear in its mind what are the company’s objectives because there was confusion over Petrotrin’s objectives. However, he said when they get their instruments of appointment they will be given clarity on what are the objectives of the company and then the directors will have to respond, “first and foremost to the company.”

Wilfred Espinet Wilfred Espinet, named by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley as the new chairman of the Board of Petrotrin, has extensive international experience in manufacturing, shipping and retail in several countries. He is currently chairman of Trinidad Cement Limited; Aeromarine International Logistics company; Mayfair Trinidad Limited; Caribbean Express Limited; and Towers Marina Limited. He was executive director/ vice president of Associated Brands Company Limited from 1974 – 1993.

Reynold Adjodhasingh Petrotrin’s new vice chairman, Reynold Adjodhasingh has 34 years of experience in the oil and gas industry in Trinidad and Tobago; Egypt and Azerbaijan. He has worked with Texaco; Amoco and BP and says his experience is mainly in finance, accounting, control, systems implementation and ethics and compliance.

“I have held executive leadership positions at BP in Trinidad and Tobago and Azerbaijan, managing large teams in diverse cultural settings, building talent, driving change and efficiency, delivering results with high standards of ethics, compliance and integrity.” He holds a BSc in Industrial Management with Honours from the University of the West Indies; was BP’s Regional head of Control and Financial operations for its Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey region from 2010-2016 and from 2001 to 2010 was head of Control and Financial Operations at BP Trinidad and Tobago.

Joel Harding Joel Harding has been an international Commercial/Contract and Procurement manager with over 30 years in commercial management of projects in energy, commercial, mixed-use and residential markets in Trinidad and Tobago for British Gas and served in Dubai and Azerbaijan for Mace International. In Dubai, he was senior procurement specialist on the construction of the Dubai World Trade Centre and was responsible for all Mace International’s procurement in Azerbaijan. He served as Contracts and Procurement manager with British Gas Trinidad and Tobago from 2004-2007.

Nigel Edwards Nigel Edwards has been vice president, Finance, of the Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation since 2013. He has held positions of chief executive officer at TATIL Life Assurance Limited; executive director – Investments at TATIL Life Assurance; and Finance director at ANSA Merchant Bank. He is a member of the Association of Chartered, Certified Accountants (ACCA), holds an MSc in Finance from the London Business School and a BSc in Management Studies with Second Class Honours from the University of the West Indies.

Selwyn Lashley Selwyn Lashley is Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs.
A lawyer, he also holds an MSc in Natural Gas Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of the West Indies.

Linda Rajpaul Linda Rajpaul is an attorney with the law firm B.D. Hewitt and Company and holds certifications in Pension Administration, Alternative Dispute Resolution and Procurement. She has served as legal consultant specialising in corporate, succession and land law; provided legal consultancy services to the Port of Spain City Corporation; the Housing Development Corporation; the Vehicle Maintenance Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (VMCOTT). Among other things, she also served on a team to negotiate and make recommendations for the upgrade of Petrotrin’s Pointe a Pierre refinery.

Anthony Peter Chan Tac k Anthony Peter Chan Tack is a chemical engineer who has served as chief executive officer at TITAN Methanol Company; managing director of Methanex Trinidad Unlimited and president of Atlas Methanol Unlimited. In his resume, he cites four years of experience in project management and plant management of world scale methanol plants; and 34 years of experience in process and project engineering. He served as a director of Petrotrin from 2002 – 2008 and held various senior and executive management positions for some 26 years.

Eustac e Nancis Entrepreneur Eustace Nancis describes himself as a strategic thinker and planner with outstanding leadership and team building strengths which generates optimum productivity and performance.

He is “committed to accomplishing corporate objectives with a proven history of delivering exceptional profit results,” he says in his resume. He started his first business, a welding shop, in 1980, then established the Arima Door Centre in 1984.

In 1994, he formed Arima Door Centre Holding Company Limited as a real estate development company; then in 1999 he formed General Farms Limited to supply poultry products and in 2001 he established Polyplas (2002) Limited to manufacture plastic water tanks. In 2007, he founded the Savannah Greens Development Company, a land development company.

Randhir Rampersad Randhir Rampersad is a mechanical engineer with a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Florida Institute of Technology. He is operations manager at Industrial Engineering Specialists Limited; Import Sales manager at Heavy Equipment Imports and Logistics Limited.

Customers and other people fled upon hearing the gunshots, but returned shortly after to see Francis lying face down in a pool of blood. Members of the Arouca Police Station and the Homicide Bureau Region 2 are continuing investigations.

As he signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) at the ACS Secretariat, Sweet Briar Road, St Clair, on Monday during the formal opening of the 25th meeting of the ACS’ Special Committee for Disaster Risk Reduction, two days before the Hurricane barrelled across islands in the northern Caribbean, Anthony said one of the strengths of the CCRIF was its ability to make payments within 14 days to territories hit by natural disasters.

Anthony said that the facility was established in 2007 and seven years later it was restructured to facilitate its expansion into new products and geographic areas. He said it is the world’s first regional fund using parametric insurance, a type of insurance in which payout is triggered when specific conditions, or parameters, are met.

Because the parameters are already specified, experts say no loss adjusters are needed, allowing for speedy payments, and Anthony said the CCRIF has consistently provided payments within 14 days of an event.

Since 2007, Anthony said, CCRIF has made 22 payouts to ten member governments totalling US$70 million. Following the passage of hurricane Matthew last year, CCRIF paid US$29.2 million to four member countries affected by that hurricane: Haiti, Barbados, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines. He said the majority of the payment – US$23.4 million – went to Haiti under its Tropical Cyclone policy which surge and its Excess Rainfall policy Over the years, the facility has entered into MOUs with eight organisations, including the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA); the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS); the University of the West Indies (The UWI); the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the UWI Seismic Research Centre.

Anthony added that immediate access to liquidity is critical for governments following a disaster, for, while the international community provides relief, those funds are often slow to be released, taking as many as six to 12 months.

Government borrowing and reallocation of funds in their budgets also takes time and smaller governments such as those in the Caribbean and most of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS), with their high debt burdens, can no longer afford to self-finance disaster risk. He said the facility is an excellent financing option for the region in which countries can invest in national catastrophic risk insurance to assist in covering the cost of recovery from natural disasters, noting that the CCRIF operates as a not-for-profit mutual organisation and all the residual profits made by the facility goes back to members.

Signing for the ACS was its Secretary General Dr June Soomer, who welcomed the initiative, saying that the ACS works closely with all its partners.

During the meeting, the ACS’ director of Transport and Disaster Risk Reduction, Arturo Lopez-Portillo, presented a report on the various projects being undertaken by the ACS in Trinidad and Tobago and the region to improve the readiness of various institutions to deal with natural disasters, as well as the organisation’s work programme for 2017-2018 and beyond.

However, Soomer said that while the ACS is involved in several projects to help the region build capacity to prepare for storms and hurricanes, “We think that we can do a little more because our aim is to help countries rebuild better and if we are able to move into these countries very quickly when they are rebuilding (we can) show them what standards they should use.” She hastened to add that because of the number of hurricanes which have hit the region over the years, the countries have very good systems in place. “But we want to see fewer lives lost. We have countries where people are still dying during a storm and one of the things we want to insure is that we give them the information, we help them to build the capacity to make sure that we have that impact on the ground during a storm.” She said the ACS works very closely with the civil defence system in Cuba which she said was very good, reflecting that she could not remember the last time someone died in a storm in Cuba because of the methods that they use. She said the ACS wanted to share some of those techniques with its member states. The people of the greater Caribbean are right now living through the torrential rainfall brought by hurricanes, tropical storms and tropical depressions, she noted.

The flooding along with several landslides and a major power outage in Cedros and Rancho Quemado and environs led to scores of families becoming marooned inside their homes yesterday morning.

Classes at the Cedros Secondary and Cedros Government Primary schools were suspended for the day because of the flood in Bonasse Village. Damages to household appliances and personal belongings could run into the thousands of dollars.

Affected residents have laid the blame for their dilemma squarely on the shoulders of the councillors at the Siparia Regional Corporation (SRC) who they accused of fighting inside the council instead of taking care of the needs of their burgesses.

According to the distressed residents in Rancho Quemado, all their complaints over the last few months have fallen on deaf ears.

At around 3 pm yesterday, councillor for the area Arlene Ramdeo toured the flooded region. She too blamed internal bickering in the SRC for the failure to complete dredging of rivers and drains in the area.

Among the families affected in Rancho Quemado were Laurencia Garcia, 30, her husband Darren Garcia, 32, their five-year-old daughter Delicia along with neighbour/ proprietor Sherry Mohammed, 36, and her family which includes her one-year-old daughter Abigail and husband Alban Coutou.

Mohammed told Newsday her mini-mart, on the ground floor of her home became flooded during the heavy rains.

“There is nowhere for the water to run off and it keep backing up into people’s homes,” the upset woman told Newsday. “|The drains need dredging but nothing is being done about it.

“This is not the first time and we are fed up.” Rains had been pounding since eight o’clock on Tuesday night.

According to Mohammed, the river overflowed its banks and water began entering her business place/home.

“Everything in my cupboards just floating around,” Mohammed said. She said her family was forced to stay in the water as their home’s upstairs apartment was being renovated.

Ramdeo told Newsday: “There is a lot of flooding in Rancho (Quemado) the rivers need to be dredged. We tried it with the small excavators in the regional corporation but they couldn’t do the work.

“We are now in the process of contracting big excavators to clean the rivers.” Ramdeo said because of the high absenteeism of councillors, the corporation was unable to get monies passed to contract the excavators.

Up to 3 pm yesterday, crews from T&TEC along with equipment from the Ministry of Works and Siparia Regional Corporation were kept busy in Cedros and environs as they restored power and removed five mud slides from along the Southern Main Road, Cedros, which made the roadway impassable.

The clean-up was monitored by Cedros councillor Shankar Teelucksingh who expressed satisfaction with the work carried out by the authorities.

Lloyd made these comments after both Ravi B and Machel Montano were confirmed for the Digicel Post Game LIVE show carded to take place on Saturday at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy, Tarouba.

Ravi B noted ahead of his performance, “I am extremely excited to be performing at the finals, especially since it is being held in Trinidad. The CPL T20 tournament has such a huge following, I look forward to see who comes out victorious.” Digicel has also provided a solution for those unable to attend the finals as they can catch all the action on CPL’s dedicated channel on the Play Go app. The company also recently launched a promotion as an extension of its Quick Pick bundles offer that allows one lucky customer from the Caribbean to win a trip to the Finals for themselves and three of their friends to hang out with Machel.

In 2016, Digicel and Machel forged a three-year partnership which includes delivering exclusive and unique multimedia content to customers across multiple platforms and devices.

On November 13, 2015 Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley laid the Whistle-blower Protection Bill, 2015 in the House of Representatives.

According to Attorney General Faris Al Wari, the proposed Bill is intended to combat corruption by encouraging disclosures of improper conduct and wrong doing in public office. It was the AG’s hope that the Bill would be passed in the Parliament by July 2016, but alas this has not happened.

We are now in September 2017 and I feel that the public may owe some gratitude to the alleged “PATT leaker”, and because we have no such legal protection, he/she may face disciplinary action, possibly up to the extent of his/her dismissal if the allegation is established.

The term “leaker” has become more popular since the Trump presidency in the United States.

However, in more developed countries, whistleblower protection is also afforded to citizens who disclose information anonymously to the media. Legal protection for such disclosures is normally limited to the exposure of criminal wrong doing for public good, as opposed to when classified national security information, or embarrassing political gossip and social scandal are leaked.

This reality confirms that leaking of confidential information to the media can be consistent with legitimate whistleblowing as our proposed legislation contemplates. However, the current form of our Bill is deficient in this regard, and only views protected disclosures as those which may be given to an internal entity of an organisation referred to as a Whistleblowing Reporting Officer.

To date, we seem no closer to having that proposed legislation completed, because maybe it was simply political machinations from the newly elected administration aimed at catching the wrongdoers of the previous one. The problem is, corruption and public wrongdoing will occur under any administration.

It is quite common that investigative journalists receive information from internal sources which assist their investigations into questionable public transactions. This often leads to the public exposures of corruption and wrongdoing by public officials.

The details of the reports in our media on the procurement of both the Cabo Star and Ocean Flower 2 sea vessels are already wellventilated and raise the questions of procurement deficiencies, particularly with respect to the latter. It is accordingly well within the public domain that the government has had to terminate the charter party for that vessel.

This is a time when this Government has the great task of steering the TT ship through rough, stormy waters of current depressed energy prices, crime and public corruption etc. What is now required is astute leadership at all quarters of the society which should aim to protect the public purse, given that the population is already burdened with belt tightening measures and job losses. The perception of mismanagement, and government’s failure to even try to deal with corruption, will leave the workingclass voters with a bitter taste at the next general election.

Citizens and employees need to be able to step forward with information without fear of retribution. Good legislation will put pressure on institutions and organisations to improve their governance structures and root out corruption, thereby reducing the need for stringent public oversight.

A whistleblower may not always enjoy absolute protection, such as, when the leaker is deemed the bearer of deliberate false witness and or is part of the wrongdoings complained of.

Most of my past and present clients have internal whistleblower policies and procedures in place, particularly the international ones.

Some companies even offer hotlines which provide secure facilities for employees to offer anonymous tips of alleged wrongdoing.

These protective measures ease the conscience of employees who may fear discrimination, retaliation and even termination. Depending on the culture, of the organisation, an unprotected whistleblower can be labelled a “snitch”, “traitor”, “brownnose” or any other debasing term.

One major advantage of whistleblowing protection, is the opportunity for the internal leadership to control and manage investigations and communications. This can be achieved in a manner which demonstrates transparency, integrity and confidence in the process.

The Japanese Whistle Blower Protection Act of 2004 explicitly states that its purpose is to contribute to the stabilisation and general welfare of the life of every citizen.

The law aims to promote compliance concerning the protection of life, property and other interests. This in my view sets the tone and direction for organisational culture and the wider society as a whole.

The United States’ Securities and Exchange Commission even provides monetary reward to persons who give information which results in sanctions for corporate misconduct.

Disclosers to the media are normally very difficult allegations to prove as the journalists are not normally required to reveal their sources. I trust, however, that in the case of the PATT “leaker”, that management considers whether or not the alleged act was simply a malicious breech of confidential information, or whether the leaker was acting in the public good.

The Prime Minster has publicly admitted that corruption is one of the biggest challenges for his government. I expect therefore, his government moves with haste and have Whistleblower Protection Law enacted as soon as possible.

Johnstone, well known in advertising circles as the CEO of Publicis Caribbean Ltd, will present a new body of work, with subject matter ranging from the architectural to portraiture.

He explores various styles using the acrylic medium, applied very thinly on canvas with mixed media. There are experiments with hard-line ink and colour.

According to Johnstone, “Each piece has a twist, largely through colour or interpretation. Some are deliberately poster-like. This exhibition lives in each individual piece and the emotion it sets up for the viewer.” Johnstone studied charcoal drawing and oils in the 1960’s, under the tutelage of MP Alladin, a pre-eminent Trinidad artist of that time.

However, by the 1970’s, immersed in the commercial world of advertising, his work took the turn to graphics.

“Ultimately I was unable to reconcile the advertising graphics discipline with fine ar.” he says in a media release. “My career won out, so I gave up painting for more than 25 years.

I returned to fine art in 2008 with a different interpretation of the medium, which I called Ad Man Paints.

This exhibit, Ad Man Paints 2 extends that vision.” Adman Paints 2 runs until September 13, at Senseo, Ground Floor, High Square Apartments, 1A Dere Street, Port of Spain.

Parking is available opposite the apartments in the Publicis car park.