The threat was made by OWTU president general Ancel Roget during a protest yesterday which followed a 45-minute long meeting with Minister of Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan. Roget minced no words in his threat to the People’s National Movement (PNM) government.

“Make sure you pay every single worker all monies owed to each and everyone. All hell will break loose if we don’t get this thing dealt with in the way it’s supposed to be dealt with!” He was joined in the protest by more than 200 ex-workers of the highway project.

Over 800 workers were retrenched when OAS Construtora closed up shop, before the highway project could be completed, after parent company Grupos OAS of Brazil, filed for bankruptcy in 2015.

The OWTU’s demand that the retrenched OAS workers be paid outstanding wages and severance money comes after government stated that the National Infrastructure Development Company (NIDCO) has recovered $670 million in letters of credit and bonds from a number of banks that provided guarantees for OAS. A further $250M, Finance Minister Colm Imbert said earlier this year, is being actively pursued by NIDCO lawyers in British courts.

The protest took place outside the ministry officer at the corner of Richmond and London streets in Port-of-Spain. Roget said that Minister Sinanan agreed that workers ought to be paid and disagreed with how the matter was handled. “I was told that he is currently working on a plan to bring closure to this issue and we pressed the minister to give it some urgency as some workers have been waiting for salaries for as long as four years,” Roget said.

He noted that Minister Sinanan informed the union that the performance bond held by NIDCO has not been “totally cleared” because there is some legal challenge from OAS.

The union leader added that Minister Sinanan indicated that he wants to restart the highway construction in February and government is working feverishly to put things in place to resume construction. “He agreed with us that you cannot restart something that was not properly dealt with when it stopped. We support the restart of the highway, we want that highway completed. If there was not so much corruption it would have been completed in the first place,” Roget said.

He stated that over $23 million is owed to 880 retrenched workers and the bond is worth more than a $1 billion. “These are seasonal workers, you don’t have a highway being constructed every week or every year or every decade and therefore when construction of such a major project is undertaken, the workers who come out and perform for that specific period, will be working short term. So it is important that they be paid their outstanding salaries and severance benefits because the cost of living keeps going up.” “We are preparing that JTUM (the Joint Trade Union Movement) and OWTU will give full support to everything that is good to ensure that this country benefits, but at the same time.” As workers cheered, Roget continued. “We are also preparing that if this Government does not take heed and walk the path of justice, fairness, equity and decency, void of corruption…we are preparing to shake the blasted place down,” he thundered.

Things have become so bad that the Couva/Point Lisas Chamber of Commerce is looking into renting at least one extra vehicle to assist the police officers in engaging in more patrols during the Christmas Season and beyond.

This was the outcome of a discussion forum hosted by the Chamber at its Couva headquarters on Thursday evening between members of the business community and two police officers who represented the Couva Police Station. Officers began the meeting by detailing the methods they have been using to tackle the issue of rising crime. The officers highlighted their plans for continuing the fight in the near future.

In their turn, some business owners complained about the absence of sufficient police patrols on afternoons, while others complained about slow response times of police to reports of robberies or requests for assistance. Delicately responding to simmering tempers in the room, Sgt Piquette of the Couva Police Station apologized for where the police have fallen short, but begged for the understanding of the business community.

Apart from being given only three cars to service all of Penal and outlying districts to respond to a myriad of crimes officers have been forced to frequently repair ‘Betsy’ themselves, as bureaucracy in the Police Service could result in a vehicle being out of commission for a minimum of three months, for repairs (sometimes minor) to be effected.

Sgt Piquette said the police officers’ time is spent performing traffic duties instead of dealing with reports of crime after traffic wardens were no longer assigned to Couva.

Police’s ability to effect patrols are further hampered whenever a murder occurs as at least one out of the pool of three cars must be used to escort the body to the Forensic Science Centre in St James and escort it from the Centre to the Funeral Home. Business owners offered to collaborate with police officers to alleviate the problems. “This came as no surprise to us,” said Liaquat Ali, President of the Couva/Point Lisas Chamber of Commerce. “Police manpower has been an issue not just in Couva but throughout the country. We at the Chamber recognize the limited number of vehicles available and we will be looking at the possibility of renting a vehicle and making it available to the Couva police station.” The police also plan to look into collaborating with Municipal Police assigned to the Couva/ Tabaquite/Talparo Regional Corporation to utilize the corporation’s two marked police vehicles, if and when needed.

Speaking on Wednesday at a panel discussion at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine campus, senior economist at UWI, Dr Roger Hosein said TT’s high murder rate (over 440 for the year) affects workers’ productivity and the outlook of entrepreneurs.

“Fear of crime is a factor that most affects my investment. You can’t invest as you want to nor display your wealth in this society,” Hosein lamented.

He cited someone who grows patchoi using hydroponics but who has opted to sell his produce only to a few wholesalers, at a lower profit margin, that he could earn if he instead sold to many retailers who would pay more but who might also pose a risk of exposing his business dealings to bandits. “Fear of crime has a serious impact on entrepreneurship,” Hosein surmised. Economist Prof Patrick Watson endorsed Hosein’s sentiment.

“If a young entrepreneur comes up with an idea to earn foreign exchange, he’ll not stay here in this country.

It’s not a nice environment to live in or work in,” Prof Watson said.

Adding that entrepreneurs need an enabling environment, Watson said crime will hit investments. Dubbing the TT Police Service as “a failing institution”, Watson said the service is riddled with corruption amid public perception that some officers are actively in cahoots with criminals.

Panellists gave an array of advice on the way forward. Hosein urged devaluation (whether to eight, nine or ten TT dollars to one US dollar) to dampen demand for imports. He said Guyana’s discovery of reserves of up to 1.4 billion barrels of oil gives a lot of lucrative opportunities for TT players and the local economy.

Hosein saw CEPEP as a terrible policy error and said GATE in its present form has starved the country’s real economy, even as he forecast that cuts will further the decline in tertiary attendance that began naturally before the cuts.

Energy Chamber CEO Dr Dax Driver, lamented the present state of the economy as being adults now borrowing from their children, for today’s consumption.

He said the country needs to adjust to a new reality of a much lower revenue coming in. Driver said few people realise the country’s high revenues in 2006 to were due to the rare fortune of a happy constellation of circumstances.

He said abundant and easily-accessible oil had meant energy companies had not needed to seek taxbreaks from the Government to undertake risky explorations, so these firms had paid hefty taxes/royalties to the Government.

Also, at that time the world oilprice was high, facilitating these firms to sell oil for healthy revenues.

Driver warned that the situation today is the exact opposite of yesteryear, as now energy firms face high costs of production, even as the world oil-price is relatively low.

Driver advised the export of energy- sector services and other services, that TT firms should seek more foreign market-access, and that institutions that impede business activity should be addressed.

These latter include the Customs and Excise Division, law courts, land administration and the work permit system.

President of the Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association (THTA), Christopher James, also says that while the problem began a decade ago, it has gotten worse in recent years.

“Tobago’s occupancy rates in October were about nine percent. Last month, November, they were only slightly better – ten percent. We are beyond the critical position for Tobago.” James, in pointing out how critical it is for tourism associations and Government to work together in an urgent manner to address the problem, revealed that international arrivals to Tobago were down by 25.84 percent.

“That is a continuation of decline for the last ten, 11 years,” James stated, “where back in 2005 we had just under 88,000 arrivals and this year, we’re looking round about 19,000 or a little less than that in international arrivals.” Regarding the proposed construction of a Sandals hotel in Tobago, James lamented that even if that does happen, it would be a few years too late for hoteliers on the island.

“We cannot wait for Sandals in Tobago to come. We need help now.

We have certain criteria that need to be fulfilled.

We need money at lower rates of interest to help us get through this. We need incentives in other areas. Our incentives, compared with the rest of the region, are pretty poor.” James was speaking during a press conference at Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain on Thursday, co-hosted by the Trinidad Hotels, Restaurants and Tourism Association (THRTA) and the Trinidad and Tobago Incoming Tour Operators Association (TTITOA).

They appealed to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to intervene as he has done for the energy sector, and rescue the tourism industry.

IN YEMEN and Aleppo, the city at the centre of the civil war in Syria, children no longer react to the sound of exploding bombs. A 14-year-old boy is forced to cut off his legs to survive being trapped under fallen rubble. In the words of a BBC journalist, war for these children is “normal”.

There was a time when we in TT would look on with mild interest and perhaps a touch of pity at countries like Syria or those closer to home like Jamaica. Their normal was far removed from us. Rampant crime, abuse, excessive viewing of pornography, kidnapping, trafficking of guns, drugs and humans — these were someone else’s reality.

This week in Port-of-Spain, in the space of minutes I walked past no less than three mentally challenged homeless people, begging, muttering to themselves, engrossed in their own agitated worlds. Passers- by ignored them, tried to avoid them. I was reminded how many years ago, one of these homeless people burned my little sister with a cigarette. She shrieked in pain, I didn’t know what to do, and the rest of the world ignored us, just as they ignored that homeless man. Just as they ignore him now.

In class, as we implemented our cultural interventions, one boy constantly made a sound like a siren.

The piercing sound would disrupt the session and we would have to work twice as hard to return a sense of calm. Eventually, we worked out that the sound of police sirens was a constant feature of this child’s life, and the only way that he could deal with the trauma was to make the very sound that distressed him.

We were able to manage that situation, along with the one involving the brilliant girl who gambled and with the boy who picked fights with his classmates when his mother came in to the country but spent the time with her boyfriend and not him.

However, this week, it struck me that there are a great number of behaviours that we have accepted as normal, when in fact they are not. Realities like putting a chair in the large hole in the road, buses that barely run, police that turn on sirens when there are no emergencies, obese children, citizens who know little about their history and a city filled with business people who still have not worked out that the way to end the chaos is to collectively assume responsibility for its problems.

The process of creating new norms is a slow and painful one.

How to instill in our youth, especially those from vulnerable communities, concepts of discipline, focus, hard work, respect for elders, arriving on time. Success in our world is largely defined by how many things we have and how expensive they are. The global dominance of North American culture and the looming “Trump” era will no doubt further entrench the values of money, ownership, clever deals and thin women.

As the storm approaches, will we use the opportunity to look inwards? Not in a xenophobic way, being prejudiced against people from other cultures, but drawing strength from our folklore, stories and festivals. Artists sent out a call to walk “arm-in-arm” to show solidarity with the victims of crime.

Songstress Mavis John reminded that “T&T is ours and we have to take care of it. We have to make changes.” We need to get to the point where this change is not just normal but “normel”.

D a r a Healy is a perform a n c e artist and founder of the NGO, the Indigenous Creative Arts Network – ICAN

In many instances, Wheeler added, missing persons are the result of curious young persons being lured into danger by online predators.

Wheeler said even the most saintly of children are susceptible to curiosity and urged parents to be more watchful of their children’s online activities. “What we have found is that young girls and young women that are living in the social media, they are living on the internet, they live on Facebook, Snapchat, they live on these online chat groups and they meet persons on these chat groups.

“And your innocent, little naive daughter who you pick up and drop everywhere is busy on the internet, busy on the cell phone, meeting all types of persons who you don’t know about. And when she decides to run out, just out of curiosity, she may have never taken a taxi before in her life, because she is so sheltered, she has no idea what is out there.” Wheeler said her Unit is responsible for Trinidad and Tobago geographically as well as Trinidad and Tobago nationals, wherever they may end up in the world. Asked how exactly the Counter Human Trafficking Unit determines whether a person has been trafficked out of Trinidad and Tobago, Wheeler said that the Anti- Kidnapping Unit and Homicide usually take the lead on missing persons cases.

According to reports, fire-fighters from the Morvant, San Juan and Wrightson Road fire stations responded to a fire at about 2 am yesterday in Second Caledonia, Morvant. When they arrived on the scene, the warehouse which was used to store used tyres was already engulfed in flames which quickly spread to nearby houses.

Fire-fighters attempted to douse the blaze, but they had to deal with several negative issues including low pressure in fire hydrants and strong winds which aided the spread of the flames. In the end, the warehouse and two houses were destroyed. No injuries were reported and firemen are to return to the scene today to continue investigations into the case of the blaze.

In an unrelated incident, the swift action of security guard Richard Yearwood yesterday prevented a major fire at the Micles clothing store on Frederick Street, Portof- Spain. Customers and workers were evacuated after a small fire broke out at the back of the store.

Speaking with Newsday at the scene, Fire Officer Ricky Cabralis from Belmont Fire Station indicated there were no injuries and minimal damage to the back of the store.

“We received a call at 11.45 this morning and an extractor fan at the back of the store over heated which ignited. But good work by one of the store’s security led to the blaze being extinguished. Everything is normal…just minimal water damage and we are waiting for the electrician to come to make sure everything at the back of the store is in order,” fireman Cabralis said.

An employee at the store expressed relief that the fire was swiftly contained.

He gave an update on the work of the board during a meeting yesterday morning between the board and Minister of Labour and Small and Enterprise Development Jennifer Baptiste-Primus at the Ministry of Labour and Small Enterprise Development office, Port-of-Spain.

The meeting, a release from the ministry said, was an undertaking on the part of Baptiste-Primus to meet regularly with boards under the remit. The board under Coombs chairmanship was constituted in May. According to Coombs, the board’s main priority for the past few months was the recruitment of staff, mainly inspectors, for the OSH Authority and OSH Agency.

He reported that the recruitment process was almost completed and new inspectors should be on-board by the first quarter of 2017 to ensure institutional strengthening.

Minister Baptiste-Primus reiterated her commitment to work with the board to ensure that it functions optimally as it works to fulfil its mandate in keeping with the OSH Act.

According to police reports at about 6 pm, three men armed with firearms entered the ‘Rejoice Supermarket’ located along the Naparima/ Mayaro Road main Road.

Reports are that the men pointed their firearms at the business owner and announced a hold up.

The proprietor was robbed of an undisclosed sum of money. At the time of the incident there were several customers inside the supermarket.

Police said that the gunmen ordered the customers to lie on the floor.

The customers were robbed of cash, jewelry and cell phones. The men escaped in a vehicle. Following investigations by police officers, one of the bandits was held in the Princes Town district. Investigations are continuing.

Chief Justice Ivor Archie and Justices of Appeal Allan Mendonca and Peter Jamadar unanimously ruled today against the US Government in its appeal of Justice James Aboud’s decision to exclude them from the case, dismissing that country’s appeal.

In their written ruling, Justice Mendonca held that it was the “obligation of the Requested State to appear on behalf of the Requesting State and represent its interests”, adding that the USA did not show that its interests and that of the AG were different. The judges said this raised the question of why the need for separate representation and placed onus on the US to prove that it could make a useful contribution to the case if allowed to join in, which the US failed to do.

In his arguments before the panel, attorney for the US, British Queen’s Counsel James Lewis said his client did not have total confidence in the Office of the Attorney General to properly present the United States’ argument before Justice Aboud.

In his judgment delivered in June, Justice Aboud had stated that even though the proceedings was relative to Warner’s extradition, the issue up for determination was strictly domestic and, as such, did not warrant the participation of the United States.

The judge had said that it was his opinion that the US could not make any useful input in the proceedings that could assisting the court in arriving at the proper and correct decision.

Aboud had noted that the United States’ case was being presented by the Attorney General’s Office and that he was unaware of what the United States could say differently from the AG’s Office. “It cannot be to say the same thing differently. Is the AG’s position different from the US? Does the AG want the US to say something he won’t say? It must be able to offer something more than repetition,” Aboud had said.

Warner’s claim challenges the Authority to Proceed (ATP) which was signed last September by Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi, which gave Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar the greenlight to begin committal proceedings.