Relatives yesterday noted that the service was a “private one” and, as such, requested that there be no media coverage of it. Police reports state that at about 3.30 am on Thursday, bandits broke down the front door to the house, ransacked the inside and stole $1,000. Investigators believe that the elderly woman, who was alone, ran out of the house in an attempt to escape her attackers while holding on to a cellular phone.

But before she had a chance to telephone anyone, one of the intruders struck her with the concrete block causing her to fall. The men used the concrete block to bash in Ali’s head and chest.

When her body was discovered on Thursday afternoon, her arms were spread wide with one hand still clutching her cellular phone. Police found burn marks on a window in the kitchen area which they believe was an attempt to hide evidence. For the past eight years, Ali had been staying at her daughter’s home located at Wellington Road in Debe. However, she preferred to live alone at Farnum Village where she operated a flower business. An autopsy conducted at the Forensic Science Centre in St James on Friday, revealed that she died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head. The search continued yesterday for the killers and officers of the Homicide Bureau, San Fernando are continuing investigations.

The meeting takes place from 10 am in the J Hamilton Maurice Room at Tower D of the Port-of-Spain International Waterfront Centre. This JSC is chaired by Independent Senator Stephen Creese. Other members of the committee include new Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan, Energy Minister Franklin Khan and Mayaro MP Rushton Paray. The JSC on Finance and Legal Affairs holds a public hearing on Friday with representatives of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the Supermarket Association of TT.

This hearing takes place from 10 am in the J Hamilton Maurice Room at Tower D of the Port-of-Spain International Waterfront Centre. There are no sittings of the House of Representatives or Senate this week. The House next sits on December 2, at which time debate is expected to resume on the Tax Information Exchange Bill 2016.

The PNM currently holds all 12 seats in the Assembly. New PNM deputy leader (Tobago) Kelvin Charles is the lone nominee for the Blackrock/Whim/ Spring Garden district while THA Sports Secretary Huey Cadette will face two challengers (Melissa James and Clarence Jacob) for the nomination for the Canaan/ BonAccord district.

A total of 23 nominees will be screened between today and tomorrow.

The talk about changes to local government has been around for decades so these current front-burner reform initiatives are welcomed.

The PNM’s commitment to making its manifesto promises government policy is refreshing as it begins to actually unfold.

There are five major benefits to the people of TT that local government reform offers: 1. All regional corporations will be empowered to acquire their own financing. This proposal allows the regional corporations the ability to retain certain taxes collected within their respective areas. This source of revenue will give regional corporations the resources needed to carry out the people’s business effectively.

2. The Municipal Corporations Act will be amended to give regional corporations executive authority and autonomy similar to that of the Tobago House of Assembly. This reduces the level of interference from central government in determining the affairs of local government bodies.

3. Allow municipal corporations the ability to engage suitably qualified contractors to perform roadworks, drainage and specific infrastructural projects. This will be accomplished by restructuring and decentralising the system of the decision-making process in favour of those responsible for local government.

4. Make it policy to give local contractors from within the relevant regions preference in the award of contracts. This is meant to stimulate local economic activity and build capacity.

This will foster a sense of real community pride as residents work on upgrading their physical space.

5. Local government bodies will act as first respondents in the event of natural disasters. This will involve collaboration between local and central government, without the need for waiting on the minister’s intervention.

This transformation being championed by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley will create another level of governance but this time closer to the people and their communities.

The representatives who are most knowledgeable about people and communities in need of government support are local government representatives.

Empower councillors and regional corporations with decision- making power and adequate resources and people will certainly feel the benefits of the impact.

RONALD HUGGINS St Joseph

Even as our economy has experienced unprecedented economic decline under Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s watch, he continues to mask his incompetence by perpetuating the illusion of a “wasteful”, irresponsible and free-spending Opposition.

Rowley and his party are however keenly aware that the PNM can by no means claim to be “innocent” of the wrongs of which he continues to accuse the Opposition, and so his “solution” has been to engage the strategy of “lesser-evil voting”.

Rowley seems intent on advancing a distracting appeal to nonsensical emotive and ethnically loaded rhetoric. He accuses Kamla Persad-Bissessar of spending $350,000 on roti while fending off allegations of having “outside” children by asserting that he is a “breeding” man.

The Prime Minister must hold the people he leads in abject disregard to be willing to allow himself the liberty to spew such uncouth and puerile rubbish.

The PNM today can no longer lay claim to any moral high ground because its record of corrupt thievery has not only been exposed but has indeed been written into our country’s historical record.

The image of an “upright” Afro- Saxon PNM is nothing but the figment of a deluded imagination.

The only way to embed that particular delusion is to advance the countervailing suggestion that those in Opposition are “more” corrupt than the PNM is known to be.

From that debacle has arisen the tactic of “support” for the “lesser of two evils” — a label which PNM supporters have been duped into taking (misguided) pride in when they suggest that one should support their candidate and party.

Rowley so easily and freely shouts outlandish accusations of moral infringements against his opposition while seemingly oblivious to the evil that exists within his fold. He is not “brave” when he invokes the “politics of moral witness”. He is divisively reinforcing ethnic profiling while whipping up electoral support premised on the irrationality of deepening existing social pathology.

Rowley’s rhetoric remains unchallenged by a predominantly Afro-Trinidadian clergy — Christian for the most part — that itself projects “Saxon” values.

It is a clergy that encourages ethnic/religious solidarity by suggesting that the responsibility to vote is a means of individual self-expression. It is a clergy that is nominally Catholic (“universal”) but with an undercurrent of increasing ethnic exclusivity.

While it is happy to advance the cause of individual responsibility and encourage its followers to feel good about themselves, it remains silent on the consequence of their vote for “other” people.

The politics of moral witness for us, therefore, has become indistinguishable from narcissistic self-aggrandisement. Thus the voter is actively encouraged to exercise the franchise as a moral judgment against (the “other”) party/candidates who fail to reflect their traditional values.

The country has reached an alltime low. We have come to the point where those who think they are leaders know nothing about leadership and rely on foreigners for advice and leadership.

STEVE SMITH via email

From Port-of-Spain to Arima schoolchildren are all over the place, behaving in a despicable manner. You see some fighting, others cursing and carrying on in the most disrespectful way.

Parents should give their children a certain time to get home, because they are getting in too much of mischief. Parents must insist their children use the school buses so they will get home on time.

These children are out of control, especially at the bus terminus in Port-of-Spain. They jump the line and rush people, and if you talk to them about their rude behaviour, they abuse you.

Make them use school buses and put a security guard or soldier on the buses to keep things under control. Commuters are fed up with their nasty behaviour and abuse.

Mr Minister of Education, the ball is in your court.

MODICIA MARTIN via email

On July 13, I bought a High 5’s scratch card from one of your agents in Chaguanas.

I scratched the Game 2 panel which disclosed the number 5. I scratched the first horizontal line on the Game 1 panel, which disclosed three Xs, when I received a phone call to urgently assist a patient who was having a medical procedure.

I quickly handed the card to the vendor and enquired as to what the prize I had won. She quickly put the card in her bag and informed me I had won $5. Unfortunately, I had not scratched the part of the card that discloses the prize won on Game 1. I took another card instead of the $5 and hurriedly left.

Some time later that day I had the opportunity to read the instructions on both the front and back of the card and realised that I was cheated of $50 for Game 2 and whatever prize for Game 1.

I then checked with a Lotto outlet and was informed that again I had not completely scratched the card.

I was told the vendor should have given me the proper advice and assistance and that I was indeed cheated of $50 on Game 2 and a prize of up to $150,000 on Game 1.

My reason for contacting you is that under the law the vendor is your agent, authorised to act on your behalf and to create legal contractual relations with a third party (external relationship) and which binds you in the obligations he or she creates against third parties.

As a Trinidad-born national of the UK, I am deeply distressed that this sort of criminal behaviour could be perpetrated against anyone, let alone foreigners.

From my accent the vendor stated she knew from which country I came.

I have reason to believe you have systems in place to trace claims over $200 made at an NLCB office. The scratch card in my possession bears the number 058 at the bottom right hand corner which would suggest the disputed card is numbered 057.

I have contacted an attorney, my high commission and various media houses for further assistance in the event that a satisfactory resolution is not arrived at. Please be assured that I do not intend to allow this matter to wither away.

JIM JHINKOO via email

On the eastern end of Carenage there has grown up an entire village of squatters who has clearly benefitted economically over the years from this theft of State lands as evidenced by the satellite dishes that now adorn some of the dwellings.

The squatters’ increasing fleet of cars must now also be accommodated at everyone else’s expense, so further encroachment is now in progress as an adjacent area is being adapted to serve as their own private car park.

Apart from the illegal occupation is the fact that these illegal dwellings have been constructed on a beach once frequented by residents who are now deprived of this amenity.

Obliquely opposite this settlement is yet another dwelling cum business operating from an old PTS C bus on land also stolen from the State.

As is often the case, these sad developments are generating congestion and chaos in the area with significant inconvenience to residents and others while suggesting to impressionable minds that crime does indeed pay.

It is time for those employed by State agencies at public expense to do their jobs and ensure compliance with the law.

STEVE ESCALIER via email

Under a blistering early morning sun, parents also prevented access to the school by blocking the school’s main gates with mud and other debris.

Parent / Teacher Association (PTA) assistant secretary, Sheryl- Ann Ramdial, said the irate parents were seeking the intervention of the Minister of Education in getting the new school completed.

“We have highlighted the problems at this school many times before,” Ramdial said.

“We wrote letters to the Minister and to date he has not responded.

There is a brand new state of the art school that is being built and it is already 95 percent completed and, as of last year September, as soon as the government changed, the contractors left the job.”

Garcia promised this after meeting with the school’s principal and executives of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) yesterday afternoon on the school’s premises. Last week, the PTA and students protested and teachers refused to continue working because they were being bitten by, what has been called, “invisible mites” which have scarred some students with rashes and made others ill. They clamoured for the school to be temporarily relocated to the National Enrichment Centre in Carlsen Field while the problem was rectified.

Garcia said that the Centre is suitable and can house the school’s 525 students, but his attempts to contact the Social Development and Family Services Minister Cherrie-Ann Crichlow-Cockburn for approval have been unsuccessful.

“I have been trying to contact the Minister. Unfortunately, I have not been able to do so but I will continue to contact her. But as soon as we get approval from the Minister – and I am sure we will get that approval because we have been told that nothing is going on at that site at the moment – we will move the school from this site to that site at Carlsen field.

We are hoping that that can be accomplished in a very short space of time, perhaps in a matter of days.” The Education Ministry commissioned the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) to perform an investigation into the cause of the biting last October, but the report has not been produced.

Asked by Newsday why the report was yet produced, Garcia said he could not say but assured that the permanent secretary would see that it is delivered soon.

However, Minister in the Ministry of Education, Dr Lovell Francis, chimed in and said the report was given to them.

He then responded to rumours that the report was not provided by the CARIRI because the Ministry had not yet paid for it.

“The report was paid for,” Francis said. “We have a preliminary report which was provided before the last school term ended. We have received the entire report.

We will now vet the report and we will plot a solution going forward.” Asked by Newsday when the report was given to them, Francis said, “that I cannot answer” but he said it would be vetted this week.

Garcia said that the long-term plans for the school may involve a complete relocation as there is a “body of opinion” that most of the problems in the school arose due to its proximity to the Chaguanas market. However, that would require approval and cooperation by the Vedic Board.

Protests also raged today at the Mayo RC, La Fillette RC and the Reform Hindu schools, each calling for repairs and relocation from the Ministry of Education.

Garcia said his Ministry remains committed to alleviating all the issues.