Speaking with Newsday on Tuesday following the formal opening of the law term of the Industrial Court on St Vincent Street, Port of Spain, Roget blasted Rowley and the Government as “deceitful and deceptive” and reeking of “dishonesty and deception”. Roget was upset that the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) had issued a statement denying his claim that a meeting between JTUM and Rowley on September 13, 2017, succeeded in averting further mass retrenchment which the Government had planned. The OPM statement said the Government had repeatedly assured the trade union movement it had no plans for any massive retrenchment of public sector workers, but the trade unions continued to insist that this was the case, asking for a moratorium on retrenchment which the Government had no plans to carry out. The statement added that Government was “very disappointed that its efforts at engagement with labour, intending to build trust and cooperation in the national interest, can be so easily undermined by self-serving and misleading representation of the facts.” Roget said that Government had “raised a proverbial ant’s nest and we are going to deal with them in a different way going forward because of the lack of trust and so on.” He said “if anyone had breached trust it was the Prime Minister.” He said the OPM statement was intended as a distraction from the scandal at the State oil company, Petrotrin, in which a contractor, A & V Drilling, is alleged to have defrauded the company of some $100 million by overstating the amount of oil the company delivered to the company. Roget said the people involved are known friends of senior members of the Government and accused Rowley of acting just like the previous government – making use of distraction. He said Rowley’s talk about letting the guilty face justice and that neither the party nor the Government will protect the guilty was an attempt to distance the Government from the scandal.

“Everybody else guilty but they are so pious and sanctimonious, push everything away from them.” He claimed Government recently appointed to the Petrotrin board someone who had worked as a manager at Petrotrin and left to go work with a lease operator. Roget declined to name the manager involved but said the union stoutly objected and the person was eventually removed.

“We had to raise hell to get him off because we were saying ‘how could you put someone who worked with a lease operator on the board of Petrotrin?’ And now you’re playing pious and sanctimonious and you want to push everything away.” According to Roget, “ When Petrotrin finish with a well, nobody must be able to activate that, but you have corrupt people in the Petrotrin management who write off lucrative wells, give them to the lease operator and then his is a success story the next day going forward.” He said while the Prime Minister had said he was not in Cabinet at the time the lease operatorship was awarded to A & V Drilling, the Minister of Energy, Franklin Khan, in the Senate, recently praised A & V Drilling for its oil production at a time when the union was calling for an end to the lease and farmout system because it provided an opportunity for corruption. At a recent news conference, Khan said he praised the company based on the information given to him by Petrotrin.

Compare the mudslides in the Maracas Valley and other outlying areas to mudslides in other countries that swallow up entire towns.

Compare the flooding in my area of TT to the recent Hurricane Harvey disaster in Texas.

Consider the heartaches caused as a result of collapses like Clico and the Hindu Credit Union.

Compare that to the fortunes lost to the ponzi schemes perpetrated by the Bernie Madoffs of this world.

Let me assure you that TT can boast of having the most honest businessmen, and the most sincere politicians ever to assume office. And God is a Trini.

Our children can walk the streets safe in the knowledge that they won’t be harmed or kidnapped. Compare this to the hundreds of innocent young girls snatched by Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Our mothers and wives can go to sleep at night without fear of having their throats slit or of being raped. God is a Trini.

Our criminals only shoot each other; they have a high regard for the welfare of innocent bystanders.

Murders may be up, but serious crimes are way down.

Scotland Yard and the FBI are envious of our law enforcement’s high detection and conviction rates.

Now don’t get me wrong, we may have a few problems but we are so blessed that for two days each year our women can dance naked in the streets without fear.

God is a Trini. To the bone. But I tell you this, if ever He decides to migrate I am leaving the very same day. I think I will go to Canada and sing calypso. Bless you all.

TYRONE EVANS Belmont

The East Port of Spain Development Company Limited is an agency of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development.

This tournament saw competitions in three sporting disciplines – football, basketball and netball, and brought out a number of promising athletes in a number of areas in East Port of Spain, including Duncan Street, St Barb’s, Gonzales, Eastern Quarry, Success Village, Morvant, Never Dirty, Beverly Hill, Paradise Heights, Coconut Drive, Mentor Alley, Trou Macaque and Sogren Trace.

Honour Roll – UNDER-15 NETBALL: Winners – Eastern Quarry Thrillers ($3,000 sports voucher and trophy); Runners- up – Paradise Heights ($2,000 sports voucher and trophy); Top scorer – Nekesha Gomes (Eastern Quarry).

16-AND-UNDER BASKETBALL: Winners – Morvant ($3,000 sports voucher and trophy); Runners- up – Paradise Heights ($2,000 sports voucher and trophy).

UNDER-15 FOOTBALL: Winners – Dread Eye Youths ($3,000 sports voucher and trophy); Runners-up – BH8 Police Youth Club ($2,000 sports voucher and trophy); Third place – Paradise Heights ($1,000 sports voucher and trophy).

UNDER-25 NETBALL: Winners – Hill Girls ($4,000 sports voucher and trophy); Runners-up – Paradise Heights ($3,000 sports voucher and trophy); Third place – IATF Police Youth Club ($2,000 sports voucher and trophy); Most Goals – Shawnna Wickham (Hill Girls).

UNDER-25 FOOTBALL: Winners – Trou Macaque ($4,000 sports voucher and trophy); Runners-up – BH8 Police Youth Club ($3,000 sports voucher and trophy); Third place – Miscellaneous Laventille United ($2,000 sports voucher and trophy); Most Valuable Player – Duane Calliste (Trou Macaque).

OPEN DIVISION NETBALL: Winners – Eastern Quarry Thrillers ($5,000 and trophy); Runners- up – Sogren Trace ($4,000 and trophy); Third Place – Beetham Hope ($3,000 and trophy).

OPEN DIVISION BASKETBALL: Winners – Eastern Quarry Thrillers ($5,000 and trophy); Runners- up – Trou Macaque ($4,000 and trophy); Third Place – Block 22 ($3,000 and trophy); Most Points – Jonathan Donawa ($300 sports voucher and trophy).

OPEN DIVISION FOOTBALL: Winners – BH8 Police Youth Club ($5,000 and trophy); Runners-up – Eastern Quarry ($4,000 and trophy); Third Place – Miscellaneous Laventille United ($3,000 and trophy); Most Valuable Player – Antonio Campbell.

Both parties periodically claim to be supporters of multiethnic unity but depend on mistrust and subliminal racism for their survival. Their history and base political supporters make it almost impossible to do what is necessary to move TT from a state of stagnation to development.

Imagine for a moment these major political parties seeking to diminish political influences in State corporations.

That will be almost impossible as supporters and financiers depend on these corporations for jobs and financial rewards as compensation for political support. The port is a perfect example of stagnation due to politics.

There is need for the Port of Port of Spain to be restructured. All the container business ought to be relocated to an expanded and upgraded Point Lisas port. The area off Sea Lots needs to be filled in and the entire Sea Lots community rebuilt.

This area along with the existing port along Wrightson Road should be transformed into a new passenger ship port with supporting infrastructure of stores and restaurants.

A new roadway from the Barataria roundabout through what is now the Beetham dump should be constructed in this area.

It should continue through what is now the old structures on the port, bypassing the city and supporting a new roadway all the way to Chaguaramas.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle may not have the political will and party support to close the existing Port of Spain port, relocate the people of Sea Lots and close the dump, building a new one with modern recycling facilities in the Caroni Plains.

TT needs an injection of new economic activities, finance and development. Such new initiatives will require a move away from the traditional personnel and business practices of the major financiers of the two major political parties.

There is an immediate need for new personnel, new investors and new ideas. The leaders of the PNM and UNC know this.

They are also aware of the positive potential of our country if one seeks new ways of doing things but remain paralysed by loyalty to structure and personnel within their parties.

If the major financiers and supporters of these two political organisations continue to benefit from keeping things as they are, our nation will remain in a state of stagnation and decay.

STEVE ALVAREZ via email

In a joint statement, published in today’s newspapers, both organisations said they were shocked to learn via the media, of this decision.

On September 8, Education Minister Anthony Garcia at a press conference, announced the change would take effect in the 2018 to 2019 academic year.

He said Cabinet made the decision as it was more feasible and cost effective. In their statement, the two associations said it was “incomprehensible” that the Ministry of Education would make such a major decision affecting the education system without consulting with them.

They said they were “flabbergasted” by the reasons cited by the ministry for the change.

These reasons were that SE A papers can now be marked during the two weeks Easter vacation period, there would be no need to temporarily close secondary schools that are being used and marking centres and teachers selected as markers by CXC would not be required to be away from classes.

In a poll of their membership conducted by TTUTA, they found that more than 80 per cent of the respondents believed that students benefited from the extra time the May date afforded them.

Teachers pointed out that they welcomed the extra time to better prepare t heir students for SE A.

“We firmly believe that when such significant decisions are to be made, the major stakeholders should be meaningfully consulted.

We are also of the view that, in this case, the students’ best interest should not be sacrificed for expediency,” they said.

The organisations called on the Ministry of Education to immediately engage with them on the issue with a view to arrive at solutions to “this imbroglio.

If the Ministry of Education views both organisations as major stakeholders then it would no nothing less.” Efforts to reach Minister Garcia for a comment yesterday proved futile.

Struck several times with a Taser, you become comatose. No need for a gun. With our history of rampant domestic violence, Tasers could provide another form of giving “loving chastisement.” They do not want you dead, just in a lot of pain.

Do I need to walk down the road of naughty teenagers running about with cans of pepper spray? Bullying in school will reach a new dimension.

Who is going to provide legislation to prevent misuse of these deterrents? Who would sell them? A doomsday scenario shows more women injured and beaten with their own Tasers. There might well be an increase in blind young people in all communities because bullies do not know when to stop.

Shops selling Tasers and pepper spray could outdo the Chinese restaurants that are often raided.

LYNETTE JOSEPH Diego Martin

Opening a Pre-Budget Forum titled Budget for Gender Justice: Make Households Matter to the House, last week at The UWI’s Learning Research Centre, head of the institute, economist Dr Gabrielle Hosein, said the institute had begun developing a Gender Justice Scorecard. A handout circulated at the forum said the goal of the scorecard will be to provide “a gendered analysis of national fiscal policy and its implications for peace, security and empowerment within households, highlighting how the national budget process and budgetary allocations have differential and inequitable impact on women, men, girls and boys in a time of economic crisis.”

It added that by stimulating wider engagement with “gender-sensitive budgeting, the scorecard will also support Central Statistical Office (CSO) capacity building for better governance, and will provide an example of action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 4 – Health; Goal 5 – Gender Equality; Goal 8 – Reduced Inequalities and Goal 16 – Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.”

However, Attzs said such an objective might risk being impeded by a lack of relevant data or gender analysis of economic developments in the country, observing that it was important for policymakers and researchers to have the kind of data to help them make informed decisions and recommendations. “The issue of data paucity cannot be ignored. We are essentially feeling our way in the dark, trying to make decisions, trying to mainstream gender, trying to develop things like

the gender scorecard, trying to achieve gender justice, but we don’t have the data to support the path that we want to take.”

By way of illustration, she showed a slide of a table on this country from the World Development Indicators which she said she had downloaded “in the last 24 hours” so that it was as current as possible. The table showed that information broken down by gender in a number of key areas was either missing or incomplete. She said the table was informative “in a perverse way” because “if we don’t have data then we can’t make policy decisions that help us achieve the desired outcomes”. She said “essentially, we treat Ministries and budgetary allocations as if they are operating in silos and not really understanding and recognising that if we are to achieve the empowerment, or that greater gender balance in terms of how our men and our women develop and how they access services and how they ultimately become empowered.”

She said the society was talking about improved access for women to various programmes so that they could improve their lives and become more empowered and more active participants in the economic space, “but we don’t have the dis-agregated sets of data to allow us to see what touch points of intervention are required to help us to achieve that particular outcome.”

Hosein referred to a number of calypso classics such as Singing Sandra’s Crying, Shadow’s Poverty is Hell, Sparrow’s Capitalism Gone Mad, and Brother Resistance’s Ah Cyar Take That, which all chronicled the hardships of poverty, saying these songs “all spoke to everyday life and the stresses of providing care for children and the elderly as well as the effects of violence on families, the pressures of unemployment, under-employment and informal work and an inability to make ends meet.”

Hosein said the project being undertaken by the institute was to provide data to respond to the cries of the calypsonians and to empower civil society advocacy for State accountability to these realities. She said the global political economy must be held accountable at a time of economic and ecological crisis, adding that “the current global and national economic models cannot solve this crisis because neither oil nor gas will get the country out of the economic and ecological crises it faces.” She said, “its permanence makes focusing on the insecurity it causes a matter of urgency. At the very least national fiscal policy and planning must be held accountable for how it addresses the causes and effects of this crisis on everyday life. “

She said that the country’s “big dreams” for development, peace and sustainability also require gender justice and where gender justice exists, ideas about womanhood and manhood do not reproduce discrimination, denial of rights and vulnerability to harm and inequitable access to power and resources. “States, communities and individuals all actively committed to transforming these into just opportunities, outcomes, norms and relations from women, men, girls, and boys.

She said that according to UN Women, the United Nations entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women which became operational in 2011, gender budgeting is not about creating separate budgets for women or solely increasing spending on women’s programmes, rather it looks beyond the balance sheets to investigate whether women and men fare differently under existing expenditure patterns. She said it calls for adjusting budget policies to advance gender equality and more equitable distribution of the gains of economic development, adding that it is a step toward greater public transparency.

The idea is not a new one. Hosein said that as far back as the 1970s, “Caribbean feminists showed how structural adjustment policies impoverished families and communities. Two decades later, they began to push for gender responsive budgeting with organisations like the Network of NGOs of Trinidad and Tobago for the Advancement of Women, and the Women’s Institute for Alternative Development, taking the lead. Two decades later, we continue to build on that legacy. Our goal is to press forward national conversations about the everyday life of this current crisis and its different impact on women, men, boys and girls. It’s the differential impact that makes commitment to and advocacy for gender justice so key. Our goal is therefore to begin to provide gendered analyses of the national budget process and budgetary allocations and their implications for peace, security, empowerment and gender equality as experienced in everyday life and in our households.

Hosein said that over the next three years, the institute will be working to produce a gender justice scorecard which will aim to access five sectors in terms of gender responsive budgeting: labour; social services; health; education and agriculture. “And we have a special focus on cross-sectoral concerns related to gender-based violence and the care of the economy. We hope that this will help to empower citizens to advocate for greater fiscal accountability to people’s lived realities, to influence the budget process and to press governments to meet international commitments, among them the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, the Inter- American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of violence against women and the Sustainable Development Goals 2016 – 2030.”

On the other hand, it appears that Government’s policy on the restructuring initiative is operating on an extemporaneous basis, using pivoted moves driven only by financial expediency rather than that of strategic intent or diversification.

Let us examine the Government’s recent decision with respect to the Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG). This company was launched in 2005 after the failure of Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT). Now in 2017, some 12 years later and because successive governments could not make CNMG profitable, it is now decided that the company will revert to its original TTT brand.

We were assured by the Communication Minister that new employment will be created, due to increased roles for content producers, cameramen, videographers, etc. However, 122 employees and 37 freelancers will soon be out of a job, although all were invited to reapply for employment with the new entity. I, for one, cannot understand how this can be sold as new employment. Is it not the same job roles, with the same required skill sets needed at both CNMG and its intended successor TTT?

So far, these restructuring initiatives have either resulted in outright closure and/or the creation of a successor entity doing the same thing, in the same way and with a majority of the same people. A very recent example is the new Tourism Development Company (TDC) plan. This, however to my mind would create an end result no different from what previously existed with a revolving door effect. The restructuring initiatives seems devoid of any clear strategic platform or foundation of diversification.

In the case of closure Caroni Green Ltd for example, we heard that the initial seed financing was all that was invested, as the former CEO claimed that the enterprise was a self-sufficient operation. However, we heard explanations contradicting those claims coming from the Minister of Agriculture. I am to wonder if Government ever attempted to determine if Caroni Green Limited could have ventured in partnership with Agricultural Research Department of the University of the West Indies or even considered the rearing of livestock. Was it possible to sell the company as a going concern if indeed it was self-sufficient?

Now, regarding Petrotrin, the Joint Select Committee (JSC) of the Parliament produced a report in June 2016 with respect to that company’s administration and operations. The JSC recommended that the organisation should find ways to defer payment of some bond commitments, explore options to optimise existing cost structure, assess the integrity of assets; and perform a manpower audit to determine its ideal workforce size along with skills and competence gaps of its human capital.

This report seems to have been ignored. Instead, the Government created a special committee to make further recommendations. The public is now aware that the recommendations of this 2017 report speaks to breaking up Petrotrin into three separate entities being Exploration and Production, Trinmar and Refining and Marketing. The report, however, made no recommendations of private (foreign or local) partnership, nor the reduction of the existing workforce.

I am still waiting to be convinced how these three entities working together will ease the financial burden on tax payers occasioned by Petrotrin’s current massive international debt.

As I understand it, they will still be producing the same petroleum products, in the same way and targeting the same markets. We would be back to that ‘revolving door’, as breaking up Petrotrin into three entities is not a full solution to our diversification needs and therein lies the problem.

Indeed, it was the Economist Dr Patrick Watson who recently offered that he “is not optimistic about future oil prices, as new products are being manufactured away from the use of hydrocarbons as people are finding cheaper, cleaner alternative sources of energy”.

Since 2009 Middle Eastern oil producers have been finding ways to diversify their industry away from a strict reliance on hydrocarbons. Today Saudi Aramco is delivering Saudi Arabia’s National Science, Technology and Innovation Plan (NSTIP), towards a knowledge-based economy. In this regard, the NSTIP have been working with European, US and other researchers, and product manufactures to create innovative new products from crude oil and gas.

Dubai’s Raven Petroleum also supplies oil field equipment and logistical services apart from its oil and petroleum products. Even British Petroleum has rebranded its slogan to Beyond Petroleum as it attempts to diversify into other renewable energy products and markets.

Going forward, I suggest that critical ingredients for effective restructuring must include new product or service offerings for different segments of the market. This is sure to trigger a change in organisational culture, which more than often, is what is required to guarantee a successful transition to a new entity.

Why didn’t the thinkers behind these decisions, not seek to identify CNMG’s value chain for enhanced local content and consider possible mergers with CreativeTT to commercialise the video graphing and cinematography skills that must exist within the organisation.

We need not be reminded that if we do the same things all the time, we will only get the same results every time.

Caricom member state Dominica was on Tuesday left completely knocked out by Category 5 Hurricane Maria which caused significant damage to that country’s physical infrastructure, its tourism- based economy and even its communication capabilities. Eight people were confirmed dead with search and rescue officials still to reach areas cut off completely as roads were washed away or blocked with debris.

Speaking with the Guyana media yesterday in New York prior to pitching to the United Nations General Assembly, the need for the international community to put measures in place to protect the environment now reacting to man’s exploitation, Granger said Guyana is the largest Caricom state which has to to consider its land space “as being the hinterland of the Caribbean.” Guyana’s land mass is 215,000 square kilometres with a population of just over 750,000. “We have to sit down and speak to other Caricom states to see how this gift could be utilised to give the Caribbean people a better life in the wake of these disasters.” In his lifetime, the 72-year-old Granger said, “I have never seen such a catastrophic series of hurricanes one after the other.”

HUMANITARIAN EFFORT

Noting Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit who reported that winds blew away the roof of almost every building owned by people whom he had spoken to, made it clear climate change was not something to be ignored, particularly for small island states of the Caribbean.

“We’ve got to think of evacuation, where these people will go to,” Granger said. They cannot be moved from one affected island to another affected island and that it was largely it is a humanitarian situation.

A man was reported killed in Guadeloupe and several islands were left inundated by floods caused by Maria’s outer bands.

Though reports of the devastation were scarce yesterday, to contain the situation in Dominica, a state of emergency was declared and a curfew from 4 pm to 6 am, imposed.

Hartley Henry, Principal Advisor to Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit reported that was difficult to determine the level of fatalities in Dominica. With seven confirmed dead, he said, “the Prime Minister fears the number will rise as “he (waded) his way” into the rural communities yesterday.

Henry reported Skerrit as saying yesterday morning as saying that his family was “fine” but Dominica “was not”. There was tremendous loss of housing and public buildings, he said. “The main general hospital took a beating. Patient care has been compromised.

Many buildings serving as shelters lost roofs, which means that a very urgent need now is tarpaulins and other roofing materials.”

TT HELPING OUT

He said that little contact had been made with the outlying communities but persons who walked 10 and 15 miles to Roseau reported total destruction of homes, some roadways and crops.

“Urgent helicopter services are needed to take food, water and tarpaulins to outer districts for shelter.” Canefield airport, he said, could accommodate helicopter landings and it was expected that from yesterday that the water around the main Roseau port would be calm enough to accommodate vessels taking relief supplies and other forms of assistance.

The urgent needs, Henry said, “are roofing materials for shelters, bedding supplies for hundreds stranded in or outside what is left of their homes and food and water drops for residents of outlying districts inaccessible at the moment.” Trinidad and Tobago yesterday despatched a Coast Guard vessel with relief supplies, and a helicopter with search and rescue and initial damage assessment personnel along with supplies to Dominica.

The Coast Guard vessel was due to arrive by noon yesterday.

Hurricane Maria yesterday continued on its way to Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands where it also wreaked havoc on islands that were already damaged by the Category 5 Hurricane Irma which left about 84 people dead in the Caribbean and mainland USA.

And Jeff Charles, the main organiser of the Classic, also lamented the fact that the event,will have to operate on a reduced budget.

However, he is expecting that the UCI-sanctioned event, dubbed “Tour of Tobago”, will be the one of the most exciting to be staged on the sister isle.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Charles noted, “The more hurricanes come in this region is the more cyclists I’m losing.” Hurricanes Irma, Jose and Maria have terrorised the Caribbean within the past couple weeks, destroying homes and in some cases making some places uninhabitable.

Charles said that, within the last week, he has lost riders from St Maarten, Guadeloupe, Miami and Dominican Republic.

“These people are devastated,” said Charles. “I’m disappointed that they can’t come.” He continued, “Apart from that, we still have about 12 international teams, which is good. I was just hoping for a record number this year. I don’t know what (Hurricane) Maria will do now, that’s a different story.” Charles said, “Other than that, we have everything going full speed ahead.” Last year’s race was won by James Piccoli of Canada, but there is no confirmation if he will return to defend his crown this year. But former champ and hometown hero Emile Abraham is expected to compete in next week’s event.

As far as sponsorship is concerned, Charles admitted, “The Ministry of Sport and the Ministry of Tourism, for the first time in about seven or eight years (will not assist). They (had) approved sponsorship but they have no money to give.” As a result, the highlight package of the 2017 race will not be aired on the cable network ESPN.

“This is our smallest budget in the last 10 years,” Charles said.

The Tobago House of Assembly (THA) and the National Lotteries Control Board (NLCB) are the Gold Sponsors, while other monetary assistance will be provided by Dasani, Powerade, Holiday Snacks, Kiss Baking, Econo Car Rentals, British Airways, Caribbean Airlines, Bmobile, Crown Point Beach Hotel Limited and Coca Cola.

With regards to the support services for the five-day long Classic, Charles noted, “We’ll have the TRHA (Tobago Regional Health Authority) supporting us, and the Red Cross, as far as the ambulances and the medical services.

“We have the full support of TEMA (Tobago Emergency Management Agency) and the police, and REACT,” he added. “We have the races covered. We have the support of the Tobago Division of Infrastructure to ensure all the roads are safe and secure. We have all the logistics in place.

“It’s going to be a very big race this year. It’s going to be exciting.

We have some top teams (from) Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Canada, USA, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.

The event will be better than last year. We can guarantee that,” Charles ended.