The free CNG is being administered via a Scotiabank fuel card.

Drivers in receipt of the incentive simply have to fill up with CNG and then swipe their card at CNG service stations.

The September 6 distribution ceremony was part of NGC CNG’s ongoing efforts to encourage more drivers to switch from traditional diesel, super and premium gas to the more eco-friendly CNG.

State-owned NGC CNG is mandated by Government to accelerate the use of CNG as a vehicular fuel, as well as increase the number of CNG fuelling points across the country.

Earlier this year, the company offered the following incentives to vehicle owners to encourage them to switch: $5,000 in free CNG for taxi drivers who convert to CNG; $30,000 (large maxi) or $20,000 (small maxi) in free CNG for maxi taxi drivers who convert to CNG; $7,500 in free CNG to registered members of the Private School Transport Association of Trinidad and Tobago (PSTATT) who convert to CNG; and $15,000 in free CNG to registered members of the Private School Transport Association of Trinidad and Tobago (PSTATT) who purchase an OEM CNG vehicle.

NGC CNG said taxi driver, Ashmeed Mohammed, was elated to receive the card. “When deciding to make the switch to CNG, this incentive tipped the scales heavily in favour of my decision. I’m now looking forward to reducing my fuel bill, now that I’m on CNG,” Mohammed said.

NGC CNG said it “expects to offer hundreds of these incentives to approved applicants before the end of 2018.” The company also offers grants to registered maxi taxi owners who dispose of their existing vehicle to buy a CNG powered replacement

In a statement issued on Monday, Park noted that the purchase of hunting permits “is not an entitlement to hunt before the start of the Hunting Season, which opens on Sunday 1, October, 2017 and closes on Wednesday, 28 February, 2018.

According to the Conservation of Wildlife Act, Chapter 67:01 of the Laws of Trinidad and Tobago.” The sale of hunting permits $100 each, begins tomorrow.

Interested persons must present a photo identification and a recent utility bill when applying at any of the following ten locations: The Forestry Division, Head Office, Long Circular Road, St. James; The Forestry Division, San Fernando Office, Balisier Avenue, Pleasantville, San Fernando; District Revenue Office, Sangre Grande; District Revenue Office, Tunapuna; District Revenue Office, Chaguanas; District Revenue Office, Siparia; District Revenue Office, La Brea; District Revenue Office, Rio Claro; Inland Revenue Office, Roxborough, Tobago; and Inland Revenue Office, Sangster Hill, Tobago.

Park said should the public “have any queries,” Forestry Division officers can be contacted at one of three locations in Trinidad: Head Office, Long Circular, Port-of-Spain (225- 3865); Forestry Information Unit, Long Circular, Port-of- Spain ( 225-3846/47) and at the Wildlife Section, St Joseph (225-3837)

If they don’t believe it’s true or they are not involved in any underhand dealings, they should not get hot under the collar, but wait until the findings of any investigation into the matter is completed before pulling their hair out.

GA MARQUES via email

Michael Murray is on trial for kidnapping Straker. The matter is being heard before Justice Maria Wilson and a jury of nine in the San Fernando High Court. Yesterday, Straker testified how she was taken against her will by a man and later recognised the driver of the getaway as being the accused, Michael Murray.

The incident occurred on June, 21 2007 minutes after Straker left her Coora Road, Siparia home. She said that at about 8.30 pm, she was walking on the left side of the road when a white car pulled up alongside her, a man alighted from the vehicle, slapped her and dragged her inside the car which then sped off. “When he dragged me into the car, he pushed my head down. It was while inside the car, the driver turned around and I noticed his face,” Straker said she identified the driver as her neighbour, Michael Murray. The State was represented by attorneys Trevor Jones and Sara De Silva. Attorney Ainsley Lucky is representing the accused.

Another victim is Kwami Carr who was also found on Monday night at Spring Valley Road, Mt D’or. He was shot to death. Police are also seeking the public’s help in identifying the body of a man found at Wharton Street in Laventille, yesterday while officers are trying to ascertain a motive behind the murder of Akim “Simple” Parkinson, who was killed in Cocorite.

Carabon’s relatives said he was also a clerk at the National Insurance Board, but his dream was to become an official for FIFA. In fact, sources at the TT Pro League revealed he was due to officiate at a match yesterday. As a result of his murder, the match was postponed.

“It’s very sad to hear what transpired with him but we had great plans for him,” said Wayne Caesar, head of the TTFA Refereeing Department as he reacted to Carabon’s murder. “The old people have a saying that the good die young.

He was one of our better officials.” Police said that at 7.15 pm on Monday, Tableland police responded to a report of gunshots being heard at Naparima Mayaro Road near the Tableland High School. Police found Carabon’s body on the road. His car was parked a short distance away.

In an unrelated incident, Kwami Carr was found dead under a tamarind tree less than an hour after Carabon’s killing. Police sources said officers went to Spring Valley Road, on receiving a report of shots being heard, and found Carr’s body. He was shot in the head.

Then at 4 am yesterday, police were called to Wharton Street in Laventille where the body of an unidentified man was found with multiple gunshot wounds. The fourth murder was that of Akim “Simple” Parkinson who was shot dead yesterday at Upper Waterhole Road, Cocorite.

According to sources, Parkinson was walking along a track near a parlour when he was cornered and shot by three men. Residents said Parkinson was an easy-going man who lived up to his nickname.

“Why do you think they call him ‘Simple’? It’s because he was never in nothing,” said a resident.

The issue of a lease operator allegedly swindling $80 million from state-owned Petrotrin by over-billing the company for oil it never provided to Petrotrin, was first raised by Persad- Bissessar at a UNC meeting on September 10. At the party’s Monday Night Forum at the Union Presbyterian Primary School in Claxton Bay, the fake oil scandal was again her main focus.

Persad-Bissessar also weighed heavily on the fact that Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley had publicly acknowledged that he was friends with the owner of the company at the centre of the scandal. She said that a telephone call by a senior member of government, to the owner of the lease firm, raises serious questions and to her, suggests that the government official is guilty of misconduct and misbehaviour in public office. She said that it was passing strange at the government official did not call Petrotrin’s line minister Franklin Khan or Petrotrin chairman. Instead, the official chose to call the owner of the lease company.

“This phone call raises some serious questions and the question arises as to whether the (name called) may be guilty of misconduct and misbehaviour in public office,” Persad- Bissessar said. “The question arises as to whether (name called) may be guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice,” she added.

Persad-Bissessar also condemned recent attacks on media by personnel associated with the company and wondered whether the “perpetrators felt emboldened because they have a friend in high office.” She also condemned a police raid on Monday at the television studio offices of crime watch host Ian Alleyne, saying the nation is witnessing Gestapo tactics by the government.

During a news conference outside Rowley’s office, St. Clair Avenue, St. Clair, on September 13 after three hours of talks, Roget said the meeting had been able to get the Government to put a hold on plans for further retrenchment of public sector workers.

However, the Office of the Prime Minister issued a statement a few days later saying that Roget’s claim was “absolutely misleading” and that the Government had no plans for massive retrenchment of public sector workers.

The statement said the labour movement had always claimed that the government was engaging in mass layoffs although this was not true “and the Government was at pains to point out that its actions were the opposite and meant to keep as many persons employed even as the country’s finances posed a serious challenge to this objective.” The statement added that “notwithstanding this factual situation, labour insisted on asking for a moratorium until December on something that was neither occurring nor was planned at this time.” The statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said it 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.” Speaking to Newsday yesterday following the formal opening of the Law Term of the Industrial Court, Roget said that statement was “totally unwarranted and it was totally unprovoked and it was meant to serve as a distraction from the ongoing fiasco with the friends of the government with respect to the alleged over-fiscalisation of oil” at Petrotrin.

Roget said the persons involved are known friends of senior members of the Government and accused Rowley of acting just like the previous government.

“The last government used to govern by distraction. Every time an issue came up, they tried to create another issue to distract from that.” Roget said despite Rowley’s denial, “We verily believe that there was going to be mass retrenchment and we still do verily believe that there would be mass retrenchment.” He said the denial was issued to water down what had been achieved by the trade union movement and it was “deceitful and deceptive” for the Office of the Prime Minister to issue that statement which, he said, breaks down the trust and confidence between the two sides. He said “the trade union movement can no longer take the Prime minister at his word because the government is adopting the same approach as the last government, an approach which reeks of dishonesty and deception.”

Different types of sugar on a table You’ve probably heard the terms fructose, glucose, lactose and sucrose before, and you may know that they’re all types of sugar. But do you know how they differ from one another, or whether some are better for you than others? What are complex and simple carbohydrates? Carbohydrates are classified into two basic groups, complex and simple.

Complex carbohydrates are composed of multiple simple sugars, joined together by chemical bonds.

The more chains and branches of simple sugars, the more complex a carbohydrate is and in turn, the longer it takes to be broken down by the body and the less impact it has on blood sugar levels.

Examples of complex carbohydrates include wholegrains such as jumbo oats, brown rice, spelt, rye and barley.

Simple carbohydrates are either monosaccharides (one sugar molecule) or disaccharides (two sugar molecules). They are digested quickly and release sugars rapidly into the bloodstream.

The two main monosaccharides are glucose and fructose.

The two major disaccharides are sucrose (composed of glucose and fructose) and lactose (which is made up of galactose and glucose).

What is glucose? Glucose is the primary source of energy your body uses and every cell relies on it to function. When we talk about blood sugar we are referring to glucose in the blood.

When we eat carbohydrates, our body breaks them down into units of glucose.

When blood glucose levels rise, cells in the pancreas release insulin, signalling cells to take up glucose from the blood. As the cells absorb sugar from the blood, levels start to drop.

The nutritional profile of glucose The glycemic index (GI) is a ranking of how quickly foods make your blood sugar levels rise after eating them. High GI foods are very easily broken down into glucose.

Glucose is the defining standard and has a GI value of 100. Glucose alone does not taste particularly sweet compared to fructose and sucrose.

How does glucose affect your body? Research suggests that, as glucose stimulates insulin release from the pancreas, it also results in the release of two other hormones, leptin and ghrelin. Leptin is known as the appetite suppressor and ghrelin the appetite increaser.

It is thought that lower GI foods (such as wholegrains, proteins and those lower in glucose) suppress ghrelin, therefore regulating satiety.

What is fructose? Fructose or fruit sugar, is a simple sugar naturally occurring in fruit, honey, sucrose and high fructose corn syrup. Fructose is very sweet, roughly one-and-a-half times sweeter than sucrose (white sugar). Because of the worldwide increase in the consumption of sweeteners – in soft drinks and foods containing high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) – fructose intake has quadrupled since the early 1900s.

The nutritional profile of fructose Fructose is absorbed directly into the bloodstream during digestion and has no impact on insulin production or blood glucose levels. Consequently, its GI value is much lower, on average around 19. It was once thought this made it a good substitute for table sugar, but there is now a growing body of research to question this.

Sweeteners such as HFCS have a higher GI value due to the presence of glucose.

It has been suggested that it is the glucose content of these sweeteners that may have contributed to the increase in cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

How does fructose affect your body? Fructose is handled by the body in a different way to glucose as it is metabolised in the liver. As a result, blood sugar (glucose) levels do not rise as rapidly after fructose consumption compared to other simple sugars. When you eat too much fructose the liver cannot process it fast enough and instead, starts to make fats that are carried in the blood and stored as triglycerides – the body’s main form of fat. Studies have shown that the consumption of large amounts of fructose may lead to increased appetite by impairing the body’s ability to use insulin and to suppress circulating ghrelin (the appetite- stimulating hormone).

While most diabetics cannot tolerate sucrose, most can tolerate moderate amounts of fruit and fructose without loss of blood sugar control.

Research is yet to show any detrimental health effects of moderate consumption of fructose as part of a balanced diet. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that the excessive consumption of HFCS and other sweeteners may contribute to elevated blood sugar levels, blood fats and subsequent weight gain.

What is sucrose? Sucrose is crystallised white sugar produced by the sugar cane plant and can be found in households and foods worldwide.

Sucrose is a disaccharide made up of 50 per cent glucose and 50 per cent fructose and is broken down rapidly into its constituent parts.

The nutritional profile of sucrose Due to its glucose content, sucrose has a GI value of 65. As it is made up of glucose and fructose, the latter is metabolised in the liver and holds the same issues as those mentioned for fructose above. Due to its glucose content, sucrose does lead to an elevation in blood glucose.

Diabetics should therefore be mindful of foods containing sucrose.

What is lactose? Lactose is a sugar found in milk. It is a disaccharide made up of glucose and galactose units. It is broken down into the two parts by an enzyme called lactase.

Once broken down, the simple sugars can be absorbed into the bloodstream.

The nutritional profile of lactose Whole milk has a GI value of 41 and is considered to be a low GI food. It is broken down slowly and helps to increase the absorption of minerals such as calcium, magnesium and zinc. Some people experience lactose intolerance – an inability to produce the lactase enzyme that breaks down milk.

Lactose intolerance can lead to diarrhoea, bloating and other gastrointestinal symptoms.

The company, which is at the centre of a fake oil scandal involving state owned oil company Petrotrin, has also invited journalists to a tour of its operations in Penal.

The invitation was contained in a media release yesterday issued by the law firm of Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, which is representing A & V Oil and Gas Limited in its legal battle with Petrotrin.

Petrotrin has since stopped payments to the company following an audit report which detailed alleged discrepancies.

The statement was signed by A & V Oil and Gas Limited chief executive officer, Hanif Baksh.

“The company has received legal advice from its attorneys and notwithstanding the strict legal rights which exist for the enjoyment of one’s property, the company tenders its apologies and accepts that it has an obligation in this matter to cooperate with the media to facilitate and provide to the media and to the public, information in respect of the allegations levelled against it,” the company stated.

The company noted that the allegations regarding the fake oil scandal involve the expenditure of public funds by a state owned company in which the public had a vested right to know the relevant facts and to make its assessment regarding said allegations.

The media tour has been carded for September 21 at the company’s Nazim Avenue, San Francique, Penal base.

A press conference is also expected to be held on September 23 where the company’s attorneys, together with an official with technical knowledge, will answer questions. The fake oil scandal was made public by UNC political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar during an address at a meeting of the UNC on September 10.

The Prime Minister, speaking last week on the fake oil issue, publicly confirmed that Baksh is his friend. The PM also vowed that whether friend or not, PNM or not, anyone caught in corruption and fraud will have to account.

Reading from a copy of an internal audit report prepared by Petrotrin, Persad-Bissessar said the audit team had concluded that a lease operator at the Catskill field defrauded the company of almost $100 million by inflating its oil production figures.

Meanwhile, the TT Publishers & Broadcasters Association (TTPBA) said it has noted with great concern the pattern of treatment being meted out toward journalists. In a media release yesterday, the association stated, “We reaffirm that it is our responsibility to protect and preserve the right of citizens of Trinidad and Tobago to know.

“As such, we view an infringement against our practitioners as an infringement against freedom of speech and freedom of information.” The Association is calling on law enforcement to investigate “these matters” saying it “will continue to monitor these situations in defence of the free media.”

Maria is expected to hit hardest the islands of Dominica, St Kitts/Nevis and Puerto Rico .

It was revealed that several Grenadian lawyers left Dominica on Sunday to head back home, hoping to avoid the wrath of Maria, after Irma left devastation, death and destruction as she wrought her havoc on the Leeward Islands .

According to meteorologist at the MSTT Jean-Marc Rampersad, he said the northern path Maria was taking was usually more intense and Antigua and Guadeloupe were expected to receive winds up to 130 miles per hour, or in excess. After recently receiving a battering from Hurricane Irma Rampersad said there was not much any of the islands could do .

“No matter what a category it is a hurricane is always devastasting and in terms of major hurricanes, there are so much prepartions that you can do to deminish the damage .

Skeritt urged Dominicans to take heed and not treat this hurricane lightley .

“This is not a time to be unreasonable. Because of our low terrain there are persons who would wait for something to happen in order to take action .

I think people should clean up around their properties instead of stockpiling for weeks of food and other supplies .

“Our focus should be focussed on work in our rural communities .

Dot no misuse your phone and data use .

All of this can wait until the systen has passed .

Think of any elderly or indigent person who you feel would be vulnerable under these conditions, and if possible take them to your home or a nearby shelter,” he urged .

Skerritt said the country’s ministry of health had fully activated its emergency system and health systems were in place .

“I am also advising all that we should treat with the approach of a hurricane seriously, take no chances. We have planned for this hurricane season, but do not let us take this hurricane for granted .

There will be full security for citizens and we have prepared legal insurance whether we have to prepare a curfew for the entire or parts of the country, to avoid any lawless actions by those who would engage in such,” he said .

He added: “Residents who are in flood prone areas should relocate instead of trying get across the river when it’s breaking its bank .

St Lucia prime minister Allen M Chastanet aid the isalnd was not looking for much damagae except for landslides and landslips .

He said those in low lying areas would be moved as a precautionary measure .