Conceptualised and implemented under the leadership of Local Government and Rural Development Minister Kazim Hosein while he was Mayor of San Fernando, the idea of volunteer network is being expanded to a national level under his direction.

On Tuesday, the concept was presented to Mayor Gopaul Boodan and the Council of the Chaguanas Borough Corporation by Matthew Kailah, a representative of the Ministry.

Kailah said each corporation is being asked to amass a database of at least 200 volunteers over the next six months. The database would store volunteers’ basic profile information as well as their occupations, skills, areas of interest, and their preferred days for volunteering. The database would also keep record of the hours logged by volunteers which, Kailah said, would favour students who are seeking to add civic duty to their university applications.

The corporations are being encouraged to perform at least one project per month using the volunteer network which could range from the usual beautification projects to the provision of professional services like legal aid clinics and medical check-ups. Volunteers could even be called upon during and in the aftermath of future national disasters, be it to offer professional help or just their able bodies.

As was done in San Fernando, after the networks are functioning like well-oiled machines, each corporation is being asked to elect a board to an NGO dedicated to managing the work of the various networks within their communities.

Kailah said the networks would create a space for citizens to develop a sense of civic duty while acting as a deterrent to crime for young people.

Melville is before Justice Maria Wilson and a nine-member jury, in the Port of Spain Fourth Criminal Court, charged with conspiring to murder his then secretary, Cox, on June 28, 2001. He is also charged with attempted murder, kidnapping and assault.

On the day in question, it is alleged Melville told Cox to wait at the corner of Park and Pembroke Streets, Port-of-Spain, where she was to go with some men to collect documents relating to a case in which Melville was involved.

Cox went to the location and was met by two men who later took her to Fort George Road, St James. One man took Cox up the hill and said he was paid $1,000 to kill her. She offered to pay him $20,000 to spare her life. Realising that she was going to be killed, Cox flung herself off the steep hillside and down a precipice. She was eventually held and stripped. One of the men squeezed Cox’s neck until she became unconscious. Eventually, she regained consciousness and hid.

The next day she made her way down the hill and made her way to the St James Police Station.

At the trial yesterday, the state tendered the evidence of two witnesses in accordance with provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act. The formal admissions were agreed to by the defence and the evidence was read out to the jury.

In his evidence, Zedekiah Aaron, the watchman of the building at 18- 20 Pembroke Street, which housed Melville’s law office said on the day in question, he saw Cox leave the building about 3 pm and walk up Pembroke Street. Sometime later, he saw Melville enter the building.

He said at about 4.30-5 pm Melville exited the building with some files which he gave to a gentleman down the street. The attorney then returned to the building and sometime between 5.30 to 6 pm, he again came back out and asked Aaron if he saw his secretary.

“I told him ‘Yes she went up Pembroke Street,’ Aaron said in his testimony which he would have given on a previous occasion.

The testimony of Eva Marie Edghill was also read out to the jury. She said she was in her yard on June 29, 2001, when she saw a young woman, completely naked, crying out for assistance.

She said she gave the woman something to eat and drink. She also gave her “duster coat” to put on. Edghill said the woman had cuts and injuries all over her body.

She said the woman appeared to be very frightened and was only looking over her shoulders and crying.

State attorney Anju Bhola is prosecuting while attorneys Ravi Rajcoomar, Larry Williams and Radeyah Ali are representing Melville.

He made the point while addressing a luncheon hosted by the Energy Chamber at Cara Suites Hotel and Conference Centre, Claxton Bay on Wednesday. Harewood’s address was titled, “Update on Petrotrin in the context of the ‘lower for longer’ price environment.” “The challenge we face is in a normal operation, people will be investing in assets that will bring a rate of return based on increased oil production or de-bottlenecking.

But we are in a situation where our ageing infrastructure is so acute have to put aside money just to deal with that to restore business,” he said.

“Do we abdicate responsibility to reduce the cost? We cannot! We can still try to reduce operating cost and we have identified and listed things that are of concern to us with respect to asset integrity.

The question is how we fund the changes required. It is a huge sum. Some of the numbers they have tossed up for tankers and pipes, if you were to accumulate that over the next four to five years, you are talking in the order of $16 billion,” he said. Harewood said seven tanks, one of which has been the source of a recent oil spill, have been identified as being in need of urgent repair and the company was working on two other tanks when the oil spill occurred.

“That tank was part of the seven we are doing, and this is the challenge we face and that is while we are dealing with one thing, something else is going to bite us,” he said.

Harewood said that refinery margins are an integral part of the company’s success but this is dependent on increased local crude oil production.

“If you can keep the cost of the raw material down, and maximize the cost of the finished product, then you going to make money so the refinery margins are extremely important and how do we keep the cost of the input material down, well we need to increase our local crude production, because whatever is the lifting cost to bring that crude to the refinery, that represents the cost of production,” he said, adding, “when you are buying crude, you are exposed to market forces.” “For Petrotrin to succeed we need to increase our local crude production,” he said noting that local crude production had risen from 41,000 barrels per day in December 2016 to 46,000 barrels per day in April 2017.

And regarding the recent oil spill which has reportedly reached the North-eastern coast of Venezuela, Harewood said the company’s aging infrastructure was a problem which would require a multi-billion dollar investment.

“I can’t give the cost for the recent incident, we are doing investigations into that but the issues are being dealt with. It is a challenge.

We have to reduce our operational expenses and how we treat with the question of improving the asset integrity at Petrotrin,” Harewood said.

“At the end of the day you have to decide what you want to have, a market driven economy or one that is directed by the state. When things are directed by an entity that’s not an actor in the system, distortion is created and you have to be very careful of this. But we do accept that there is a need to make some decisions, to make a change and frankly, some of our membership benefit from what the minister has done.” During his delivery of the Mid-Year Review on May 10, Finance Minister Colm Imbert said he had requested that the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago (CBTT) give priority to trade and manufacturing regarding access to foreign exchange.

“From our perspective,” De Silva said, “this direction of foreign exchange to three priorities, trade, education and health care (is) already happening.” “Clearly those are critical areas and fundamentally, it’s the CBTT’s injections, so it’s the country’s reserves and I assume it’s within the minister’s right to direct (the bank) but in a free market it’s not always best to do those kind of things…because it disrupts, it creates distortion.

As a business chamber, we are very much in favour of as free a system as can possibly exist.” De Silva was speaking with reporters following AmCham TT’s 2017 Annual General Meeting (AGM), held yesterday at Hilton Trinidad, Port-of- Spain.

Prior to his election to the post of president, De Silva served as AmCham TT vice-president for the period 2015 – 2017.

This was disclosed by Sgt Christopher Swamber of the Stolen Vehicle Unit on Wednesday during the weekly media briefing at Police Headquarters in Portof- Spain.

He said Northern Division recorded the highest figure of stolen vehicles in the country, with 32 percent or 111 vehicle being taken.

Southern and Central Division recorded the second and third highest amount at 81 and 48, respectively. “Of the 289 vehicles reported stolen, 138 were Nissan vehicles including the Tiida, B12, B13, B14, AD Wagon and Almera types.” He said the other types of vehicles targeted are the Mitsubishi Lancers with 16 reported thefts, the Mazda 323 with ten cases, and the H100, of which six were stolen. Sgt Swamber said although the Tiida is still the vehicle of choice for thieves, there has been a reduction, from 42 in 2016 to 29 so far this year, of this vehicle being stolen.

However, he said there has been an increase in the theft of Nissan B12, with 12 taken in 2016 compared to 16 so far this year. “The demand for parts from the B12, 13 and 14 have been the main reason attributed to targetting of these vehicles,” Swamber said.

He said robbery of Toyota Hilux’s increased from seven in 2016 to eight in 2017, while the Almera from four in 2016 to six in 2017, and the B15 from one in 2016 to three in 2017.

Swamber indicated there has been a reduction in theft of the Nissan Tiida of 71 per cent, from 14 in 2016 to four in 2017.

“The main areas of choice for larceny are large car parks such as in shopping malls and at hospitals.” Swamber reminded motorists that precautionary measures should be adopted.

Speaking at the signing ceremony at the National Academy for the Performing Arts in Port-of-Spain, Education Minister Anthony Garcia said this consortium will provide a pipeline to channel collaborative activities including the recruitment and exchange of students between participating Caribbean institutions and the Medgar Evers College and other US institutions.

The other universities involved include University of Guyana and EGC Martinique Business School. Garcia said the consortium’s objective is to foster and promote academic collaboration aimed at addressing the economic and social challenges affecting historically disadvantaged people and developing countries.

“And explore and develop new curricula to address the challenges of the changing global environment to serve as a centre for harmonising the efforts of member institutions in the obtaining of the objectives set out and a key driver in all of this is to ensure a Caribbean diaspora fund to invest in education opportunities,” he said.

The minster said the aim of consortium is to establish new programmes relevant to the development of the Caribbean community and the diaspora allowing for articulation student and staff mobility and joint awards.

“It is our desire to ensure that every citizen is afforded the opportunity to improve himself. Be it in the traditional academic areas or the technical vocational field. When our citizens thrive our societies will do well.

This is why it is with great pleasure that we welcome initiatives of this nature which support the development of our human capital.

“As we scan the region, this collaboration will benefit the wider Caribbean as more institutions align themselves to the Consortium creating opportunities for citizens across the region and contributing to its growth as well,” he said. UCIEC Chairman and President of Medgar Evers College Rudy Crew said the consortium was about committing to a set of strategies that are intended to engage and build human capital and share that human capital across the border.

Both are at the core of the “expression” and “understanding” that we have come to accept as indispensable to learning, but the absence of these at the tertiary level is no mystery.

The simple reason for this absence is that competencies in both these areas are acquired over time through cumulative experience in each and you can’t simply hope to be able to “put a proper sentence together” or show competence in understanding a writer’s message or analyse it critically without having been grounded in both over time.

To write proper sentences as habit you will have had to be nurtured in the appropriate language environment, continually so, and this would have had to be reinforced by the mechanics of the language of which Nesfield’s Outline of English Grammar, inter alia, is ample facilitator.

Continuing reinforcement of the rules as in a basic text like Nesfield is key to language development and enough emphasis cannot be placed on the practicum aspect, both of the oral and written, to make “writing a proper sentence” a matter of habit. In time this becomes your personal culture in language of which you will give ample demonstration at the tertiary level.

In terms of cognitive capacity, basic comprehension exercises will provide the grounding but to prepare for the rigour of tertiary education the student must be exposed to the skills of critical thinking, beginning with understanding how ideas may support a central message and correspondingly how to coordinate ideas around a central message.

But the student must go beyond this into applying critical insight to those ideas, determining their merits and demerits.

Knowledge must not be merely accepted but interrogated and this is how students grow and develop through language in a way that is suited for the demands of tertiary education.

It is time that practitioners in tertiary education begin to recognise the need for this basic grounding in language and include relevant courses in their programmes, for no matter how sophisticated their core offerings are, a student without these basic competencies in language can never hope to succeed in a way that is required at this level.

DR ERROL BENJAMIN via email

Gloria Chin, 27, of Hackette Extension Road, Navet Village, San Fernando, and Kamal Khan, 26, of Solidad Road, Claxton Bay, were arrested on Friday following investigations into the murder of Alleyne, who is the nephew of Assistant Commissioner of Crime Carlton Alleyne.

The burnt body of Alleyne, 27, was discovered on June 14, 2014, at the dump along Tortuga Road, Foress Park, Claxton Bay.

He went missing from his home at Southern Main Road, Pointe-a- Pierre on June 7, 2014.

Alleyne’s remains were discovered on June 14, 2014, but relatives identified him on June 23 of that year by means of dental records, hair texture and bone fragments from the spine. Alleyne suffered from scoliosis.

Detectives from the Homicide Bureau of Investigations Region 111 investigated the murder and on Friday last arrested Chin and Khan. Advice was sought from Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Joan Honore-Paul. Yesterday, the two were handcuffed and escorted to the magistrates’ court where they appeared before Magistrate Indira Misir-Gosine, who read the charge to both.

The charge alleged that between June 7, 2014 and June 11, 2014, they murdered Alleyne, at Foress Park, Claxton Bay, Tortuga.

The magistrate informed both accused that the charge was laid indictably and that they were not called upon to plead. Woman Corporal of Police Johnson laid the charge.

Attorneys Gobin Harripersad Khan and Nazima Ali Knox represented Khan and Chin respectively and requested that upon the assigning of a State attorney, disclosures of any statements or exhibits should be made by the next hearing of the matter. The magistrate postponed the case to June 8 and remanded Chin and Khan into custody.

Alexander, owner of LA Mini Mart on the Eastern Main Road, Arouca, reportedly had an argument with a woman who took her grouse to a man she is romantically involved with.

Police were told the man then hired a 24-year-old from Morvant to kill Alexander. The suspect, who was held by Alexander’s customers after the shooting, has been co-operating with investigators, telling them he was paid to kill Alexander. Police are expected to detain a woman in her 20s and another man for questioning.

At about 11.30 am on Tuesday, Alexander of Back Street, Arouca was at his mini-mart when the suspect entered, announced a hold-up and shot Alexander twice in the chest.

He fell to the ground as the gunman ran out of the parlour and into the hands of customers and residents who put a sound and sustained beating on him.

Police were called in and arrested the semi-conscious man.

A revolver loaded with four rounds of ammunition and two spent casings was seized by officers. The suspect was beaten so severely that he had to be taken to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex for treatment.

Gopeesingh yesterday wrote the Integrity Commission on this issue and called on the Commission to investigate it. Contrary to articles published in the Sunday Express and the Trinidad Express on May 7 and 9 respectively, Garcia said, investigations by his permanent secretary have found claims to be baseless.

“The sum involved as payment was $510,000, not $2 million.” He said Wilkinson was given the cheque by the ministry’s director of finance and accounts, “to take to the EFCL in order to facilitate timely payment to the contractor as had been promised by both the ministry and EFCL.” Garcia said the contractor was the first to complete his assignment at the Malick Secondary School and, “was entitled to payment for this job done.” The minister said this project fell under the Morvant Laventille Initiative for which there is a separate fund to, “facilitate timely payments where work has been completed.” He added that the contractors involved in this initiative reside in the Laventille/Morvant district.

In his letter to the Commission, Gopeesingh claimed this transaction was a breach of Section 24 of the Integrity in Public Life Act.

He said the contractor was incorporated in 2014 and was “a sham” company. Gopeesingh was education minister in former People’s Partnership government in 2014.

Speaking with reporters before the sitting, Gopeesingh said ministers’ advisors are not covered by the Act. “There is no statutory or fiduciary responsibility for a minister’s advisor,” he stated. Asked if he expected the Commission to resolve this matter expeditiously, Gopeesingh replied,”You can’t force them in terms of their timing but I guess they will sense the necessity of looking after it at the appropriate time.”