The protest action, held yesterday morning outside the Minister of Education on St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain, also included JTUM members, members of the newly formed Early Childhood Care Workers Union, and parents of the Mamoral Early Childhood Centre.

They all held placards supporting different causes.

Minister in the Ministry of Education, Dr Lovell Francis, who stood on the sidelines, was largely ignored by the protestors.

As the protestors chanted, “Garcia, hiding from workers,” Francis said the minister was at the time attending a meeting of the Cabinet’s Finance and General Purposes Committee.

Responding to the call for disciplinary action to be taken against the school official, Francis reiterated, the ministry does not discipline teachers as that is a function of the Teaching Service Commission.

“You cannot arbitrarily determine that someone is guilty of something.

There has to be a thorough investigation. That investigation was partially done by a school supervisor and is still ongoing. That issue has not come to rest yet,” he said.

TTUTA President Lynsley Doodhai told the media that the union has been very vocal in the call to remove the senior teacher to facilitate a proper and independent investigation into concerns that many of its members have in terms of governance and leadership at the school.

In the same way that Education Minister Anthony Garcia could announce a week after teachers picketed outside the school on March 6, during their lunch break, that recommendations were going to be made to the TSC to take disciplinary action against teachers, the ministry can recommend to the TSC that action be taken against the school official.

“There is evidence that the school official has transgressed the code of conduct under which teachers are governed,” he said.

Teachers at the school, he said, feel victimised, abused and intimidated because of the actions of the school official and the working environment was toxic.

“The quality of work at the school is affected.

We have a member of staff who has been unable to attend school since the beginning of the year because of stress related diseases,” he said.

In reaction to Garcia’s statement that the teachers who protested were setting a poor example to the students, Doodhai said, “as far as we are concerned, he is being hypocritical and disingenuous in his remarks.” As a former TTUTA president, he said, Garcia would have led many picketing exercises.

“We reject his statement outright that teachers are setting a bad example.

In fact his statement has incensed the entire trade union movement,” he said.

He said he had to be careful about what he says, “because we have a lawsuit from an official of the school.” Francis said that he was not aware of any lawsuit being taken by a SMSS school official.

Told that it was being said that the protest was due to the fact that he has a relative working at the school, Doodhai acknowledged that he has a relative working at the school and has relatives working at many schools because he comes from a family of educators.

The protest, he said, was not a one-man call but an action taken by TTUTA’s general council.

Augustus Sylvester, Health and Safety Officer with the Lifeguard Service, Ministry of National Security told Newsday they took to the picket line because their superiors were not dealing with their issues.

During the picket, he said Dillon met with them. He told them he was not aware of their concerns and promised to meet with them next week Monday. Also present on the picket line was James Lambert, President General of the National Union of Government and Federated Workers Union.

The NUGFWU represents the lifeguards.

Since the Lifeguard Service was transferred to the ministry 18 months ago, Sylvester said, the working conditions and services now being offered have retrogressed.

Apart from being understaffed, he said, the lifeguards were underpaid and have not had new equipment, including uniforms, for over five years.

“We are in the 21st century and we are working with 1942 equipment.

We have no motorised equipment to do our duties,” he said.

The 120 lifeguards across the country manage the beaches at Salybia, Toco, Mayaro, Manzanilla, Quinam, Vessigny, Los Iros, Maracas, Tyrico and Las Cuevas.

One lifeguard told Newsday that in the past, they were equipped with jet skis, ATVs (all terrain vehicles) and boats, but now they have none.

“We have one or two canoes at Maracas Bay and a rescue can (flotation device that can support the lifeguard’s and the victim’s weight).

“That is all we have,” he said. Noting that even their first aid kits were lacking, he said, that they are embarrassed when tourists seek first aid and they cannot help.

There are many pieces of equipment that they do not have such as duck fins which would help the lifeguard to manouevre faster through currents while swimming to do a rescue.

In addition, he said, lifeguards do not have proper beach footwear.

“We go to the hospitals with victims. We have to go bare feet. That is not right,” he said.

He said lifeguards have no pension plan and no job security.

A petition has been signed by 35 members of the association, including five senior counsel, calling for answers on the payment without informing them or proper consideration of legal authorities.

The petition also called for two senior executive members of the last council, led by former president Reginald Armour, SC, to withdraw their nominations for positions in the council which was voted in on March 17.

Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes was installed as president after the position was unopposed.

According to the petition, payment of an undisclosed sum was approved and paid to the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) as arrears of VAT on subscription fees paid by members.

The lawyers complained that no report has been made available to them on the quantum of the payments made as well as an alleged outstanding sum.

The petition also noted that the issue of the payment of VAT on subscription fees came up at a council meeting in 1999 and a decision was taken to deregister for the payment of VAT after that council received advice on whether VAT was payable on membership subscription fees.

“We are very concerned about the slowing of businesses in the whole country but more so in the City of San Fernando,” Bartlett said, adding, “I can tell you today that business is extremely slow and many of the business owners are saying that we do not need to open on a Saturday.” “That does not auger well for any country when a business wants to close an additional day,” she said.

“We all know that business drives the economy and if things are slowing to the point where you do not want to do business again or you are losing business owners because they cannot ply their trade or business is so slow, I think the government needs to sit down with a team of economists and good financial advisors and plan for the country and see what can be done,” she said.

She also called for a reduction of national expenditure from its present position of $53 billion to between $49 to $47 billion dollars.

Bartlett was addressing a business seminar at the Canton Palace restaurant, Cross Crossing Shopping Centre, San Fernando on Saturday night. She said business owners are also concerned about the escalating crime rate as peope are afraid to leave their homes and patronise those businesses which opened at night.

“Crime is a big problem, people are not leaving their homes as they used to and when they don’t leave their homes and they don’t go and participate in things that are happening, that also is grinding things to a halt and you do not want that in your country,” she said.

Meanwhile, UWI economist Dr Roger Hosein agreed that expenditure has to be sliced to approximately $45 billion saying the economy was in need of change and observed that one suggestion was the devaluation of the TT dollar.

He urged the population to support the implementation of the property tax.

“We need to find novel ways to help increase the non-energy sector, export revenues and we need to find ways to reduce the burden on the private sector which is the engine of any society,” he said.

He too agreed that the runaway crime rate was an obstacle to growth in the economy as investors were wary of investing in a volatile environment.

In the letter dated March 27, Sturge said he was exercising his right, conferred by Section 11 of the Freedom of Information Act Chapter 22:02, to make the request for the report. He said the matter was of “grave and serious concern” and a matter of public interest.

“It raises serious concerns about whether persons belonging to the Defence Force were complicit in the execution of their duties. Whether persons in the Defence Force were coerced into breaching settled practice and procedures because of the individuals involved.” Sturge said there have been conflicting reports in the media of the findings of the board of inquiry in this matter.

“This has led to speculation and conjecture by members of the public and already public sentiments have been expressed that there is an attempt at a cover-up by the TT Defence Force. The Defence Force is too important an institution to our democracy to be allowed to be subjected to this type of public criticism. It is an institution in which the public must have confidence and all must be done to instil and restore that confidence. Disclosure of the report of the inquiry will surely achieve this,” he said.

He added that there can be no justifiable and sufficiently essential public interest considerations of type or degree to support non-disclosure of the report in this matter.

He called on both Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste-Primus to say if they supported Minister of Social Development Cherrie-Ann Crichlow-Cockburn’s stance that TT’s unemployment aligns to world figures and is not too bad .

Indarsingh said, “While the Government may believe the unemployment rate is not that bad, hundreds of workers are being dismissed in both the public and private sectors on a monthly basis.” He recalled Public Services Association (PSA) president Watson Duke last weekend say the Government was planning another round of retrenchment .

“Fifty monthly paid employees, some with over twenty years of service including middle and upper management, technical and administrative staff of the Chaguaramas Development Authority (CDA) are to be retrenched from next month.” Indarsingh also recalled the Government’s recent disclosure of the closure of three State enterprises – the Tourism Development Company (TDC), Caroni Green Ltd and the Government Human Resource Services Company Limited (GHRSC) .

“These three companies employ hundreds of workers who will now join thousands more on the breadline.” Indarsingh said Baptiste-Primus had not yet produced any figures to rebuff his claim that 25,000 persons had lost their jobs under this Government since September 2015 .

He said the Central Statistical Office (CSO) 2016 2nd Quarter Report said 16,200 persons have lost their jobs since September 2015, when the Rowley regime took office .

He reiterated the Opposition’s position that no job is safe under the Rowley-led administration, saying that unemployment continues to rise and this Government is demonstrating that the care and compassion for citizens have been lost .

Indarsingh said that by contrast, statistics show the former People’s Partnership (PP) government created 66,000 new jobs and unemployment remained under five percent. The PP administration raised the minimum wage more than once and over 130 wage negotiations were settled .

“The PNM continues to manipulate the country’s workers to satisfy its own selfish and political agenda; their industrial labour practices show the utter contempt that this Government has for the working class despite their mantra that they are a caring party,” he said .

Last year the team won both titles in Guyana. Wicketkeeper batter Merissa Aguilleira will captain the team, while spin bowler Anisa Mohammed will serve as the vice captain.

The West Indies duo will lead an experienced national team as the squad includes seasoned campaigners Shenelle Lord, Kirbyina Alexander, Lee Ann Kirby, Stacy Ann King and Britney Cooper.

TT SQUAD: Merissa Aguilleira (captain), Anisa Mohammed (vice captain), Felicia Walters, Britney Cooper, Shenelle Lord, Stacy Ann King, Reniece Boyce, Kirbyina Alexander, Lee Ann Kirby, Karishma Ramharack, Rachael Vincent, Caneisha Isaac, Shanice Pascall, Kamara Ragoobar, Marjorie Thomas (manager), Gerald Garcia (coach), Wayne Samuel (trainer)

TT (No. 33 in the world) started off cautiously and against a team ranked three places ahead of them and against the run of play, Switzerland’s Jan Hodle opened the scoring with a scrappy goal to give the Europeans the lead in the 5th minute.

This instantly sparked some life and urgency into the hosts and they thought they had found the equaliser in the 7th minute but the goal was disallowed. One minute later, though, TT ’s Stefan Mouttete tied the match from a penalty corner. Teague Marcano could have given TT the lead but failed to score after receiving a slick through ball from Mickell Pierre to end the first quarter.

The second period saw the 39 year old Browne roll back the years in one of the best individual performances of the tournament so far. In the 26th minute, he started a weaving run into the box, getting past three defenders, and slipped it to Marcus James who fired the hosts ahead with his second goal of the tournament. Within two minutes, Browne, TT ’s most capped player with 304 matches, scored two flick shots in the 27th and 28th off penalty corners to extend the lead to 4-1 at half-time.

There was high intensity in the second half with end-to-end action and Tariq Marcano extended the red, white and black’s advantage in the 37th minute from another penalty corner to push the lead to 5-1.

History was also made in the quarter as the three Emmanuel brothers (Keiron, Kristien and Kwasi) joined the Marcano brothers (Tariq and Teague) on the field.

Swiss captain Patrick Muller managed to score a consolation goal in the 50th minute to make it 5-2 but that score lasted until the 59th when Shaquille Daniel slotted home from a fine counter-attacking move to complete the victory.

Speaking after the game, TT defender/midfielder Aidan de Gannes said, “Despite the result from the first game, the performance brought a lot of confidence to the team and carried over to this game and that was the difference.

The victory shouldn’t affect the team too much. Yes, it was nice to win and we celebrated the moment but I think we already started to refocus on the task at hand.” Sunday’s results: Pool A: USA 7 ( Pat Harris 10th, 50th Tyler Sundeen 11th , William Holt 20th , Aki Kaeppeler 28th, Nick Molcsan 39th, Amardeep Khokhar 57th vs Barbados 1 (Che Warner 53rd).

Pool A: Chile 1 (Fernando Renz 32nd) vs Canada 5 (Mark Pearson 40th, 44th, Gordon Johnston 41st, Keegan Pereira 47th, Scott Tupper 50th).

Pool B: Russia 1 (Alexander Skiperskiy 54th) vs Japan 3 (Kenta Tanaka 14th, 15th, Kentaro Fukuda 22nd).

Today’s matches: Switzerland vs Russia (1:15pm) USA vs Chile (3:30pm) Canada vs Barbados (5:45pm) Japan vs Trinidad and Tobago (8pm

The Red Force slumped to another home defeat on Sunday, losing to the Jamaica Scorpions by 87 runs at the Queen’s Park Oval in St Clair. The Red Force are now at the bottom of the six-team standings.

Bassarath said, “The coach sounds very disappointed and he has a right to sound that way, and the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board also is very disappointed with the batting performance of the team. We think that the bowlers are doing what they are supposed to do, the bowlers are right on target. Imagine we bowled out Jamaica twice for 201 runs, which is a small total and our batting failed in both innings.” Bassarath said the players are given the support required in terms of facilities to train, but says they are lacking focus.

“I think the commitment (and) dedication (are lacking), it seems to us that they are not focused. I want to stress the point that we maybe failed to put them through enough mental preparation, but every other thing they were given.

“The approach to the batting was not good at all. The shot selection was very, very poor indeed.

Some of the shots that were played it seems to us that the batsmen just wanted to get out and go back in the pavilion and sit down.” It was reported that Red Force coach Gus Logie is contemplating stepping down, but Bassarath says it is up to him because his contract does not end until later this year.

“Mr Logie is the coach.

He will be the coach until his contract expires later this year. He hinted that he will resign after the season. I don’t know what is in his mind, but we will have to lend support and see what could be done. I can’t say whether there will be changes or no changes at this point in time.” Bassarath said everybody cannot point fingers to Logie as there are many factors that lead to a team’s lack of success.

Bassarath acknowledged that Logie has not had an impact on the fourday fortunes of TT , but added that the captain’s bowling changes and the lack of application from the batsmen can be looked at also. Bassarath noted the lack of experience in the team is also leading to the poor results. He cited the absences of Ravi Rampaul, Lendl Simmons, the Bravo brothers (Dwayne and Darren) and Sunil Narine for various reasons have hurt TT in the four-day competition.

The TT CB president noted though that young off spinner Bryan Charles is one player that has impressed him so far.

The funds will be used to sponsor a team at the event. Ma Pau has supported this particular event over the past years and remained committed to the goals and objectives of the tournament despite its recent challenges.

A press release yesterday by Ma Pau stated: “Despite our recent set-back of a fire at our location on Ariapita Avenue on Sunday 26th March 2017, Ma Pau has not flinched in our corporate responsibility to support worthwhile causes.

The character of our organisation can be measured in times like these where we continue to do what is expected despite the challenges which we face.”