This, as Hinds appeared before the Land and Physical Infrastructure Joint Select Committee (JSC) at Tower D of the Port-of- Spain International Waterfront Centre. As he confirmed receipt of a letter from former acting Port CEO Leon Grant complaining about Sahadeo’s conduct, Hinds disclosed, “I received complaints from her about other persons.” Hinds said it became clear to him from the various pieces of correspondence that “bacchanal and confusion and egos” were causing “friction between the board and the management.” The minister said it was also clear to him that Sahadeo did nothing irregular in pursuance of her responsibilities of her duties as chairman.

He said his focus was to encourage all stakeholders to work in the country’s best interest

Police, in a release, said Rico Guevara, 27, a security officer, of Lopinot Settlement, Arima and Kermac Hodge, 23, a cargo handler of Bon Air Gardens, Arouca were before Magistrate Brian Debideen on Friday last. The matter was adjourned to September 22.

The men were arrested by members of the Organised Crime Narcotics and Firearms Bureau (OCNFB) on August 31 at Amerijet Cargo warehouse, Piarco at about 5.30 am.

The drug, which has an estimated street value of $2 million dollars, was found concealed in boxes of pepper, aboard a flight which originated from Trinidad, and landed in Toronto, Canada, on August 20. The men were charged by PC Brian Sakhan.

Relatives told Newsday he suffered a fractured skull and bruises to the brain. At the time of the incident the father of two of Malabar, Arima was driving on Pro Queen Street, Arima when the sudden blow to the head caused him to lose control of the car.

The stone, Newsday was told, crashed through the driver’s side window and landed in the trunk of the AD station wagon.

His friend Shevaughn Jones, who was a front seat passenger, was able to grab the steering wheel and subsequently ditched the vehicle in a nearby drain. Jones suffered a dislocated shoulder, head injuries and other burns and bruises as a result of the airbags being deployed. The incident happened just after two o’clock last week Thursday. The family is now praying for his recovery.

Relatives said Sunday was the first time since the incident that he woke up. He is now breathing on his own but doctors told them he is not yet out of the woods. And as if dealing with the injury was not bad enough, relatives said during the melee, someone stole $1,100 from George’s pocket. The money was to purchase books and groceries for the opening of school.

Up to yesterday, police had not yet detained the homeless suspect who, relatives said, has gone into hiding. He is said to be well known to the police and people of Arima. The suspect has been identified as the “man who strips himself naked in the streets.” Speaking with Newsday yesterday, George’s fiancee Aariann Blackman called for the authorities to find a home in the borough for the homeless. “He could have killed someone,” the distraught mother of two said.

“Right now I could have been planning a funeral and my children, fatherless because of the homeless roaming the streets.

They have to try to get this man arrested and hear from him why he did that. He plays mad in the road but since Thursday he in hiding so it come as if he know what he did.” She said there is enough land in Arima to build a shelter. She is even more worried as to how she and their two children would “make out” as George, who works as an operations manager at a car rental company, is the breadwinner in the family. She said she recently quit her job to take care of their children who are seven and three years old.

She told Newsday relatives have since been contacted by Arima Mayor Lisa Morris and a full investigation launched into the matter.

Arima police are also investigating.

All relevant documents were submitted.

On April 5, the adjuster visited to assess the damage. Thereafter, I kept calling to enquire about the status of the claim. But it has only been pressure with all kinds of excuses.

Finally, on July 11, I was asked to sign a letter of acceptance for a specified sum which I did. Since then I have been calling, only to be told they don’t know when payment will be made. Can anyone assist or tell me where to go? I am tired and fedup.

Please, somebody, help!

K RAMAI via email

Police said in a release, Nixon Anthony Gordon, 41, of Hosein Street, Arima was charged with murder after advice was received from Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Joan Honore-Paul on September 3. Gordon was charged by Inspector David Guelmo, of the La Horquetta Police Station the following day.

Straker, 32, of Phase 4, La Horquetta was found dead at his girlfriend’s Greenville Park, La Horquetta home, on October 6, 2016. He had been chopped several times.

Clark said staff are employed without contract, must buy their own requite uniforms and have maternity benefit paid by the National Insurance Scheme not the company.

No extra pay is given for working unsocial hours such as weekends, and workers are not paid when they are off work, she alleged.

They are paid just $800 or $900 per fortnight, may be victimised and are not given respite between sailings. She said she had not been called for duty for seven months, even as women must regularly trek to the SWWTU Hall to find out if they have been given a duty.

Annisette in a short statement dismissed the remarks as “malicious and calculated.” Promising to elaborate at a future sitting of the JSC, Annisette vowed, “I’ll show you the connections.”

He was speaking at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) at the ACS Secretariat, Sweet Briar Road, St.

Clair, during the formal opening of the 25th meeting of the ACS’ Special Committee for Disaster Risk Reduction. He said, over the years the facility has entered into MOUs with eight organisations, including the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency; the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States; The University of the West Indies (The UWI); the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and the UWI Seismic Research Centre.

Signing for the ACS was its secretary general Dr. June Soomer who welcomed the initiative, saying the ACS works closely with all its partners.

Anthony said the facility was established in 2007 and seven years later it was restructured to facilitate its expansion into new products and geographic areas. He said it is the world’s first regional fund using parametric insurance, a type of insurance in which payout is triggered when specific conditions, or parameters, are met. Because the parameters are already specified, experts say no loss adjusters are needed, allowing for speedy payments and Anthony said the CCRIF has consistently provided payments within 14 days of an event. He said the parametric nature of the policies allows for rapid payouts against losses and keeping operational expenses to a minimum.

He said that since 2007, CCRIF has made 22 payouts to ten member governments totalling U.S. $70 million.

After the passage of hurricane Matthew last year, he said CCRIF paid U.S. $29.2 million to four member countries affected by that hurricane: Haiti; Barbados; St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines; and all the payments were made within 14 days.

He said the majority of the payment – U.S.

$23.4 million – went to Haiti under its Tropical Cyclone policy which covered wind and storm surge and its excess rainfall policy.

He said immediate access to liquidity is critical for governments after a disaster and while the international community provides relief, those funds are often slow to be released taking as much as six to 12 months.

Government borrowing and reallocation of funds in their budgets also takes time and smaller governments such as those in the Caribbean and most of the Small Island Developing States, with their high debt burdens, can no longer afford to self-finance disaster risk.

They’re so easy to make the kids can join in too. Rustle up these speedy recipes at the weekend and busy breakfast times will be a breeze.

Raspberry jam Makes 1 jar Prep time 20 minutes Get the kids to help you measure the following into a pan: 400g frozen raspberries (or use fresh), 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 tbsp runny honey and 2 tbsp water. Heat gently for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally; it’ll reduce to a thick jam. Turn the heat up towards the end if you need to thicken it a little. Leave to cool then transfer to a jar. Spread on toast with butter or a base layer of cream cheese.

Chocolate hazelnut spread Makes 1 jar Prep time 5 minutes Boil the kettle. In a food processor, blend 200g ready roasted and chopped hazelnuts until a paste forms. Get the kids to help you measure in 4 tbsp cocoa powder, 2 tbsp honey, 2 tbsp coconut oil and 1 tsp vanilla extract then blend again to combine. Scrape down the mix with a spatula then add 200ml boiling water. Whizz to combine to a smooth chocolate spread and decant into a jar.

If you can’t find ready-roasted chopped hazelnuts, toast whole hazelnuts on a baking tray in a preheated oven at 180º/350ºF/ gas mark 4 for 10 minutes or until golden. Nuts burn easily so keep an eye on them. Remove from the oven and tip onto a clean tea towel, fold it over and rub to remove the skins then tip into your processor, discarding the skins.

Crunchy seed peanut butter Makes 1 jar Prep time 5 minutes Blend 250g unsalted roasted peanuts in a food processor with a pinch of coarse sea salt until a smooth paste forms – kids like watching the nuts turn into a paste. You may need to stop and scrape down the mix with a spatula depending on the power of your processor. Once smooth, stir in 25g of mixed pumpkin and sunflower seeds and transfer to a jar. Leave out the seeds altogether if your kids prefer it simple and smooth. Top tip: If you can’t find ready roasted peanuts, toast your own on a baking tray in a preheated oven at 180º/350ºF/gas mark 4 for 10 minutes or until golden.

Spreads can be kept in the fridge Raspberry jam for up to a fortnight.

Time of death presumably will rule on who won that morbid race, but these are statistics that should be cause for serious concern and, yes, anger.

I did not know Ronald Marshall, but I did know Dr Broadbridge.

She was one of those people who invested heavily, with time, effort and much dedication, to the betterment of this country.

She was a retired woman, living out her years in harmony with her community and, one would imagine, hardly a physical threat to anyone who would want confront her. Why the brutality of her murder? Her death is horribly reminiscent of an incident some 16 years ago in which three people, John Cropper, his mother-in-law Maggie Lee, and his sister-in-law Lynette Lithgow-Pearson, were similarly murdered. Tied up and their throats slit. To be fair, those murders were solved relatively quickly and the perpetrators brought to justice, such as there can be justice in the wake of such loss.

What struck me at the time though, and bears remembering now, was the absence of real outrage. For some reason, the fact that a distant family member committed the murder explained away the violence. Worse than that, I recall the taunting phone calls from the public asking, no demanding, that we change our previous and public position against the death penalty. As if getting a grieving family to endorse the death penalty would make it any less of a useless, politically expedient and nonsensical crime prevention strategy.

I recall also the heartfelt, emotional appeal made in Parliament by John’s widow, Angela Cropper, who was then an Independent senator. She called, as Claire Broadbridge’s family now does 16 years on, for a meaningful strategy to address the mounting crime situation.

The most striking memory from that time however lies in the final sentence of a story that appeared in a newspaper in the United Kingdom. It read, “The deaths brought the murder count in the Caribbean nation of 1.3m people to 143 for the year, its highest on record.” That was December 2001. Here we are, in September 2017, 16 years later, and the situation is already worse than it was by 178 dead people.

While there is much to be said for the courageous statements made by Stephen Broadbridge even immediately after viewing his mother’s butchered body. He called for us to stay and fight; to take back the country from the criminals. While his sentiments may be commendable, there is a profound emptiness in that statement given our obvious continued violent decline.

What has brought us here? Until we can answer that question in some kind of meaningful way, there is little hope of “taking back our country.” Frankly, we have all been pretending at indignation for more than a decade; marchi n g , fuming, pol i t i – c i s i ng.

It is time to try another way.

Khan also asked how Inter-Continental Shipping Limited (ICSL), which was not invited to tender for that vessel, ended up replacing Alfonso’s firm and winning the bid. He said this resulted in the procurement of the Super Fast Galicia which replaced the Warrior Spirit on the domestic seabridge.

ICSL are the brokers for the Galicia which is owned by the company Trans-Med.

Khan posed these questions to the Port Authority’s board of directors as the Parliament’s Land and Physical Infrastructure Joint Select Committee (JSC) continued its enquiry into the domestic seabridge at Tower D of the Portof- Spain International Waterfront Centre.

Describing the situation as “curiouser and curiouser,” Khan told Port chairman Alison Lewis, “If that my dear lady, is not at best impropriety, I don’t know what is.” In response to Khan’s questions, Lewis said Alfonso was retained by the former transport ministry in 2013 to assist with the procurement of a replacement for the Warrior Spirit.

She said Alfonso eventually, “was invited to identify vessels that had been available. TT Inter-Island Transport Company acting CEO Leon Grant recalled that Alfonso was asked to, “in trying to find an urgent replacement” for the Warrior Spirit.

Lewis confirmed that Alfonso’s firm was one of nine companies listed to tender on a selective tender process for a cargo vessel.

Grant did not remember Alfonso ever, “being invited by the (port) management to tender for any ferry.” However Khan told him, “That is a fact.” Khan also said Alfonso’s firm submitted a July 18, 2014 invoice for $840,750 for its services, to the Port.

Indicating that this invoice was paid, Khan said part of the invoice billed the Port included, “conferences and negotiations with Mr Powell of ICSL.” Lewis confirmed to the JSC that ICSL was not invited by the port to tender for a cargo vessel. However she agreed with Khan that ICSL submitted the winning tender. When Khan asked how this happened, Lewis said an examination of the records, “saw an instance where ICSL replaced Miss Alfonso.” Khan said supported his information that ICS acted as an agent for Alfonso’s law firm. .

The minister asked what kind of due diligence, “was done here to include on the list, somebody who obviously had a conflict of interest?” Khan said the problem was Alfonso, “being an advisor on the very process that her company was bidding on.”Lewis replied, “The persons who would have made that decision are no longer at the Port Authority.” She confirmed to the JSC that ICS was not invited by the port to tender for a cargo vessel. Khan said Alfonso will be questioned further on this issue when she appears before the committee In response to questions from Toco/Manzanilla MP Glenda Jennings Smith, Grant confirmed visiting Gibraltar with the Port’s chief engineer to examine the Galicia. He said there were no technical difficulties with the ship but only problem was no proper berth for it in Port-of- Spain. Grant also said a ramp and a barge had to be used to load cargo on to the Galicia.

On visiting Panama to inspect the Ocean Flower 2 passenger ferry, Grant said he and the chief engineer made certain observations about the vessel.

He said these were submitted in a report to the Authority.