Two days after Irving Ming, 87, was reported kidnapped and a $10,000 ransom demanded, police officers yesterday found his body stuffed in a barrel under his house.

Eleven members of his immediate family, including four children, were taken in for questioning and to give official statements. Other relatives were interviewed by police on the scene.

Preliminary investigations revealed Ming was strangled to death at his Calcutta No. 2, Freeport home.

A report was made to the Freeport Police Station by two relatives—a male and female—that Ming was kidnapped from his home around 5 pm Wednesday. Anti-Kidnapping Unit officers were called in and both relatives assisted in the preliminary stages of the investigation.The woman was then transferred to the Couva Police Station while the man was kept at the Freeport Police Station.

Before 7 am yesterday, AKU officers had already asked for assistance from other units, including Homicide, Criminal Investigations Department and the Canine Unit. The team of officers went to Ming’s house and carried out extensive searches of the bushy area behind it and an adjacent house. The officers were guided by aerial surveillance done with a drone.

The officers later got a search warrant for Ming’s house and made the gruesome discovery shortly before 2 pm. Ming’s body was found in a barrel in the garage area next to a white Sunny vehicle.

About 40 minutes after, three women and a boy were escorted by officers to vehicle where they were taken to the police station for questioning. Several other relatives were kept on the scene as it was processed by crime scene officers.

Police said one of Ming’s children yesterday confessed to them, saying he went to the upstairs portion of the home where he saw a male relative over him (Ming) strangling him. Police said he told them he was too scared to say anything about it.

The T&T Guardian was also told by a relative who wished not to be identified that Ming was frequently beaten by a relative and on the last occasion, due to a severe beating, Ming turned to the court to get the relative evicted.

Ming, who was originally from Bank Village, Carapichaima, worked for a prominent attorney as a driver for many years. He was described as a “great man” by friends and neighbours.

A neighbour close by said she noticed “something weird” taking place at Ming’s house on Monday night.

“I’m afraid to say what I noticed but I knew something was not right,” the neighbour said.

Investigations are continuing.

An “act of terror” against all citizens—especially the poor and middle class.

With that condemnation of Government’s 2018 Budget yesterday, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar denounced Finance Minister Colm Imbert for his 2018 package.

“This Minister is the tax man. Everything is tax…tax… tax... after two years and three budgets the population now accepts the mistake that was made in September 2015 (elections),” she said in her Budget reply in Parliament.

“I’ve noted growing despair among citizens on this Budget. A population already battered by rampant crime, high food prices, unemployment and under-employment. It’s the first ever budget to have alienated every single sector of the national community. But the poor and middle class will feel the true brunt.

“Never in the history of this Parliament have we ever had a Budget that essentially amounts to an act of terror against citizens, one which would conscientiously and actively destabilise T&T’s economic standing, the population’s lives and economic and social well-being.”

She added: “Budget 2018 has to be the most severe manifestation of misalignment of policy, as virtually every revenue raising measure will fall on the backs and pockets of one group directly or via pass on: the working class. But you cannot tax a people into prosperity.”

She said the fiscal measures on an already overburdened population have “led to an explosion of fear, disappointment and disenchantment, particularly among the working class.”

“The impact of these measures will lead ultimately to rising unemployment and under employment, increasing levels of poverty and crime, growing income inequality and concentration of wealth, loss of business confidence and competitiveness, increasing political risks and industrial instability - and possible civil unrest in society.”

She said the Budget was bankrupt of ideas to take T&T forward and would bankrupt citizens.

“It’s biased in favour of the super elite. Its brutal fiscal measures would further pauperise people. It would reduce the middle class and working class to abject poverty,” Persad-Bissessar said.

Saying she was deeply disappointed, she added, “It’s clear the majority of citizens feel this way and are angry - the mass gathering outside of Parliament today (of casino workers) demonstrates people are fed up. They’re tired of excuses and directives to ‘do more with less,’ ‘tighten your belt’ and ‘shut up’ while those holding high office enjoy every luxury.

“The Budget and rhetoric from ministers give the fake impression that this budget places a fair burden on all sectors to contribute. But it’s common knowledge that taxes on corporations, private hospitals, the banks, the so-called wealthy businesses will be passed on to the common man.”

PNM DAYS NUMBERED

In her three-hour plus presentation, Persad-Bissessar also sought to show Imbert “attempted to obfuscate, distort and fudge the numbers and uttered some blatant untruths.” She also detailed discrepancies in figures given by the Prime Minister last week on economic issues

“I trust my presentation won’t be deemed ‘sterile and academic’ by the Minister: we now know he frowns on such interventions and isn’t averse to ‘throwing shade’. There’s no difference between the Prime Minister calling on MPs to ‘shut up’ and his minister’s rude remarks at the Chamber meeting,” she said in reference to the controversy stirred up at the T&T Chamber of Commerce’s post-Budget analysis on Tuesday.
She also called on Government to stop blaming everybody other than themselves.

“You blame the police for crime, you blame parents for delinquency, you blame public officers for corruption, you blame residents for flooding and you blame Kamla for everything and when you can’t find Kamla, you blame Marla (Dukhran)!”

Persad-Bissessar also disputed the Budget’s maths and defended her PP administration against accusations of mismanagement.

“The Rowley government’s days are lessening. When we hear protesters outside (the Chamber) we know they’re clinging to the ledge, they as stable as Jello.”

Former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar has won round one in her legal battle against the Judicial and Legal Services Commission (JLSC) and the President.

Justice David Harris yesterday granted leave to Ayers-Caesar, via email from Tobago, to file for judicial review against the JLSC and the Attorney General, who is representing the President, over decisions regarding her “purported” resignation as a judge.

Her attorney, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj SC, yesterday said the judge gave directions for the claim and affidavits to be filed. A case management conference has also been set for October 12 at the San Fernando High Court.

In a release, Maharaj said Ayers-Caesar is claiming the JLSC acted unlawfully in seeking her resignation as a judge, that it unlawfully procured her resignation and it acted unlawfully in treating as effective her consequent purported resignation. Ayers-Caesar is also contending that the President’s continued refusal to set aside her resignation and reinstate her as a judge is unlawful.

The controversy stemmed from Ayers-Caesar’s resignation from the magistracy in April to take up an appointment as a judge. Her appointment, however, caused an uproar in the legal profession and by prisoners because she left over 53 outstanding matters at the magistrates’ court.

Ayers-Caesar is claiming she was pressured by the JLSC to resign, in that she was told to either sign an already prepared resignation letter or her appointment would be revoked by the President. She is asking the court to, among other things, to quash JLSC’s impugned decisions and recommend to the President that she be reinstated as a High Court Judge. Ayers-Caesar is also asking the court to quash the decision of the President not to set reinstate her and is seeking damages from the JLSC for misfeasance in public office. From the JLSC and the AG, she is seeking damages for breach of her constitutional rights, including compensation for loss of office and the benefits that go with it (if she is not reinstated).

Maharaj and Ronnie Bissessar, instructed by Vijaya Maharaj, are representing Ayers-Caesar, while the JLSC is represented by attorneys Russell Martineau SC, Debra Peake SC and Ian Roach instructed by Ian Benjamin, while the AG is represented by attorneys Reginald Armour SC and Ravi Nanga instructed by Ravi Hefess Doon.

Three families are in mourning today after a fatal road accident yesterday claimed the lives of birthday boy Alex Lalla, fireman Romel Rambally and Kareem Simon.

According to police, the men were heading South along the Uriah Butler Highway, Chaguanas, in a blue Toyota Corolla driven by Lalla, a fitness coach at Raw Fitness Health Club, around 4.30 am when the accident happened.

Police said on nearing the Munroe Road Overpass, Charlieville, Lalla crashed into the pillars of a walkover.

Passing motorists called for help and Chaguanas police, the Highway Patrol Unit, Chaguanas fire-fighters and ambulances responded. However, Simon, 29, of Claxton Bay, Lalla, 27, of Couva and Rambally, 32, of Golconda, had already died.

Photos of the crash posted online showed massive damage to the front end, with the engine being pushed into the cabin area of the vehicle.

Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the accident.

Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young yesterday revealed that the former People’s Partnership government secretly spent $24 million in infrastructural adjustments to facilitate the safe berthing and operationalisation of the Super Fast Galicia.

In addition to the $24 million, Young said taxpayers also paid $56.3 million for use of the boat for one year, bringing the total figure to $80 million.

The $24 million was unearthed by Christian Mouttet, who was appointed sole investigator in August by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley into the controversial Cabo Star and Ocean Flower 2 contracts, which led to collapse of the sea bridge.

Mouttet submitted a detailed report of his findings to Rowley last month.

Young said in pulling together documents at the Port Authority of T&T, Mouttet, who he thanked publicly for his services, discovered evidence involving the Galicia.

In a 2014 Cabinet Minute—the time the Galicia came to T&T, Young said the PP government decided to use “the list of selected tenderers based on firms known to operate in the ship-leasing industry and firms, which had previously submitted unsolicited offers.”

He said these unsolicited offers were used in a procurement process, while the person who was hired to advise and procure was invited to tender, which should not have happened.

“The Cabinet then took a decision for the space of one year to make the citizens of T&T liable for a boat called the Galicia for $56.3 million. That is not the real offensive part, you know.”

Young said what the PP hid from the Government and the nation was that the Ministry of Transport in consultation with the Ministry of Finance identified funds to meet the expenditure associated with the charter hire of the Galicia “the sum of $23.9 million for infrastructural adjustments to facilitate safe berthing and operationalisation of the vessel.”

Having seen the documents produced by Mouttet, Young said it showed that the vessel could not have docked in Port-of-Spain or Scarborough safely.

“The vessel is unsuitable for those reasons. The depth of the vessel is too deep. There is not sufficient space in the channels in the Port-of-Spain. But they went and put us the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago into a contract to get that vessel.”

For two months, Young said the vessel could not be used and had to be docked.

“This is what led to all the problems in the inter-island ferry service,” Young said.

“But they put aside $24 million to get a barge….not even to dredge. They did not even do the dredging to fix the jetty in Scarborough.”

Some farmers are disappointed with the increase in the prices of diesel and lack of incentives for farmers announced in Monday’s Budget.

Farmer Ashram Maharaj said while there might be an increase in food prices, he does not intend to raise the price of his goods.

Maharaj plants two acres of dasheen bush in Chaguanas and supplies two grocery stores in district and is currently looking for more labourers.

“The hike in the fuel will affect all farmers. If you spending more on fuel of course the cost of our goods will go up,” he said.

“If I raise the price then I would lose customers. I would have to cater for the rise in the price of fuel price. You have to take all those things in consideration,” he said.

Maharaj said he sold a bundle of dasheen bush for $5. He said the new offer of up to $100,000 by the Government could expand his business.

Shiraz Khan, president of the Sheep and Goat Farmers Association, said the budget was geared towards the rich businessmen who were involved in farming to enjoy the tax concessions in agriculture.

“Agriculture is the only non-tax entity in the country and is being used by businessmen. Ninety per cent of the sheep and goat reared in this country is by big businessmen,” he said.

He said the increase of in the price diesel fuel would have a serious impact of farmers as most of the machinery used that type of fuel.

Former Food Production minister Devant Maharaj said the $100,000 grant for new and existing farmers announced in Monday’s Budget was already being offered at the Agricultural Development Bank as a loan.

Maharaj described the budget as unimaginative with specific regard to the agricultural sector and could be considered at best as having been plagiarised incorrectly from previous budget statements and said it was doomed for total failure.”

Maharaj said the Youth Apprenticeship Programme in Agriculture which was aimed at precisely this objective had been under-resourced with this Budget.

Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan “stepped on corns” when he began to clean up the corruption at the Port of Port of Spain and that is why there is now a concerted attack against him and calls for him to be fired, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has said.

Rowley came to Sinanan’s defence, describing him as “a man of the highest quality and the highest integrity.”

“We will hold the correct people accountable and responsible, well of course there are those who want the minister’s head, just give us the minister’s head and leave whoever else is there. That is not how we operate,” Rowley said as he delivered the feature address at the People’s National Movement’s (PNM) post-Budget public meeting at Piggott’s corner in Belmont on Friday night.

Rowley said his administration is “resolutely pursuing wrongdoing to hold white collar crime by the neck and make people accountable for their actions,” but this has caused some backlash.

“Of course we will lose one or two friends over that, but I am sure the vast majority of the people of Trinidad and Tobago want to see that done so that we don’t end up paying billions and billions that we should not be paying,” he said.

He said when the PNM won the general election in September 2015 he offered Sinanan a “senatorship,” but he turned down the offer and instead said he preferred a young person be given the opportunity. But Rowley said when he wanted to undertake a reshuffle of his Cabinet in October 2016 he again approached Sinanan and “twisted his arm” to get him to accept the job.

“And I sent him down to the port of Port-of-Spain with one instruction and the instruction is to go there and find out what is going on there and clean up that place,” Rowley said.

“Strange enough, the minute he began to deal with the port he comes under fire because there is a body of people in this country who talking about wanting corruption to be removed from the landscape, not at all if the corruption working for them it good leave it just so don’t interfere with it, if it working for anybody else well they know to stand on their high horse, they know about procurement process.”

Sinanan was the first person to alert the country to “the naked corruption process of the Galicia” and as such he “stepped on corns,” Rowley said.

His predecessor at the Works and Transport Ministry, current Minister in the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs Fitzgerald Hinds, also said Sinanan should be “applauded rather than criticised.”

Sinanan recently came under scrutiny after it was learned Kallco Limited had been awarded the contract for the first segment of Churchill Roosevelt Highway to Manzanilla extension. The wife of Kallco director Arvin Kalloo is Sinanan’s second cousin.

But Sinanan said he recused himself from the Cabinet decision to select Kallco and said the contractor had been vetted by the State agency responsible for the contract, the National Infrastructural Development Company (Nidco).

“They tried to put things on my Minister of Works and Transport. It did not work because it just was not true,” Hinds said.

Hinds said the “bottom line” is that Kallco’s bid was $110 million less than the next closest rival.

“And to the credit of my colleague Rohan Sinanan, he made history, you do not know this, but since he went to that office he has asked the lawyers to put inside of every single contract a non-corruption clause, meaning that with this clause if anyone is justifiably accused of corruption the contract is automatically terminated,” Hinds said.

Rhondor Dowlat

Police yesterday seized compressed high grade marijuana valued at close to $1 million and over 600 rounds of assorted ammunition.

Acting on information, a team of officers from the Organised Crime Narcotics and Firearm Bureau, North Eastern and Central Division Task Force, accompanied by air support, went to a bushy area at Pranz Gardens, Couva.

After combing through five acres of land, the officers recovered 44 packages of marijuana and ammunition stored away in a barrel in an old army bunker. The ammunition included 500 rounds of 7.62, 123 rounds of 12-gauge and 32 rounds of .38 special ammunition.

The exercise, which lasted ten hours from, was spearheaded by Insp Birch, Sgt Haywood, Cpl Sookram and Cpl Madeira.

No one was arrested, but investigations are continuing.

It costs $130 million a day to run Trinidad and Tobago, Finance Minister Colm Imbert has said. This works out to a monthly bill of $4 billion to run the country.

And Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley also says public servants need to say "thank God to the People's's National Movement Government for putting employment before everything else," because some experts saw that as the best option to cut cost.

"Even as we try to stabilise the difficult situation, even as we had serious difficult conditions to meet and advice from the experts to cut some more, cut some more and fire some more we have not done that. We have set about to reduce the expenditure and do it in a way to minimise the drastic effect that it would have on the individuals," Rowley said.

"The Government is the largest employer of labour in this country and we can balance the budget simply by cutting public servants, but we have not done that, we have gone slowly and cautiously."

Imbert and Rowley made the statements during the People's National Movement's (PNM) post-Budget political meeting at Piggott's corner in Belmont on Friday night. (See Page A5)

Imbert said when the People's Partnership government entered office in 2010 there was about $6 billion in cash in the Government's bank account in the Central Bank.

"They managed, between 2010 and 2012, to spend out that money and to take that account from $6 billion, that's six thousand million, in May 2010 down to zero in 2012 and then down to minus $9 billion in September 2015. They used up the whole overdraft, they burnt up $15 billion in cash," Imbert said.

"So we have been running this country for the last 24 months with the overdraft almost up to the limit. So that often we would be told you have to stop writing cheques, you have to stop issuing releases."

Imbert said three weeks before the national Budget was presented he received a letter from Central Bank Governor Dr Alvin Hilaire saying the country's overdraft was at 99.7 per cent of the limit. This meant there was only a couple million dollars available in the current account, which Imbert said was "enough to run the country for about five minutes." He said they were eventually able to get cash from the commercial banks to run the country.

"This has been a very, very, very difficult year but we made it through and we are going to make it through 2018 and we are going to make it through 2019 and we going to make it through 2020," he said.

On Monday, Imbert delivered the national budget with total expenditure for fiscal year 2018 estimated at $50.5 billion and revenue estimated at $45.74 billion. He said Government has been able to bring expenditure down from $63 billion to $50 billion.

"We cut it by $13 billion, that was no easy feat and you know what that tells you, there was $13 billion of waste, mismanagement and corruption in the government expenditure, because how could you remove $13 billion of government expenditure per year and the country still running. How that happen?" Imbert said.

"But we have a problem because even with the new taxes in this Budget at the best we will be able to raise $40 billion from taxation, so we are missing $10 (billion). With the new taxes and the best tax collection possible, and if we go after everybody who is evading tax and avoiding tax and we put an army of people outside there, which we will be doing, the most we could raise in this 2018 financial year is $40 billion," he said.

Imbert said one way to tackle the shortfall is by recovery debt from bailout of CLICO and CL Financial.

"We have to get that money back, that is taxpayers' money, that is poor people's money, that is your money and we need it to run the country. We need to recover that debt," he said.

Imbert said Government hopes to recover $5 billion from that debt this year following their "bold step" of putting CL Financial in liquidation.

If this was not done it would have been "crapaud smoke your pipe," he said. Government will create a mutual fund and put CL Financial assets there so citizens could buy units, he said.

He said Government also did not pander to anyone in the Budget.

"Everybody must share in the burden of adjustment, everyone. We are not in the pockets of any group. We have taken a hard look of this economy and that is why we looked at the commercial banks and saw they were making super profits, we have a recession going on, people scrunting and one of the banks making a billion dollars in profit, so they have to share in the adjustment and that is when we put an extra five per cent on the income tax of banks," Imbert said.

"To their credit I must say the majority of the banks are not complaining ,they understand that everybody must share the burden on adjustment."

There are people in this country who are hoarding foreign currency in the hope that the Trinidad and Tobago dollar will be devalued and they will become enriched, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has said.

"If you are hoarding foreign exchange waiting for a devaluation, don't wait no more," Rowley said as he delivered the feature address at the People's National Movement's (PNM) post-Budget political meeting at Piggott's corner in Belmont on Friday night.

Rowley said those hoarding foreign currency waiting for a devaluation were hoping to get enriched and were doing so at the expense of the wider national community.

"And on that basis the Government has not chosen that option," he said.

Rowley said there has been a "very strong lobby" for the Trinidad and Tobago dollar to be devalued but there are different sides to that story.

"One is a genuine belief that if we devalue the currency in one fell swoop at whatever level they say devalue it to, we will get more TT dollars or some TT dollars and that will solve our problem," Rowley said.

"But that argument has another side which the Government must be looking at and the other side is this, when you devalue the currency there is knock on into increased cost and increased inflation and who are the ones who face that the most and the worst, the poorest of the poor."

He added: "So while you get this advice coming from certain quarters that the problems can be solved from devaluation, that is an option which this Government has not chosen to apply. We have chosen to allow pressures on the dollar to slowly or imperceptibly push the levels up so you can have time to adjust if you are seeing it affecting you in certain particular ways."

Rowley called on citizens who are earning foreign exchange and "leaving the money outside" to be patriotic and bring it back home.

Dr Keith Rowley has given the assurance that as prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, he will never entertain an oil company executive in his hotel room wearing “a duster and bed room slippers.”

Rowley made the comment as he told the story of travelling to Germany as opposition leader and having to appease the board of directors of a major bank that was funding Point Lisas, because they were concerned by some actions of then prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

Speaking at the People National Movement’s (PNM) post-Budget political meeting on Friday night, Rowley dismissed Persad-Bissessar claims that there was something untoward with him meeting officials from a major German power company earlier this year at his office.

In her budget response, Persad-Bissessar claimed Government was undertaking a “secret” sale of Trinidad Generation Unlimited (TGU) to the German industrial services company Ferostaal GmBH without any procurement process. (See page A6)

“Kamla that is your style, that is not my style,” Rowley said.

Rowley then told of travelling overseas as opposition leader and meeting officials.

“Once I went to Germany to talk to the people in one of the major banks that fund the Point Lisas operations and when I got there I met with the board and you know what the chairman of the board told me when I walked into the room, ... he said I am glad you came because we were about to reconsider our position in Trinidad and Tobago, that was when Kamla and her Cabinet were in a rampage in this country but I gave them hope, I told them hold on an election is coming ,” Rowley said.

“And the one thing you can be guaranteed about is that I as your prime minister will never entertain any oil company executive in my hotel in my pyjamas. I not doing that, I am your Prime Minister, duster and bedroom slippers to entertain oil company executives?”

He also defended his travel since becoming PM after questions from Persad-Bissessar.

“I travel when I think it can benefit the people of Trinidad and Tobago and she has the gall to come to the Parliament, she and her imps, to be asking about how much travel I do. Let me tell you something, as Prime Minister in the first two years I have travelled, I think, on seven occasions and on every occasion it is on important matters that require the attention and presence of the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago,” he said.

Rowley said in contrast Persad-Bissessar travelled 14 times in her first two years as PM, including a trip to “New York to celebrate Indian National Day.” He said she also travelled with an entire entourage and noted Barry Padarath, whose only function was to carry “her briefcase and her shawl,” once racked up a $90,000 bill.

Despite her own exorbitant travel expenses, he said Persad-Bissessar was now making noise about Tourism Minister Shamfa Cudjoe’ phone bill and Sport Minister Darryl Smith’s Tobago outing with with ministry colleagues, Rowley said.

“Those two infractions (Cudjoe and Smith) are minuscule when put up against the savings that we have made across the board across the country as the Government of Trinidad and Tobago,” Rowley said.

Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is recommending the establishment of a national baby programme, as has worked in other countries.

She made the comment on Friday during her response to Finance Minister Colm Imbert’s Budget in the Parliament, as she reflected on a recent case in which two babies were found at the landfill in Claxton Bay.

“While we aren’t encouraging persons to engage in promiscuous indiscriminate sexual behaviour, we also have to look at the current economic climate on the mental health and physical well-being of mothers who feel as though they are boxed in,” Persad-Bissessar said.

“Several countries, including India and South Africa, have established a “Door of Hope” programme. This allows babies to be placed in a receptacle on a soft pillow and sounds an alarm to staff at the institution that a baby has been placed. We can certainly do this for our babies instead of spending $3 million for a golf course.”

She also called on Government to re-introduce the baby grant programme.

She said the Prime Minister’s recent meeting in the US about fixing natural gas prices didn’t aid transparency and undermined the National Gas Company’s board’s mandate.

“It’s our understanding that because of this ‘intervention’ of the Prime Minister, NGC will pay significantly more for natural gas in 2019,” Persad-Bissessar said.

She also called for a special unit to detect and prosecute corrupt officers in the protective services and to assist victims of crime. She also detailed alternatives for growth chiefly in the digital sector.

The Congress of the People (COP) has reopened nominations for the election of a new political leader, which is now set for November 19.

As the party’s court matter wound up last Wednesday, COP chairman Jameson Bahadur said the party was more than ready to move forward and present itself as the alternative to the People’s National Movement and United National Congress.

The election, originally carded for July 9, then August 20, was postponed both times due to to questions over the validity of the candidacy of Nicole Dyer-Griffith, which were even challenged in the court.

Dyer-Griffith was running against Dr. Sharon Gopaul-McNicol and Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan for the top post. However, Dyer-Griffith eventually lost her bid to contest the election after her candidacy was deemed invalid.

In an interview on Thursday, Bahadur said the party had selected a five-member election committee to oversee the upcoming election.

The committee chairman is expected to deliver a report on their readiness and other related matters at a national council meeting today.

“We are opening up the nominations again because of the Griffith issue,” Bahadur said in a telephone interview.

“We are starting afresh. We are going ahead, they will have a new deadline to file their papers. We had the last hearing in court and the case is done. We have no worry about people suing us or anything like that.”

Bahadur said he expected the new period for submission of nominations to last 10 working days from today.

“We have to get this party moving forward in the event that there will be a general election next year. We are the alternative.”

Asked how the situation with Dyer-Griffith had been resolved, Bahadur said despite Dyer-Griffith showing people a party card, she was not a legitimate COP member.

He said they invited her to a meeting to discuss the possibility of her eligibility, noting she had to be a member for six months before vying for a post. However, he said Dyer-Griffith, in a letter from her attorney, rejected the invitation and further refused to acknowledge Bahadur as chairman.

“She is waving a COP card and we want to know where she got that card, who gave it to her and who authorised it. For you to have a membership card you have to be interviewed by the national executive, but that procedure was not followed. She is waving it to make the public feel she is a member of the COP but she was invited to interview and she refused. I am not going to beg anybody to come back to the party,” he said.

Bahadur said he felt strongly that a general election was on the horizon.

“People are reacting to the Prime Minister and the ministers. I saw this interview with the chamber where the Minister of Finance was scolded about being condescending and he was obnoxious and proud and arrogant. The general consensus I get is that a lot of people don’t like the UNC and the PNM and we could get support.”

The COP’s national executive elections will be held in December.

DYER-GRIFFITH UNHAPPY, NON-COMMITAL ON FUTURE

Contacted on the issue of her disqualification from the election, Dyer-Griffith said she felt the party did not stick to the measures outlined in the court order.

“There was a court order and the court order identified there were a number of things which needed to be done. One of the things was the members of the last national executive should have been invited to a meeting. That was not done. The executive attempted to meet on a number of occasions and could not meet a quorum,” Dyer-Griffith said.

She added that since January of this year she had made an application to be a member, which was approved.

“I received a letter from the COP welcoming me to the COP as a member and I paid my dues. I was accepted as a candidate, I have my receipt which is still in my hand,” she said, insisting the court order has not been kept.

She said as far as she was concerned, the matter had already played out in the court of public opinion.

“People should not use the constitution to debilitate any democratic process, but life goes on. I firmly believe that politics is developmental work and no political party can stop someone in doing developmental work for the country and the people.”

However, she was non-committal about her future with the party.

Patients at the San Fernando General Hospital are being advised to secure their personal belongings, after a police officer’s US$450 iPhone was stolen from his hospital bed.

A 41-year-old San Fernando man who was found with a hospital patient band in his possession was arrested yesterday morning. He also had the officer’s SIM card.

The police corporal, who is attached to the Fraud Squad, was admitted to the hospital last week to do a minor surgery. According to reports, around 3 am last Sunday he was readied and taken to the operating theatre. When he returned around 6 am his phone was missing and no one could account for it. Three other phones went missing on the ward that day.

However, the Cyber Crime Unit was able to track the SIM card to the suspect. Around 9 am, officers of the San Fernando CID and Fraud Squad went to a Coffee Street, San Fernando car wash where they held the suspect, who was washing cars. He told police he bought the SIM card from someone for $40, but three phones and a wireless mobile device were also found in his possession.

There is a photo online, in the sea of billions of photos, where a few dozen white men, stand or sit, some with smiles, some serious, with a few darker faces sprinkled in between.
It’s a photo of the leadership team of a New York plumbers’ union, the Staten Island Plumbers’ Local 371 and among the four brown faces is one smiling woman, Judaline Cassidy, a pint-sized T&T national who has been making waves since she left these shores more than 25 years ago.
Cassidy, an immigrant in the United State who lived in Trinidad up the age of 19, has spent her life hearing the word “no” and responding with a resolute “yes.”
The first black woman to be allowed entry into the Plumbers’ Union, and one of the few women, in general, to make it to a leadership position in the body, Cassidy embodies the success story that forms part of the American dream.
But Cassidy’s dreams began at Covigne Road, Diego Martin, in T&T. She grew up with her grandmother, recalling that her mother didn’t want the responsibility of a child and she didn’t know her father.
“I didn’t have a lot of self-esteem, not growing up with my mother and not knowing my father, that little girl who was timid and did not want to be alive,” Cassidy recalled.
As a teenager, she dreamed of being a lawyer, but when her grandmother died, taking away her only source of financial support as a teenager, Cassidy adjusted her plans.
At the time, the government had introduced a plan for free access to education for tradespeople, with classes taking place at the John Donaldson Technical Institute in Port-of-Spain. Cassidy applied and went to the interview with the board.
“They took a look at me. I’m less than five feet now, so I could have been shorter then and I was 110 pounds so they questioned me on whether I could even lift the tools. I told them I wanted to learn a craft because I had no way of paying for university and I really liked fixing stuff.
“I ended up getting into the plumbing course, one of three girls in a school full of men.”
She recalled dressing for school in Diego Martin and leaving home with no money hoping to get a drop to the capital by a kind driver. Sometimes she walked.
“I was motivated to be better than my circumstances.”
At 19, after completing the first year of a two-year course, Cassidy got married and at the insistence of her husband moved to New York, where for the first few months she did jobs as a baby-sitter, house-keeper or nanny, the type of work typically available to immigrants at the time.
She talked about her studies to be a plumber and her dreams with family, friends, and neighbours. It was a neighbour, who was part of a pro-black employment coalition at the time, who got her the first plumbing job in the city.
“The coalition went to a job site and told the owners they had a plumber. They didn’t tell them it was a woman. I showed up at the construction site in my jeep. I looked really tall in the jeep because of how high the seats were. I got out of the jeep and they started snickering. They said there was no way this woman was the plumber,” she recalled.
She said the supervisor told her to leave but she had no intention of walking away. She returned the next day and the day after that.
At first, she would be sent for coffee, although she was just as skilled and in many cases more skilled than her male counterparts.
“All the guys were green, they didn’t know anything about construction or any particular trade. You are considered green when you don’t know anything. But I had training. They would send me for stuff like an elbow, a cast iron and I could bring it back. Some of the men didn’t have a clue.
“I kept showing up and I think the consistency of always showing up, when it was freezing or when it was hot, I went to work still, that consistency changed the way a lot of the men started treating me. I was meticulous about my job. I really loved plumbing and I was really good at it.”
After a year of working on that construction site as a non-union worker, the company decided to hire some of the workers. Cassidy was one of the plumbers hired. After a year, the company sent the workers to be unionised, Cassidy included.
“I was the only woman and when I went to the office they said go do the dishes, get out of here. I didn’t cry there but I cried in my truck. I went home then I sucked it up and went back to work. One of the guys who I was working with took me under his wing and said he would get me into the union.”
For Cassidy, being a unionised plumber meant better salaries, medical and dental insurance and a change in lifestyle for her family. It was something she really wanted.
“It gives you a sense of security. Unions create the middle class. Without the unions there would be no middle class,” she told the Sunday Guardian.
“A black woman in America, we get 65 cents to the dollar for what a man gets but not in construction and not in the union. As a plumber, I get equal play. I was the first black woman to join the union a year later.”
She added: “The same person who laughed in my face and told me to go do dishes became my biggest advocate. He would always tell people that girl was one of the best plumbers we had.” Today, Cassidy is the only woman officer in the union’s leadership team.
“When I started I would be the only woman on the construction site and no one would talk to me. Now it’s the best feeling to be on a job and you aren’t the only one. I’ve been in jobs with other female plumbers like apprentices and helpers. I’ve been able to teach other women the craft as apprentices.”
Cassidy also recently started a non-profit organisation called Tools and Tiara’s (T&T for short) and teaches young women trade work.
“I was trying to do this a long time. God was pushing me to do it. If you give a woman tools and a tiara you give her confidence,” she said.
“I’m a girly girl. A lot of people have an image of construction women as being manly. I wear construction boots on a site and love to dress up when I go out.
“I do monthly workshops where we teach women plumbing, electrical and carpentry. We have a strong team who volunteers their services to teach women and girls the craft.
“I think women should learn a trade. I started feeling empowered. I felt like I could do anything. I know without a shadow of a doubt I am a very good plumber. My life changed when I started owning my own power and walking on the job like I belong.The minute I got tools in my hand I felt empowered.”

Two men were killed in separate incidents in Port-of-Spain and St Augustine over the weekend.

In the first incident, 34-year-old Ryan Mason was shot dead while driving his vehicle near the lighthouse at lower South Quay in Port-of-Spain.

A police report said around 1.30 am, Mason was driving his BMW along the highway when another vehicle pulled alongside him and one of the occupants opened fire on him. Mason’s vehicle then crashed into the lighthouse. Motorists who were passing by immediately notified the police. The body was viewed by the district medical officer and ordered removed to the Forensic Science Centre for an autopsy today.

Police said Mason was known to them but they could not confirm reports he was the owner of a Carenage business.

In the other incident, 53-year-old Kamal Ali was chopped to death and his house destroyed by fire at Upper Ragbir Street in St Augustine. Police said Ali’s neck was nearly severed from the body. Ali was said to be a recovering drug addict.

A report said around 11 am, Ali’s children went to look for him and discovered his body in the bushes a distance from the house.

They notified the police who visited the scene. Insp Gyan of the St Joseph Police Station and a party of officers from the Homicide Bureau visited the scene.

Investigators said they had no motive for Ali’s death. Homicide officers are continuing investigations.

Minister of Education Anthony Garcia yesterday said action will be taken against several schoolboys who were identified carrying out assaults on other students, including robbery and assault, while on the compound of the Siparia West Secondary recently.

Garcia’s comment came after videos of the assaults were posted on social media over the weekend and drew scathing criticism from members of the public.

The minister strongly condemned what he saw in three videos he said were sent to him on Saturday.

“We are to deal with it. It is a totally unacceptable conduct on the part of our students,” Garcia told the T&T Guardian.

One of the videos showed several students and one student in particular robbing another student, who was dressed in an overall, of money. The schoolboy then began pushing and hitting the student he robbed in the back of the head as other students cheered on.

In a second video, the same student along with others were beating another student in a classroom. A third video shows another student wearing a Bobo Ashanti headdress (religious tradition) striking a student twice in the back of his head. That fight ended up in the balcony area just outside their classroom.

Garcia said while the ministry, in working along with principals and teachers, has been able to see a “tremendous” achievement in the fight against school bullying and violence, “it is incidents like these that really undermines our efforts.”

“But we are going to do everything to stamp that out,” Garcia said.

He assured that a team of officials will meet this morning on the issues to have in-depth discussions. He added that they will visit the school and pleaded with all students who are victims of bullying, robbery and assault to come forward and not be afraid.

“We are going to deal decisively with that…it must not happen again,” Garcia said.

Asked what sort of disciplinary action the students may face, Garcia replied that he did not want to prejudge.

ACP: Don’t post attacker’s pic

Acting ACP Radcliff Boxhill yesterday said members of the public must refrain from posting online photos of a student who was involved in two separate videos of school violence.

Photos of the student were posted online mere hours after videos showing him assaulting and “taxing” other students recently appeared on social media.

Members of the public also began threatening and posting information on the student, who they claimed had a relative who is a police officer.

Contacted yesterday, Boxhill said he saw the videos on social media, adding the Child Protection Unit would have to co-ordinate with the Ministry of Education on the matter.

“The CPU has to look into it and they have systems in place to deal with it. We see some sort of bullying taking place, obscenity and physical violence and robbery, which is a form of intimidation. It is cause for concern that it is taking place in schools and some students who are bullied don’t report it and who are being intimidated.”

Boxhill said having viewed the video, he is of the belief some of the students involved in the incidents should receive counselling.

However, he urged members of the public to stop posting photos of the students involved.

“It is not proper to be posting pictures on social media. It is not the best thing to do, it is young children, we can’t give up on them. We have hope of bringing them around from criminality. We ask people to refrain from posting those pictures,” he said.

A Valencia family was last night mourning the tragic death of 18-month-old toddler Ilena Mansoor, after she was accidentally run over by a pick-up driven by a relative at the family’s home yesterday.

The T&T Guardian understands the parents were very distraught and were yet to give full statements to the police on what happened.

However, a police source said preliminary investigations revealed the little girl ran through a door left open by another relative and into the yard. She was run over by a male relative who was at the time reversing his pick-up and unaware she was in the yard. The child was rushed to the Valencia Health Centre but died on the way.

An autopsy is expected to be conducted on the child’s body today at the Forensic Science Centre in St James.

PC Ramkhelawan is continuing investigations.

Prison Officers’ Association president Ceron Richards is holding the Government responsible for the murder of colleague Richard Sandy, and is calling on Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to implement urgent measures to protect prison officers or face possible retaliation.

Richards made the call as he visited Sandy’s Pleasantville home to support to his wife and children yesterday. He knocked the Government for its non-action in response to several incidents over the years where prison officers were threatened, injured and murdered.

Lamenting that over a dozen officers have been shot and killed within the last decade, Richards ask if many more have to die before the state take decisive and meaningful action.

“The Prime Minister, as the chairman of the National Security Council, must get up and act,” Richards said.

He said criminals believe the apparatus of the state can be challenged at any time, adding if those charged with the responsibility of protecting society are themselves threatened, what does that meant for the ordinary citizens.

“I am saying it to you Dr Keith Rowley, sir, your officers are being killed, they are being killed on the streets, they are sweating and giving their lives for this country with no assistance coming from the state and because of that we are holding the Government personally responsible. The Government of T&T is the culprit in this matter because much more can be done than what is being done currently,” Richards said.

“The Prison Officers Association of T&T is fully in support of its membership and whatever action they take in the interests of the protection of their lives and limb and that of their families in going forward.”

Complaining that T&T per capital has the highest rate of prison officer killings in the Commonwealth and the worst response from the state, he recalled that in 2015 after the murders of two prison officers they had asked the state to implement a law enforcement officer safety act similar to what exists in the US. He said they also recommended increased penalties for threatening, attacking, maiming and killing law enforcement officials.

After the association threatened legal action over the issue last year, he said Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi told them a committee would be set up to begin drafting the legislation. However, he said they met only once in February.

“How much more can prison officers take? And I dear say it, if prison officers walk off the job they will have the full support of this president, they will have the full support of all officers in the prison service and the Prison Officers’ Association, because this situation cannot continue,” he said. Richards said they will be awaiting the Prime Minister’s response to this situation and said he hoped good sense will prevail.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley is defending Government’s decision to remove the fuel subsidy. He said given the drastic drop in revenues, mounting debt, including paying for essentials such as salaries for public servants, medicine for hospitals, pensions and grants for the needy, Government had no choice.

Through a statement via the Office of the Prime Minister on Saturday night, the PM said fuel subsidies were also not the most effective and equitable way to distribute a country’s resource wealth to its population.

“They impose a considerable fiscal burden and were an important reason for under-saving in the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund (HSF),” the statement said.

“Historical and cross-country experience indicates that energy subsidies impose substantial fiscal, economic and environmental costs. Studies have found that the total fuel subsidy has a very regressive impact and disproportionately benefits the rich over the poor.”

It cited survey results which estimated the total subsidy benefit in the lowest income group was about $12,000 a year for households in the lowest income group and about $24,000 a year for those in the highest income group.

The subsidies also generated excessive reliance on fossil fuels and automobiles, leading to congestion and pollution, Rowley said, adding that T&T was one of the highest energy users and, on a per capita basis, CO2 emitters in the world.

He said in 1974 when the price of oil increased sharply, the Government then sought measures to cushion the burden of high oil prices on consumers and passed the Petroleum Production Levy and Subsidy Act (PPLSA), which allowed fuels such as gasoline, diesel and kerosene to be sold to consumers at fixed prices, which were significantly lower than the market price.

“This measure allowed citizens to enjoy one of the lowest fuel prices in the world. However, it came at a significant cost to the state. From its inception in 1974 until 1992, the levy (calculated as four percent of the revenues of crude oil Production Businesses) covered the entire value of the subsidy but as production decreased and prices increased, the shortfalls in the levy were required to be financed by the Government directly from the Consolidated Fund,” Rowley said.

Over time, he said, the rationale for the subsidy was lost and the population came to regard the subsidy as a way for the population to share in the country’s resource wealth.

“In the present day scenario, however, with the global slump in energy prices and the country’s reduction in revenues, the extent of fuel subsidy is simply no longer sustainable.

“From 2006-2016, aggregate fuel subsidies amounted to TT$31 billion, or an average of two per cent of GDP per year. As oil prices trended up between 2009 and 2014, fuel subsidies amounted to nearly TT$3.6 billion per year or about 2.3 per cent of GDP. When crude oil prices plummeted in 2015, subsidies also dropped, to TT$2.1 billion, or 1.4 per cent of GDP, the lowest since the Global Financial Crisis,” Rowley said.

He said at times the Government had difficulty covering the subsidy through revenues and financed it in part by running arrears to Petrotrin.

“The level of arrears peaked at TT$7.1 billion (4.3 per cent of GDP) by the end of 2012. As a result, Petrotrin withheld tax payments to the Government until the bulk of the subsidy arrears were cleared in subsequent years through budget provisions. As of December 2015, outstanding arrears stood at TT$549 million,” the PM added.