My name is Bernadette George and I was a cook in the original Breakfast Shed.

They doesn’t call it Breakfast Shed now, but I still call it Breakfast Shed.  They now calling it Fammes du Chalice or whatever. Fam du Sha-lay, Fem du Cha-lay or something. I can’t pronounce it. I would bite my tongue.

My mother from Union Island, St Vincent, my father from Grenada. I born and grow up in Laventille. Then I went to Morvant. I have a daughter myself. Sheries. That’s my daughter.

Morvant was real nice. It change to now.  It don’t have the love again. But I born and grow there and I will die right there.

In we days, before school, we get up, we full four drums with water. We help the neighbour full a next drum. From the standpipe, pulling box-cart. But now, young people don’t even self help old people cross the streets! Everybody going to get old; but these young ones don’t care ’bout nothing.

I went Malick Girls RC but I didn’t like too much of book-work; I liked hard work. Like cooking, cleaning out. From small, I like to cook. And they teach me how to cook at home. I leave school early, after my father died, to help my mother. I don’t regret it. I make my way with cooking. I come from nothing to reach somewhere.
Breakfast Shed is a generation thing: each mother bring in their daughter, but I come in like a worker. The best thing I remember is getting my stall from Miss Ruth. She die now.

I’m a Baptist. My faith is important to me. If I didn’t believe in God, I wouldn’t reach where I reach today.

They have another Bernadette in the Shed: Bernadette Smith: that’s my girl! We from way back. Don’t mind me and she don’t get along so much. She used to ask me, “Bernadette, we going to make it?” I used to tell she, “Yes!” And we did make it.

God is right next to you. But you have to believe in him to see him. With him, you go succeed; without him, you go suck salt.

Cro-Cro and Sparrow come like prophets. They see the future in front of them. And, if you wait long enough, you see everything come to pass.

The Breakfast Shed was down by the Hyatt. Way, way back, before I reach to the old one, and to this one here, it was somewhere by the bus terminus side. But that was before my time.

I started in the Breakfast Shed at the age of 32 years. I didn’t start with my mother, I started with the older heads. Miss Ruth. I going on in it about 20 years.

I make breakfast. Into breakfast, you cook lunch. Into lunch, that’s it, and you go home until next morning. It’s very satisfying work, feeding people, but it’s very hard work. But that’s okay because I love hard work.

I buy, choose all the foodstuff myself. My daughter and them can’t shop for me. Because I go find a fault. Then banana not going to look good; them fig not going to suit my styling. I give the food to my daughter them to cook; I could trust them with that. I resigning just now, so she will have to take over. I will still go in the market when I resign, because I can’t sit down, I’ll be still exercising the body.

Breakfast Shed is a place where you could get a big pile of good food for a reasonable price. Everybody comes to the Breakfast Shed: from high to low; from foreign to local. Big shot. Small man. White, Chinee, Potogee, French, Indian. And you can’t talk French, you have to teach them Trini. But they understand the food, though.

Breakfast Shed open every day but, coming down to Christmas, all o’ we take we holidays. The whole place shut down for a week, two weeks, and we open back for January.

The best thing about having a shop in the Breakfast Shed is the independence. It very nice to work for yourself. And to have something to hand on to your daughter. The bad part is you have the up and down.

A Trini is a hardworking person. But young people now, they don’t like to work.

I been Jamaica, Barbados, Caracas, Curacao. You need to see other places. But Trinidad, that’s my home.

Five people, including several children are dead, after a minibus plunged into the sea in Rockgutter, an area between Owia and Fancy on the northeastern tip of St. Vincent early Monday, according to a report by journalist Kenton X. Chance.

An earlier report by the same journalist on Caribbean 360.com estimated the toll to be as high as seven.
 

Police and government officials said that five bodies have so far been recovered from the sea, and one person died in hospital, while another died on the way to the medical institution, the report said.

"Police are still trying to verify how many persons were in the minibus when it plunged into the sea sometime between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m (local time). Initial reports said that as many as 20 people, including 14 students from the North Union and Georgetown Secondary Schools respectively," the report said.

It is not yet clear what caused the incident, but police say that villagers were notified by persons who jumped out of the vehicle before impact, the report said.

The terrain in that area of St Vincent is an alternation of steep inclines and deep gorges and winding roads.

The report quotes PM Ralph Gonsalves as saying that the “entire nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines…has been touched by this tragedy of national proportion. We all grieve and ask God for guidance and strength as well as we lean on one another."

Gonsalves potponed a budget speech scheduled to have been delivered to Parliament on Monday.

Up to this afternoon, the search and recovery efforts were ongoing, the report said. Efforts were being hampered by large waves characteristic of the Atlantic side of the island.

Multi-media journalist Urvashi Tiwari-Ropnarine has been investigating T&T’s flourishing illegal drug trade for the past several weeks. That journey has taken her to several parts of the country for extensive interviews with several people involved in the trade, people who have been researching it and members of the law enforcement agencies charged with trying to prevent the activity. Today, she presents part one of a six-part series on the trade titled Cracks in Our Borders. 

Trinidad and Tobago lies just north of the equator. It is a country known best for its pitch lake in La Brea and two-day carnival affair. It is also a major oil and gas exporter but did you know of its billion dollar drug industry?

Author and researcher Trevor Munroe, in his book Caribbean Security in the Age of Terror, wrote: “Close to 50 per cent of the cocaine introduced to this US$35 billion United States cocaine market in 2001 passed through the Caribbean.”

He documented then the increase in progressive crimes in T&T along with other transit hubs like Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.

Local author and drug researcher Darius Figueira, however, tells Guardian Media Limited (GML) that Trinidad has again been “switched on” as a major trans-shipment point.

The fact that T&T is pinned, almost strategically, between the producers and consumers of drugs in North America and Europe, and the fact that many of its borders are easily accessible, facilitates the flourishing billion dollar industry.

Figueira’s street research tells what authors have been documenting for decades: There is a known nexus between the narcotic trade and the gang culture associated with violence in T&T.

He is author of “Cocaine and Heroin Trafficking in the Caribbean,” a case study of the T&T drug trafficking trade.

Yet, despite his extensive research, Figueira says besides figures collected by law enforcement agencies from seizures, it is difficult to estimate the value of the drug trade in T&T. 

“It varies. It’s dependent on the levels of interdiction present at any of the regional territories at any point in time,” he said.

The United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), however, estimates that US$50 billion is being laundered across the Caribbean annually. 

According to the United Nations’ Office on Drugs and Crime’s Caribbean Drug Trends Report (2001-2002), the total drug GDP for the Caribbean was US$3.684 billion during that period.

Figueira says there is a price to pay for involvement in this activity, as blood is the preferred currency on T&T’s streets as rival gangs all try to squeeze into the closed community of the drug trade.

“They continue to be locked out, having little, continuously fighting over scraps,” Figueira told Guardian Media Limited (GML).

​
 

Link to violence

Gun violence and murders are the result of their activity.

According to gunpolicy.org’s country profile of T&T, in 1995 44 per cent of the 135 murders were committed with guns and in 2009, its latest tally, 72 per cent of the 506 murders were because of fatal shootings, almost double the percentage two decades ago.

The 2012 Small Arms Survey, an independent research project conducted by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, records the global average of proportions of homicides committed with firearms to be 42 per cent.

It is also interesting to note that while guns are not manufactured in the Caribbean, the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police estimates there are over 1.6 million illegal firearms circulating in the region.

Figueira says the low-level traffickers in the game account for T&T’s high levels of gun violence and skyrocketing murder rate.

But it is when the drug gangs target each other’s supplies that things become critical.

“When one gang has its stash ready for export one day, another gang will attack, take and go by any means necessary,” he said.

And is there a consequence for the perpetrators of this violence?

The 2012 Small Arms Survey concludes that since few gun homicides are solved in T&T, impunity for gun violence may also be a factor in the rising numbers of gun crimes and homicides in particular.

Gun runners and drug pushers on the streets say with the right connections, one can order an assassination for TT$6,000 and if that’s too much for your pocket, as little as $2,000 can get you your own personal firearm.

The cost of these illegal guns varies according to the type, make and of course its level of use. The guns, sources told GML, are coming in alongside the drugs being transhipped through T&T.

One North Coast fisherman with knowledge of the illegal drug trade said: “What you finding now is guns coming in. I have heard from fellows who does take work to go for drugs, say sometimes to move drugs they does put a little bag of guns in your boat too.”

On the economic side of things, the United Nations estimates the narcotics trade in the Caribbean generates an annual US$3 billion, almost one third of our country’s fiscal budget.

Mexican cartel link

Figueira says the trade is decades old with T&T being a transit hub since the 1960s.

On the ground, stories are still being told of notorious drug lord Dole Chadee being a major pin in notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar’s ring.

Asked why it is beneficial to transit cocaine through various countries, head of International Relations at The University of the West Indies, Professor Andy Knight, said:

“First of all you don’t want to have drugs sent directly from Colombia to the USA. Sometimes it’s easier to have it passed through a third party state like Trinidad to disguise where it comes from.” 

After 1990, T&T had been abandoned as a trans-shipment destination, the then active Colombian cartel instead opting for Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic.

Time and convenience, Figueira says, navigated them back to a more logical route through the Caribbean.

“The eastern Caribbean is being switched on as a trafficking point and what that means is that T&T is also being switched on with greater volumes passing through T&T,” he said.

But there has also been a change in management.

“In the Caribbean today the illicit drug trade is dominated by Mexican transnational organised crime,” he said.

Two of the top crime syndicates in Mexico—the Sinaloa and Los Zetas gangs—mean local drug traffickers are immediately linked to international criminal organisations wielding a lot of power.

“Mexicans work though affiliation. Affiliates are part of the organisation, affiliates are traffickers, retailers, wholesalers traffickers. And the number one recruits for Mexicans come from gangland,” he said.

Affiliates, he says, are well taken care of. 

“You get product that you can extensively retail. You get product that you can wholesale. You get product that you can traffic. You get to tap into a stream of weaponry and become part of trans-national organisation,” he added.

Figueira says they live by one rule: Execute orders with efficiency.

“Failure to carry out orders and that’s it for you,” he added.
 

Commuters can look forward to the opening of several sections of the Solomon Hochoy Highway extension to Point Fortin project over the next few months.

So said chairman of the National Infrastructure Development Company (Nidco) Dr Carson Charles yesterday after confirming that he received a $1.5 billion loan to complete most of the project.

The loan, Charles said, was secured from RBC but he could not provide the interest rate.

In an interview, Charles said the loan was secured and given to Nidco last December. Saying the highway is 40 per cent complete, Charles explained that the $1.5 billion allocation would be enough to take the project until the end of the fiscal year.

By then the highway should be between 60 to 70 per cent complete, Charles said. The highway is expected to cost $7.4 billion.

Asked to account how the $1.5 billion will be spent, Charles said: “We are using it for all the expenses of the highway. We have to pay the contractor (OAS Constructora) monthly for all the work they have completed.”

However, he said, some parts of the highway would run into 2016. 

“We expect to open the section at Dumfries Road and open two lanes for public use from Paria Suites to Gordineau River. 

“A little later in the year we will have ready the section from St Mary’s Junction all the way to Rousillac as well as the segment between Point Fortin and the Southern Main Road. We expect to open as well the Debe Interchange to Penal,” Charles said.

However, he explained that the highway from Siparia to Fyzabad would be left for next year as approximately 30 oil wells had to be capped. 

“We also have a major bridge facility at Vance River which crosses the bpTT gas corridor. We also have to lift the seawall along the creek. All of this will be done next year,”Charles said. 

Asked whether he was concerned by reports that OAS had defaulted on a payment last week, Charles said: “Of course we are concerned but the difficulties faced at the OAS headquarters should not affect the building of our highway. OAS has the resources to build the project and they are being paid as they conduct work.”

More info

Last Wednesday, OAS parent company was swiftly downgraded by two of the world's leading rating agencies after the company could not pay US$16 million interest on US$400 million bonds maturing in 2021. 

OAS later said it was selling assets to raise cash and more than 20 builders were forbidden to bid on new contracts with state-run Petroleo Brasileiro SA. 

Police searched offices of companies, including OAS, last year amid allegations it was part of a cartel of builders that paid bribes for public contracts including work from the oil producer. (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-09/fitch-says-brazilian-builders-w...)

A 14-year-old schoolboy was one of two pedestrians who was knocked down and killed in separate incidents in Barataria and Guapo yesterday morning. Their deaths bring the road fatality toll for the year to four. 

In the first incident Evans Rajkumar, a Form Four student of St George’s College, Barataria, was walking to school when he was struck by a car. 

Rajkumar, of Chaguanas, had exited a maxi taxi on the Priority Bus Route and was crossing Fifth Street, Barataria, when a car travelling east struck him. The teenager was pitched in the air and landed at the side of the road. The driver stopped the car to render assistance. He was briefly detained and questioned by police before being released. 

Rajkumar was taken to the Eric Williams Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, where he died while receiving treatment.

The incident was witnessed by dozens of Rajkumar’s schoolmates, who have since received counselling from the Ministry of Education’s Student Support Unit. Less than two hours later, Guapo Police received a report of a unconscious man lying in the middle of the road at Lot 10 Junction, Guapo. 

When they arrived, police discovered that the victim, who had massive head injuries, was already dead. Investigators are now seeking the public assistance in identifying the victim, who is of African decent and in his 50s, as he did not have any identification documents on him.

They are also seeking information on the circumstances surrounding his death as no one reported the accident.

Anyone with information are asked to contact Guapo Police at 648-2403.

Leader of the Opposition Dr Keith Rowley has joined in the call for the proposed Phoenix Park Gas Processors’ initial public offering (IPO) to be aborted pending the conclusion of the investigations into last year’s controversial First Citizens IPO.

Chairman of the Clico Policyholders Group (CPG) Peter Permell also made a similar call. 

Speaking yesterday during his first news conference for the year at his office on Charles Street, Port-of-Spain, Rowley said no such IPO should be carried out under Finance and the Economy Minister Larry Howai. He said instead the 2015 election should be called soon.

“The Government must not do it under these conditions and since the Government is only able to treat with this loss of revenue situation after an expection, that is why the election should be called sooner rather than later,” he added.

He also stressed that the IPO should not be carried out until the “outcome” of the First Citizens IPO is determined. “We want the outcome of FCB,” he said.

On another matter, Rowley repeated the call for the former First Citizens chairman to say whether he purchased shares or engaged in trading at TCL during the blackout period 12 years ago.

He said the minister must answer questions about the alleged purchase of Trinidad Cement Ltd (TCL) shares 12 years ago.

Rowley said yesterday his position was “that this Minister of Finance is to oversee no further sale of public assets until he explains himself to us.”

In an address to the nation last Thursday, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said the IPO would proceed to allow the country to recover lost revenue due to the reduction in the price of oil in recent weeks.

But Rowley said yesterday Persad-Bissessar’s Government was “resolutely refusing to do what is required to be done by a responsible government in the prevailing situation because it is bad business for the election.”

Rowley said more was required to be done to address the issue of loss of revenue for the country.

He said external forces “have forced the country’s revenue down and the Government is refusing to acknowledge that situation and is aiming to take us through to an election where we are losing time and effort in trying to properly address the challenges ahead.”

He added: “If the Government is going to insist on doing that we are saying call the election now because clearly what you are saying is that nothing will be done on this particular matter until after a new government comes into office.

“Call the election now. If you are going to stay in office till the last day in September as you have said then do what is required to be done.”

He said citizens did not know the true state of the economy because the Government “has been fudging the numbers and eventually killed off the CSO.”

He said the true figures would only be known after this year’s general election.

“We will only find out the details of those arrangements after the next election,” he added.

He said the Government’s “inaction or crazy action” pose “threats to people of T&T not the Cabinet. Their bread butter with New Zealand’s best. It is the bread of the population that would be buttered with lard.”

He said the Government was “not worried at all because they have fixed themselves already. 

flashback

The T&T Guardian, in an earlier report, indicated that the Securities Exchange probe into that IPO was complete. It centred around the purchase of 659,588 shares, worth $14.5 million, by the bank’s former chief risk officer, Phillip Rahaman in the IPO in July 2013.

He lodged his share application with Bourse Securities, although First Citizens has a subsidiary with a brokerage licence. 

Bourse Securities chairman Subhas Ramkhelawan resigned as chairman of the T&T Stock Exchange on April 10, saying he was “fully confident that Bourse Securities will be fully vindicated when the facts are cleared up by the regulator.”

Rahaman sold some 634,588 shares on January 14, which amounted to 96 per cent of the shares he had purchased, at about $42.15 a share, which would have led to a profit of over $12 million in six months. 

He would also have collected $718,950 in dividends as the bank distributed $1.09 a share to shareholders as at December 31, 2013. 

Three days are how much time angry Palo Seco residents say they are willing to give the Government to initiate work to fix deplorable roads or they will continue to protest.

Yesterday residents united from Los Charros to Erin to block roads to draw attention to the plight they face because of poor road conditions.

Old refrigerators, tree trunks, tyres and large boulders became the residents’ makeshift barriers across the SS Erin Road as residents demanded roadworks commence in their area.

“We are giving them three days, three days of passage to tell us when they fixing our roads,” declared Palo Seco resident Kenisha Rougier.

Yesterday schoolchildren and workers were forced to return home because of the blockage. Traffic stretched for miles during the protest.

Two residents were arrested in Rancho Quemado for obstruction and disorderly behaviour. 

The residents, backed by their Member for Parliament Fitzgerald Jeffrey, accused the Government of political discrimination and neglect. 

They claim road rehabilitation works stopped at Quarry Village, Siparia, the boundary between UNC-held Siparia constituency and the PNM-held La Brea constituency. 

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Rambachan- No discrimination

Works Minister Dr Surujrattan Rambachan yesterday refuted allegations that Government was deliberately neglecting Palo Seco residents. 

He assured that the SS Erin Road through Los Charros, Palo Seco has been earmarked for rehabilitation.

Rambachan, in a telephone interview said, “We have a scheduled programme of repaving of roads across the country and that road is in fact down for paving.”

He said his ministry is waiting on the release of a second tranche of a loan, which has already been approved, to initiate the next phase of road rehabilitation works. 

Former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj says the Government’s plan to bring back the hangman is an election gimmick to garner support from citizens who feel they are under siege from criminals.

Maharaj was responding to questions about the Government’s intention to once again attempt to pass the Constitution (Amendment) (Capital Offences) Bill 2015.

Speaking on Sunday at Gaston Courts, Chaguanas, following a meeting with the Clico policyholders group, Maharaj said during his time as AG, he was able to execute the death penalty under the existing law.

However, when he was asked to take a bill to parliament to make things “simpler,” Maharaj said it was met with a lot of opposition as proposed amendments would have facilitated the death penalty being carried out long after the stipulated period of five years had expired.

In the Pratt and Morgan ruling, the Privy Council ruled that it was inhumane for prisoners to wait more than five years on death row.

Once the stipulated period has passed, death row inmates can apply to have their sentences commuted to life.

Maharaj said the Caribbean Court of Justice had endorsed the Privy Council’s decision that it was unlawful to keep people on death row for an unusually long time, and had declared it unconstitutional, a move which had only provided the criminal elements with “a greater weapon.”

Prior to his exit as the AG, Maharaj advised the government of the time to take steps to expedite the process and reduce the delaying tactics often employed when a convicted prisoner was placed on death row.

He said that had now been changed so an appeal no longer had to be considered by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the Inter-American Commission and other human rights bodies.

Maharaj said it was now only the Inter-American Commission which was involved in the process.

However, he added: “It is my view that this is a public relations exercise because the Government knows that this will be struck down by the courts and the criminals will have a better chance.

“What they should have done in the last four or five years, was to take steps in improving the administrative machinery to expedite the processes. 

The AG had a duty to do that and he has failed. He is now coming to ask Parliament to try and give him the power to execute, when the bill will be challenged by all the death row prisoners.”

BACKGROUND

In February 2011, the Government failed to secure the support of opposition members to amend the controversial “hanging bill.”

It was defeated as 29 Government members voted in favor of it, while 11 Opposition members voted against it.

During last Friday’s parliamentary session, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan presented a letter to Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley, signaling the government’s intention to once again table the bill.

He invited Rowley to submit his party’s proposals to ensure the amendments were passed—and for the State to carry out the death sentence on convicted murderers, despite the length of time they took in exhausting appellate procedures. The current murder toll now stands at 17 for the first 11 days of the new year.

Two men were arrested over the weekend for throwing stones at cars on the Valencia Bypass.

Police believe attacks are part of a ploy by perpetrators to get motorists to stop so they can rob them.

The arrests came even as people took to social media website, Facebook, over the weekend to highlight the attacks. 

A photo of a large stone was shared on the site by a friend of one victim with a caption stating: “This is what a friend of mine found in his car last night after passing on the Valencia bypass last night. Luckily his glass was down so he only heard a noise in the car. Be careful in the back there, especially at night. Please repost to warn your friends.”

Senior Supt Sacenarine Mahabir, head of the Eastern Division, yesterday told the T&T Guardian that three teenagers, ranging in ages from 17 to 19, were arrested, charged and appeared in the Sangre Grande Magistrates Court on charges of malicious damage to vehicles. 

Facebook users stated the people were throwing the stones with the intent to rob the drivers who stopped. Mahabir, however, said the police had no reports of any robberies.

“We had some reports of people throwing rocks. Over the weekend we held three young fellas. We had no account of a robbery and no evidence of any robberies taking place,” Mahabir said. 

Last Monday, 32-year-old Murlesha Majid, of San Francique, was shot and wounded along the Beetham Highway after her brother-in-law Rajpath Balgobin stopped so his wife could change their son’s diaper.

A group of men reportedly attempted to surround the car as it was parked, firing shots as Balgobin drove off when they realised they were being attacked.

Petrotrin president Khalid Hassanali is forecasting a dim 2015, saying the state-owned oil company could lose 40-50 per cent in revenue due to the continuing sip in global oil and gas prices.

As such, he says the company has readjusted its budget and will also have to slash drilling and development programmes. The revised budget will take into consideration its revenue forecast over a five-year period, he said. 

Hassanali made the comment following the opening of a workshop on incident command systems at Petrotrin’s staff club at Pointe-a-Pierre. He said the company suffered a loss last year and expected to do the same again this year. 

“As you know, we are in a down cycle and in these down cycles we still have to prepare for when prices will ‘re rise.’

“We are experiencing about a 40 to 50 per cent loss in gross revenue but, like I said, we manage our cash flows very carefully in these times,” he said.

Hassanali’s statement comes mere days after Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar announced that Government would peg its national budget figure on US$45 a barrel for oil and $2.25 for gas, as well as various cutbacks in Government spending, due to the falling global prices.

Yesterday, Hassanali said Petrotrin would use the down cycle not only to optimise and restructure the company but also be prepared for when the prices began to rise.

Hassanali said the company would reduce spending on its drilling and developmental programmes as many of its aged assets needed to be replaced. The focus too, he said, would be on cash management rather than accounting profits. 

He added: “We will continue to cut, maybe to a reduced extent, our drilling programmes, our developmental programmes, because we have an asset that has to be replaced. 

“We have just come out of acquisition of seismic at the marine acreages in Trinmar. We have certain responsibilities there and we also have already started development drilling in terms of our land seismic so there is a lot of potential.”

Although the oil price ended yesterday at US$46.30 a barrel with gas at $2.81 per trump, Hassanali said that would be sufficient to withstand the current crisis, although he said that would only be for a short time.

He said there were several initiatives with the Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs to manage cost carefully.

“If you think of that in terms of our lifting cost, in other words, the money that is required to take a barrel of oil out of the ground, we can manage at the current pricing scenario. We can manage on a cash basis, not forever, but we can manage for a period of time.” 

Financial hole

Last month, Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine announced in the Senate that Petrotrin had suffered a loss of $346 million in fiscal 2014 and had a total debt of $14.38 billion. 

He made the comment as he appealed to Petrotrin workers not to carry through on a proposed strike action over the company’s claim that it could not increase salaries.

“This is not a time for acrimony at Petrotrin. This is not a time to break down Petrotrin but to build up Petrotrin,” he said.

Ramnarine said the company’s poor financial performance was partly due to losses by the refining arm of the company.

The way forward for the company was to increase its crude oil and gas production through its own efforts as well as from ventures, such as its lease operatorship, farmout, incremental production service contract (IPSC) and joint venture programmes. 

He said improved production was expected from the Trinmar operations in the Jubilee field and the ongoing South West Soldado project. 

Contacted yesterday, Petrotrin’s communications department said at the end of 2013-2014 fiscal period, the company revenue was TT$29.285 billion and there was a loss of $347 million. The main contributor to the loss was a low refinery margin.

Atiba Pantin was no gangster his parents told the media yesterday at the Forensic Science Centre, St James.

The 29-year-old father of two, described as a “hustler”, left his home on Tesheria Street, Diego Martin, on Sunday without saying goodbye to his mother and headed to Laventille where for the third year straight he was hired to carry Witco Desperadoes’ steelpans from the hills to Belmont. 

While his voice cracked and his lips trembled, Pantin’s father Rawlin called on the authorities to do more in the fight against crime. 

Both Rawlin and his wife, Ruth, spoke of their son as being saintly. The couple said Pantin was the type of young man that would have done anything to earn an honest dollar. Rawlin said the only vice his son had was smoking marijuana on his birthday. 

“He wasn’t in any gang. The only thing my son was in as a big man would smoke a ganja for his birthday. He was everybody’s darling on the street. People who I barely know coming and passing by me last night for the wake and crying like it was them child,” Pantin said of his son.

A grieving Ruth said: “He was Just on a job. He was in the back. Is work he went to work. He was the assistant cook for me. New Year’s (Day) is our big bash and everybody does come down. I just have to tell him what and he would say this is the way I doing it. He didn’t deserve to die like that at all.”

According to police, around 11 am on Sunday Pantin, who was hired by a contractor, was moving pan racks along with four other men when they were shot at. 

Chavez Best, the driver who employed Pantin, was also shot in the upper right side of his body. 

In 2009 after being faced with high crime and violence in the Laventille community the steelband fled from its panyard’s Auditorium and Theatre Centre, Laventille, to practise in Belmont for the Panorama competition. Since then every year they move their equipment from Laventille to Belmont where it is safer for both the panmen and the supporters.

Saying citizens in T&T are “just living on the margin of chaos,” Independent Senator Helen Drayton yesterday called on Government to make drastic cuts in expenditure in response to the continuing drop in global oil and gas prices. Among the areas she highlighted for major cutbacks were the GATE programme, Carnival, the fuel subsidy and the proposed constituency fund.

She made the suggestions during her contribution to debate on the Finance (Supplementation and Variation, Financial Year 2014) Bill, which was presented by Finance and Economy Minister Larry Howai. Drayton called on the Government to “minimise its involvement in Carnival except for the basic infrastructure and traditional folk activities and just leave it to the private sector.”

She also said Government should reduce spending on the Government Assistance for Tuition Expenses (GATE) programme, “cut out entirely” the $410 million constituency fund for MPs and cap the billion-dollar fuel subsidy. Elaborating on GATE, Drayton said previously the banks and corporations would provide scholarships for students. “Yes, businesses are still continuing with their training funds but today they don’t have to bother with the scholarships because the Government is doing it,” she added.

Drayton said a bank could make profits of over a billion dollars so “surely it can pay for these scholarships.” About $650 million is spent on GATE annually, Tertiary Education and Skills Training Minister Fazal Karim has said previously. Drayton also suggested that:
• State enterprises, like WASA, should tighten their belts.
• Government should reduce the tax amnesty and enforce the law.
• Government should examine all infrastructure spending and cut back on the highway spending.
• Government should cut all vanity advertising from the budget.

She said there was a difference between “political advertising and information the public needs to have.” None of her recommendations, she said, would affect people in need. Oil prices dropped to under US$50 a barrel last week, forcing Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to peg the national budget at US$45 a barrel for oil and $2.25 for gas, among other measures to reduce spending.

Reliance on handouts
Yesterday, Drayton said while the country had experienced recessions and economic depression before “our resilience has never really been tested.”  She said everyone, including babies, elderly and businesses, “are reliant on Government handouts or incentives to survive.” She said while she was not implying that welfare was not essential to cushion the vulnerable, too much government largesse weakens the nation.

However, she said the falling energy prices presented the country with more opportunity to gain than loss. She said it would allow citizens to look at their lifestyles and to “rid ourselves from the unnecessary and costly baggage and to plough resources into resources that would yield wealth down the road.” 

She said all the statements about the resources in the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund and months of export cover were “part of a depressing culture. I think it is a distraction from how complex the problems are,” she added. Drayton said the country continued to run huge annual deficits while Government praised itself about the fund.

“The trend of spending will not change unless the culture of leadership changes to one that sets the tone and the example for the rest of the population,” Drayton said. She agreed that if the cuts were “too deep” the situation could be worse, as it could affect business revenue and result in job loss.  She said she was told by businessmen that some of contract workers have not been “taken back” for 2015 because of the prevailing economic conditions. 

She said the trend of job cuts existed as oil prices continued to fall and the Government “continues to believe that it need not take any significant steps with respect to spending.” According to Drayton, the “problem is social spending,” adding that decisions to deal with the matter “appear to be done by whim and fancy.” She said that was why “it was so easy to dispense with hundreds of millions of dollars under the (now disbanded) Life Sport, just for the sporting fun of it.”

She said there was also a lot of double-speak to deflect from issues and reminded legislators that last September the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expressed concerns about spending  in this country. 

More Info
On the controversial issue of immigration, Drayton said she was told by three businessmen that if they did not have labour from Caricom countries, Africa, China, India and South America, they would have had to close their businesses. She said some of those workers’ status remained pending as some have overstayed and were working illegally. Drayton said some of the immigrants have applied for legal status but the process takes a long time.

She said she was “not advocating leniency for people who broke our laws. I am merely putting forward legitimate concerns from our business people.” She said the businessmen have said the Government was aware of the issue. “There are issues with local labour, in terms of quantity, work ethic and the quality of skills,” she said. She said the businessmen have said the work ethic of the foreigners was more desirable than their compatriots.

A suspected feud that began on Facebook yesterday took an ugly turn at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain, when two groups of women were involved in a fracas. Police said the melee began after three carloads of women, some brandishing knives, stopped close to some of the booths which were being prepared for the upcoming Carnival season just outside the main entrance to the Grand Stand.

The women reportedly then began attacking another group of women who had been hired by the National Carnival Commission (NCC) to paint the booths. Police on mobile patrol stopped and tried to intervene but that did little to stop several fights which broke out among the women. Police even fired shots in the air to try and bring order but then had to physically stop the fights. One policewoman was injured as she tried to part one of the scuffles. 

Police eventually held three women and seized knives. One of the women was subsequently taken to hospital, treated and discharged. Police said the three suspects, all from Beetham Gardens, Laventille, were subsequently questioned and released. Contacted yesterday, an NCC official said the safety of its employees was a top priority and that the matter would be resolved appropriately.

Multi-media journalist Urvashi Tiwari-Roopnarine has been investigating T&T’s flourishing illegal drug trade for the past several weeks. That journey has taken her to several parts of the country for extensive interviews with several people involved in the trade, people who have been researching it and members of the law enforcement agencies charged with trying to prevent the activity.

Today, she chats with some sources who have been involved in the activity or seen it on a regular basis in part two of her six-part series on the trade titled Cracks in Our Borders.

The geographical location of Trinidad and Tobago is not the reason the country is a preferred transit point for international drug cartels drug researcher Darius Figueira says. Figueira says drug smugglers are mainly attracted to regions where the transit countries are open to infiltration. “What you are looking for is states with porous borders, ridiculously porous borders and in the Caribbean we are noted for our porous borders,” Figueira told Guardian Media Limited.

The United Nations, the International Organisation for Migration and the United States’ Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) all describe of T&T’s borders as porous. The DEA believes the drugs enter transit points via high speed boats to unmanned coastal areas, but Figueira says illicit items are entering in many different ways, including “containerised cargo, speed boats, mixing product in with ‘legal ones’ and swallowers/mules.”

In T&T there are two legal air ports and 13 legal sea ports of entry. But Professor Andy Knight, head of International Relations at the University of the West Indies, says securing the “illegal” ports or unmanned coastal areas is a challenge for law enforcement members. “Trinidad has a long border to monitor along and not enough resources to monitor. It makes it easier for drug runners to use Trinidad as a transit point,” Knight said.

Fishermen across the country serve as the eyes at sea, taking in boats as they go and come. Many of them either merely observe or, lured by the prospect of making a lot of fast money, become part of the illegal drug trade A Moruga fisherman said that region is busy with such illegal activity.  

“Things happen here, things is happening on the South Eastern coast. I does be on the water at night twenty-four seven. I does see movements of suspicious vessels all over the place and I sees not a Coast Guard,” he said. Cedros is also another known popular landing point for drug shipments. A fisherman in the North meanwhile said drug runners entering through unmanned ports was a regular occurrence.

 “I have been fishing many nights and boats with no lights speeding past from Trinidad to Venezuela. Sometimes I in the Bocas fishing and a pirogue will pass and about an hour after a Venezuelan boat will pass.” The illicit cargo, both guns and drugs, is transferred from boat to boat. There’s another method, the drop-off, which sees neither party at the same location at the same time.

Knight has himself gone on the ground to do his own research on this method of operations. “Some islands on the North West are used as drop off points for some of these drugs, and you don’t know if it may be a fisherman in those waters picking up and carrying the drugs. It therefore becomes complex for the Coast Guard to deal with this problem.”

Record haul at Monos Island
In 2005, 1.75 tonnes of cocaine were seized at Monos Islands. The drugs carried a street value of $700 million. An Uzi machine gun, four handguns, two assault rifles and 247 rounds of assorted ammunition were also seized. Two Trinidadians, five Venezuelans and an Antiguan were arrested.

$30,000 a trip
Another fisherman gave an account of what he has seen first-hand. “The Venezuelans come in and would go on the island on a marked spot and hide the drugs overnight. The next team would pick it up and run ashore with it.” This method is not always fool-proof as either Coast Guard members, rival drug gangs or people merely looking to profit indirectly, could get to it before the intended pick-up team, the fisherman later explained.

“There is fellows—like pirates—who specialise in robbing drug runners. As a drug runner you don’t only have to look out for the Coast Guard, cause it have other fellows marking you to take it from you," he said. The profits from “running drugs” prove to be so lucrative that even talented and successful fishermen have been abandoning their trade. “When you go for drugs you could make $30,000 as a runner. I am telling you, as a fisherman who run and go for drugs you could make $30,000 a night. 

“Who would want to take their money and buy gas and bait and when you go out you not guaranteed to catch a fly?” the fisherman rationalised. But while drugs are one evil, he says there is another which make the fishermen think twice to accept a job.
“Fellows who does move drugs fraid guns. Fellows who does take work, strangely enough, once guns involved they want to back out.” He said there was also little fear of being caught by the Coast Guard. 

Yet there is another element to this, as sometimes those given the responsibility for protecting the country’s borders are also perpetrators of the crime. “A lot of drug runners does get caught too, but because the Coast Guard men keeping the drugs they not going to arrest you. They going to let you go, but seize your drugs.”

Griffith responds
Contacted on this allegation, Minister of National Security Gary Griffith said while corruption of members of the Coast Guard was possible, it was important for the fishermen to make formal reports so that such individuals could be “weeded out” from the service. Addressing T&T’s borders, Griffith said he believed they are safe compared to other islands in the region.

“Many times people will criticise us for this road march we continue to hear about the borders being porous, but it is a fact in comparison to many other islands and the size of T&T, we have done pretty well," Griffith said.

Emotions ran high yesterday when Krishna Rampersad and his ex-wife were freed after spending three years in custody awaiting trial for the 2002 murders of his multi-millionaire uncle Mahase Rampersad and his wife. There were hugs after Rampersad, the nephew of Mahase, and Hilda Donna Bullock were discharged by Deputy Chief Magistrate Mark Wellington who upheld no-case submissions by defence attorneys Subhas Panday and El Farouk Hosein.

 In an immediate response, Bullock began crying while Rampersad broke out in a broad smile as they sat on the prisoners’ bench in the San Fernando First Magistrates Court. “Thank you, sir,” declared Bullock’s father, Anthony, as he stood up in the public gallery. Noting that “it has been a long journey,” Wellington said despite the extensive research done by State attorneys and the amount of evidence led he found there was insufficient evidence for the accused to be committed to stand trial.

“I think on the evidence presented it is not enough to call upon the accused to answer the charge,” the magistrate said. A source, however, said the Director of Public Prosecutions would be reviewing the file to determine if to seek a judge’s warrant. Rampersad, 38, of Woodland, and Bullock, 30, of Rambert Village, La Romaine, who have a child together, were arrested and charged in February 2012 with the double murder. 

The charge laid by Cpl Terry Tambie alleged that on a day unknown between August 3 and 8, 2002, at La Fortune, Woodland, they murdered Mahase, 64, and Darling, 62. The preliminary inquiry against the couple proceeded by way of paper committal in 2013 with State attorneys Trevor Jones and Chantal Hospedales tendering witness statements and other documents into evidence. 

When the State closed its case in May 2014, the defence attorneys made written no-case submissions while the State submitted its written response. Emphasising a few points made in her submissions yesterday, Hospedales said the State’s case was based on mainly circumstantial evidence and agreed that there were certain inconsistencies in the statements of three witnesses in relation to time.

Hosein had argued that the prosecution must lead clear, potent and convincing evidence. Arguing that circumstantial evidence must alway be narrowly examined, Panday said, “I humbly submit to this court that there is no evidence whatsoever to support the charge of murder against accused number two (Bullock).  Relatives began hugging Bullock as she walked out of the courtroom. Bullock and Rampersad also embraced each other as he walked out of the cellblock downstairs the court building. 

She also hugged and shook the hands of police officers of the Court and Process Branch.

Accused: Jail difficult
The only thing on Bullock’s mind as she left the court building yesterday was her desire to go home and hug her son whom she has not seen since her arrest in 2012. Her son is now nine years old. As tears streamed down her cheeks, Bullock said, “I cannot describe how I feel. I am going straight home to my son. The last time I saw my son was three years ago when I was arrested.” 

Describing Panday as “the best attorney,” she thanked him for helping her gain her freedom and her family for never giving up on her. Both Bullock and Rampersad described the time spent in jail as difficult. “It wasn’t nice. It was hard, emotional, depressing.” To her former inmates in the prison, she asked them to stay out of trouble. Bullock’s father said he felt relieved that his daughter, the younger of his two children, was free. 

“People say that money would talk. The magistrate hard,” said the father, who added he was happy that justice prevailed. “The truth does always prevail,” said Rampersad as he walked out of the cellblock. He said he had no idea what he would be doing now, but he too could not wait to see his son. He said he witnessed a lot of injustice meted out to prisoners in the prison. “There is a lot of injustice for a lot of people in there, not only me.”

About the murders, he said, “I had absolutely nothing to do with it and it was proven today.” Mukesh Rampersad, the son of the murdered couple, and his wife, Savitri, declined to comment on the matter when contacted at their business place at Maska Ltd, La Romaine, yesterday.

Flashback
Mahase Rampersad and his wife, founders/owners of M Rampersad Auto Supplies Ltd, were abducted in front of their Palmiste, San Fernando, home soon after they left the home of their daughter Geeta Ramjattan, who was celebrating her birthday.

The police carried out an extensive search for the couple and three days later the Rampersads’ decomposing bodies were found at Woodland, La Romaine. The post mortem reports stated that the couple were shot in the back of their heads and their skulls were crushed.

A seven-year-old girl had to receive 25 stitches to her head on Monday after being mauled by an abandoned dog at her home in Carlsen Field. Kesha Cooper, a Standard One pupil, was playing in the yard of her home when the dog, a brown and white Rottweiler and German Shepherd mixed breed, attacked her. The T&T Guardian visited the home yesterday and spoke with the child’s mother, Allison Cooper, who said the animal was abandoned near their home and attacked Kesha without provocation.

“She went out in the yard to meet her brothers and the dog saw her and started growling. Her older brother put it out into the road and locked the gate. Somehow the dog managed to come back into the yard and jumped on her, biting her multiple times on her head.” The distraught mother recounted the horror she felt when she saw her daughter covered in blood and screaming.

“My nephew called out to me and I ran outside. When I saw her I started screaming as well; blood was dripping from her face and head, her clothes was covered in it.” Cooper said she tried to clean the blood off Kesha, but was even more horrified when she saw the extent of the damage. “Her skull was showing through the cut. When I saw it, I told my husband we have to take her to the hospital right away.”

Kesha was taken to the Chaguanas Health Facility, then transferred by ambulance to the Wendy Fitzwilliam Paediatric Hospital where she was treated and later discharged. Cooper said her daughter, who used to love dogs, was very confused by the attack.
“She loved dogs, she asked me ‘Mommy why the dog bite me up like this?’ It had her like a ragdoll, just flinging her small body back and forth.” She is calling on members of the public to more seriously consider the consequences of their actions.

“She could have died, in her own yard, where she is supposed to be safe. All because someone knowingly abandoned a ‘bad’ dog in the area. That dog was trained, it didn’t bite her anywhere but her head and face.” She is also appealing to the Chaguanas Borough Corporation to remove the scores of abandoned dogs and rubbish in the area. 

“There are always dogs thrown like garbage in this area and we don’t see any dog catchers.  People dump couches, fridges, stoves, anything and everything here (Carlsen Field) and it all goes unchecked. We would like the corporation to come in and remove these dogs and check on the illegal dumping in the area.”

A high-powered firearm and several rounds of ammunition were seized by members of the Inter-Agency Task Force Strike Team in Laventille, Port-of-Spain, on Monday. A report said around 3 pm, the police received information and went to Lovell Place where they conducted a search. They found a Kel-tec sub 2000 40-calibre rifle and several rounds of 5.56 ammunition in an abandoned area. 

Police said yesterday that the rifle was very sophisticated and could be bent in half to be concealed. The exercise was spearheaded by Sr Supt Wayne Boyd and led by Sgt Andy Williams. PCs Vidora Marajh, Brian Phillips, Matthew Billingy, Hakeem Bullen, Farrell Garcia and Tyrone Jack also took part in the exercise. 

No suspects were held by the police. Investigations are continuing. 

Independent Senator Ian Roach has called on Finance Minister Larry Howai to say whether the Government intends to extract money from its Heritage and Stabilisation Fund (HSF) during the current oil and gas crisis. He was contributing to the debate on the Finance (Supplementation and Variation of Appropriation) (Financial Year 2014) Bill, 2015 and the Finance Bill 2015. The fund stood at US$5.56 billion last year.

“The matter of the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund is of concern to this country,” said Roach. “How is it going to be used during this time?” he asked. He said some indication from the Minister of Finance Larry Howai would be appreciated. “He needs to tell the country what is the Government’s intention to extract from the fund during this time,” he added. He said while the fund was established precisely for that type of situation he had concerns after reading the act.

“What is required from the Minister of Finance is to articulate, for the point of public edification, whether or not the circumstances that exist now for this current energy crisis require the Government or entitle the Government to access the fund. “If so, spell out carefully in what terms and how it would deal with withdrawals and such,” he added. He said the fund was set up for “rainy days” and felt the act should be reviewed.

“We have before us the largest budget passed since 2010. It just seems too high. Now the oil prices have dropped and the rug has metaphorically been pulled from under us,” he noted. Roach said the Government needed to deal urgently with the technical issues of adjustment, starting with the critical and pragmatic review of the budget allocations. “So far the Government has not clearly stated its position, vis-a-vis what items and from what ministries it is prepared to make rational adjustments.

“My urging does not mean to panic but to act decisively and responsibly in keeping with the Government mantra that it is a caring Government working in the interest of the people. “That is what every Government ought to do, act in the people’s best interest at all times, good and difficult alike,” he added. Roach said he recognised that there was no quick fix to this situation.

“Government has hard choices to make to reliably address this situation. “Some of the hard choices may well have a bearing on Government’s re-election ambition but if the country’s welfare comes first this should not be a deterrent,” he said.

Evans Rajkumar, the teen who was knocked down on Monday will be buried tomorrow after a service at the Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witness, Chin Chin Road, Cunupia. The 14-year-old sports enthusiast and a Form Four student of St George’s College, Barataria, was walking to school when he was struck by a car. According to police, Rajkumar, of Ajodha Road, Cunupia, had exited a maxi taxi on the Priority Bus Route and was crossing Fifth Street, Barataria, when a car travelling east struck him. 

He was pitched in the air and landed at the side of the road. The driver stopped the car to render assistance. He was briefly detained and questioned by police before being released. Rajkumar was taken to the Eric Williams Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, where he died while receiving treatment.

Speaking with the media at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, yesterday Rajkumar’s older brother, Randy, said his youngest sibling was a natural at sports and loved Japanese animation so much so that his dream was to visit that country one day. The eldest of three children said he was not pointing fingers, adding for his brother to be pitched for any distance indicates some level of excessive speed. 

Rajkumar’s father, Eddy, said attention might have helped his son. He added: “The issue is whether a person who injures another person has the right to take up that person and render assistance. “Some people say yes some people say no. If the person is alive and you can render assistance then that may help. “What I am saying is that if he was attended to and carried to hospital we can't say definitely that he will still be alive but he may have been,” he said.

T&TUTA responds
In a phone interview yesterday, president of the T&T Unified Teachers Association Devanand Sinanan appealed to motorists to exercise caution when driving near schools. Sinanan said: “As a form teacher twice I had deaths in my class and I could feel what parents go through and as teachers our hearts go out to them. “We call on the Children Support Service team to talk to teachers, students and people close to the student.” 

Sinanan said drivers needed to be careful and be on the lookout for children when they were near schools. Be vigilant and exercise caution, he added.

Principal: He was loved 
Principal of St George’s College, James Sammy, said the school was grieving over Rajkumar’s death. He said Rajkumar was interested in school sports, such as table tennis, cricket and the Heroes Club. “He was courteous, respectful and comes from a family where you could see values and to speak his goals. Everybody knew him and loved him” he said.

Sammy added people were quick to “bad talk” teachers but when Rajkumar was struck the teachers were first to respond. “They are the ones who went and called the ambulance,” he said.

The construction of a permanent Manzanilla Main Road is expected to be completed by the end of this month, says Works and Infrastructure Minister Suruj Rambachan. The entire cost of a temporary and permanent structure fell below the expected $57 million, he added. Rambachan was speaking at yesterday’s sitting of the Senate held at the Waterfront Complex, Port-of-Spain. He was responding to several questions on the Order Paper which were put forward by PNM Senator Camille Robinson-Regis.

“It’s not going to cost that much. I think it is going to cost way less. The rest of the funding that is saved we will have to use it to deal with drainage, especially on the side of the swamp, and channel the water into the new sections that we have rebuilt,” Rambachan said. Regarding whether the investigation had been completed into the reason for the main road crumbling into the sea last November, Rambachan said the probe was continuing.

But, in giving preliminary information, he said, “What we found was several things which could have contributed to it. “One was the porosity of the natural drainage which could have contributed to it and drainage influenced by humans. There is a relatively high topography of the beach dune in comparison to the elevation of the Manzanilla/Mayaro Road, creating a natural impediment to drainage.”

Ongoing coastal erosion, which is recorded to average two to four metres per year, especially along critical areas of the road, also contributed to the disaster. He said the road condition and the topographical surveys had been completed. Responding to Senator Faris Al-Rawi’s query as to who were the contractors, Rambachan listed them as Coosal’s Construction Company Ltd, Jusamco Pavers Ltd,  Danny’s Enterprises Co Ltd and Ragoonath Singh and Company.

“Where we have saved money is the material we have dug out, we have been able to crush it and reuse it—recycle it into the roadway,” Rambachan said. Future plans, he added, included widening the Manzanilla/Mayaro Road. But there was a heated exchange over the public procurement legislation. Rambachan vociferously criticised the PNM for refusing to support the fight against corruption.

To which Al-Rawi responded, “Has the Cabinet made a decision for the proclamation of this bill with respect to this project and also the Mayaro to San Fernando project?” Shouts of “That is inappropriate” were heard from the Government bench. Unwilling to yield, Al-Rawi stood up to pose another question but was chastised by Senate president Timothy Hamel-Smith who said that question fell out of the ambit of the one previously laid and that Rambachan could refuse to answer.

Al-Rawi then asked Hamel-Smith, “Could you tell me what that question I asked is?” In reply, Hamel Smith told Al-Rawi he would not permit him to question the Chair. Al-Rawi asked Rambachan whether the $57 million spent by Programme for Upgrading Roads Efficiency (Pure) was done under the central tenders board process. Rambachan, however, could not answer. Instead, he asked Al-Rawi to file the question so it could be answered in full.