Contractors owed $2 billion, hundreds laid off

[X2]

The price of labour will go down now hopefully

No more 400 a day mason and welder

Some how its govts responsibility to insulate everybody from the economic/business cycle.

So the GORTT 'must have contracts'

In 2010 it was salt as the new govt put their people in.

The contractors had a blast since 2010... now they bawling?

Its hard to be sympathetic

Maybe hard to be sympathetic to strong UNC/PP supporters who magically become millionaires in less than 5 years.

The company I work for has been owed millions for years...since PP/UNC started the spending spree. We sell locally made product at extremely competitive prices... eat little, live long.... so while the road works, housing and construction, project management and fly by night suppliers and friends to the government have been living it up on champagne and steak... local manufacturers are once again the bobolee.... waiting to be paid pennies while owed millions... when others are being paid millions for doing little to no work at all.

Will the PNM pay the bills and be fair to those that have suffered under the greed of a few families ? Because if I have to lay off anyone else... I will join them on the picket lines... because no matter who is in power... the common man that refuses to join corrupt practices will always suffer.

[DTAC]

this is really sad ... people being laid off and nothing is being done jus sinking the country into a deeper hole ..

Hope Ppl learn to use their vote wisely next time

so what you getting around to saying... that if UNC won there would be money to pay outstanding sums and more work given out?

paid from where? with what money

Pyramid..... scheme.

Just kidding...............

[shogun]

Because no matter who is in power... the common man that refuses to join corrupt practices will always suffer.

[10-01]

Because no matter who is in power... the common man that refuses to join corrupt practices will always suffer.

wic one will you choose ?

be corrupt or refuse and complain .....

[BRZ]

The price of labour will go down now hopefully

No more 400 a day mason and welder

Some how its govts responsibility to insulate everybody from the economic/business cycle.

So the GORTT 'must have contracts'

In 2010 it was salt as the new govt put their people in.

The contractors had a blast since 2010... now they bawling?

Its hard to be sympathetic

Maybe hard to be sympathetic to strong UNC/PP supporters who magically become millionaires in less than 5 years.

The company I work for has been owed millions for years...since PP/UNC started the spending spree. We sell locally made product at extremely competitive prices... eat little, live long.... so while the road works, housing and construction, project management and fly by night suppliers and friends to the government have been living it up on champagne and steak... local manufacturers are once again the bobolee.... waiting to be paid pennies while owed millions... when others are being paid millions for doing little to no work at all.

Will the PNM pay the bills and be fair to those that have suffered under the greed of a few families ? Because if I have to lay off anyone else... I will join them on the picket lines... because no matter who is in power... the common man that refuses to join corrupt practices will always suffer.

Wonderfully said X2, but unfortunately a majority of the population doesn't know about the many problems that local manufacturers and businessmen face, they don't have it nice and easy like importers that bringing anything and cutting throat with seconds and rejected Iso goods.

[buckredan]

Right now it good for them the amount of money they thief an crappy work they did courtesy the former government all the kick back they give to the pp government they could off paid workers. Now the government have to find money to pay half of the contract that the former government did not pay,

[heads]

just asking didn't this same thing happen when d pp gov came into office in 2010 how much bills they had to pay from d pnm left when they were in office the pp gov had to verify the payments and pay it but they did not stop running d country to go on a witch hunt , when a party comes into gov they should have a plan to take d country forward , do d pnm hv a plan to take d country forward from this. ? can they only run country when money flowing is now they hv to show their true face . talk about cost over run d brian lara stadium how much $ in that alone will add more over run projects in time to come

[10-01]

just asking didn't this same thing happen when d pp gov came into office in 2010 how much bills they had to pay from d pnm left when they were in office the pp gov had to verify the payments and pay it but they did not stop running d country to go on a witch hunt , when a party comes into gov they should have a plan to take d country forward , do d pnm hv a plan to take d country forward from this. ? can they only run country when money flowing is now they hv to show their true face . talk about cost over run d brian lara stadium how much $ in that alone will add more over run projects in time to come

well said ...

but in all they jus trying to spite the PP contractors and supporters .......

[DVSTT]

Lmao. Typical.

I dunno? How much "good" are you expecting to get done in 4 months?. Ten months after the PP took office and countless faux-pas and missteps later, they were still for some reason enjoying election honeymoon and people asking to give them "a chance" Lets at least offer this administration some time to get it's bearings and come up with a way forward. If they don't?... they suffer the same fate as the PP next election. That is all.

Also, I must be the worst PNMite in history, since i voted for the COP/PP in 2010.

Blame PNM for everything ........ dutty MCs

Nice.

from wat we have seen in the last 4 mths is jus news of a down turn in the economy and the PM taking trips to weddings , major Audits , 1000 + job cuts , digging up of corruption to make matters worse ,NO gate soon , Land tax going up , Crime figures going up , soon mayb kidnapping ... the list goes on fill in wher i left out

Don't say no GATE. :/

[Allergic2BunnyEars]

Lmao. Typical.

I dunno? How much "good" are you expecting to get done in 4 months?. Ten months after the PP took office and countless faux-pas and missteps later, they were still for some reason enjoying election honeymoon and people asking to give them "a chance" Lets at least offer this administration some time to get it's bearings and come up with a way forward. If they don't?... they suffer the same fate as the PP next election. That is all.

Also, I must be the worst PNMite in history, since i voted for the COP/PP in 2010.

Blame PNM for everything ........ dutty MCs

Nice.

from wat we have seen in the last 4 mths is jus news of a down turn in the economy and the PM taking trips to weddings , major Audits , 1000 + job cuts , digging up of corruption to make matters worse ,NO gate soon , Land tax going up , Crime figures going up , soon mayb kidnapping ... the list goes on fill in wher i left out

Don't say no GATE. :/

Gate like cepep. Not cutting first.

[RASC]

Question:

Who did those retaining walls past Moka Heights on the Saddle?

[Habit7]

from wat we have seen in the last 4 mths is jus news of a down turn in the economy and the PM taking trips to weddings , major Audits , 1000 + job cuts , digging up of corruption to make matters worse ,NO gate soon , Land tax going up , Crime figures going up , soon mayb kidnapping ... the list goes on fill in wher i left out

Aside from you being upset that the govt weeding out corruption, murders and serious crimes are down.

[Redman]

The price of labour will go down now hopefully

No more 400 a day mason and welder

Some how its govts responsibility to insulate everybody from the economic/business cycle.

So the GORTT 'must have contracts'

In 2010 it was salt as the new govt put their people in.

The contractors had a blast since 2010... now they bawling?

Its hard to be sympathetic

Maybe hard to be sympathetic to strong UNC/PP supporters who magically become millionaires in less than 5 years.

The company I work for has been owed millions for years...since PP/UNC started the spending spree. We sell locally made product at extremely competitive prices... eat little, live long.... so while the road works, housing and construction, project management and fly by night suppliers and friends to the government have been living it up on champagne and steak... local manufacturers are once again the bobolee.... waiting to be paid pennies while owed millions... when others are being paid millions for doing little to no work at all.

Will the PNM pay the bills and be fair to those that have suffered under the greed of a few families ? Because if I have to lay off anyone else... I will join them on the picket lines... because no matter who is in power... the common man that refuses to join corrupt practices will always suffer.

Wonderfully said X2, but unfortunately a majority of the population doesn't know about the many problems that local manufacturers and businessmen face, they don't have it nice and easy like importers that bringing anything and cutting throat with seconds and rejected Iso goods.

X2 it was a general statement...and with the general agreement that there was level corruption facilitated by and through the construction sector....it is still hard to be sympathetic in the context of what Mikey Joseph said....

[TurboSingh12]

Blame Rowly

[Habit7]

Kamla washes her hands of the recession

Ira Mathur
Published: Sunday, December 13, 2015

Two years into her term as prime minister, I interviewed Kamla Persad-Bissessar (February 2012). She was sharp, with an undeniable charisma and unending confidence. Her legal training gave her added authority. She had all the answers. Who was she? A PR machine. Perhaps with all the costume changes, she forgot she was the prime minister of a plural society. That a dignified suit would do, she did defend her love for dressing up.

“‘If I look dowdy people will say Kamla mashed up, gone through. If you look at old pictures of me, I have always dressed well. Not as a thing apart but as an extension of who I am, 100 per cent Trini woman. I like dash and flair. It’s me. My heritage of five continents shows in my hats and suits, to saris, African or Chinese wear. I don’t have a stylist, my sister buys my clothes. When I wake up in the morning, like every working woman, if I feel to wear red, blue or black I do just that. I embody multiculturalism. What’s wrong with that?’”

What was wrong with that was this is all she was. PR. There was no substance beneath. In that report I described her as “an A-type overachiever, one eye on a blinking BlackBerry (she reads all our papers online), is academic, literary even, with a photographic memory...who can dissect people with surgical precision. She’s gutsy, rather than emotional, and maintains a steely cool under the harshest of criticisms.”

I was wrong about her being able to dissect people. She’s still gutsy but not unemotional. She hasn’t been able to maintain her cool.

I checked Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s current Facebook page. Instead of her signature yellow matched with a garish red lipstick, a fixed patronising half smile and hair styled so heavily that an industrial fan would leave it intact, was photo after photo of an older woman, in jeans and a simple faded blue and white shirt.

I saw it many times in the diplomatic centre, when she was prime minister, the photo-taking, the way she would stand like a wax figure, people come to her and take photos with her, for posterity.

Now with arrogance seemingly drained out of her, here was a woman still pugnaciously in photo after photo with supporters (mostly random women) clutching on to their hands on her lap like life support. Her smile was that of a shell-shocked woman. Her lips grey. The hair longer, limp, careless. She looked more likeable albeit broken.

In the introduction to an interview with her in 2012, I pointed out that she had been satirised as a ‘sari-wearing, Louis Vuitton fashionista “mama” who manages the men in her Cabinet as if they were a group of recalcitrant children.’ One flash of her eyes sent them scurrying, handing out hampers or standing deferentially.

In that 2012 interview she had the airy arrogant confidence you find in people with absolute power. She said, “You have a five-party partnership within one party, so naturally there are differences of opinion. We thrash things out and build consensus. There may be cracks or fissures but there are no precipices, canyons, no great divisions. Our ministers pull together on core issues. Sorry, but I don’t see us mashing up.”

Sorry. They lined up one after another and stabbed you in the back.

I asked her about the economy in that 2012 interview. She claimed her government achieved stability.

“Don’t knock it. Stability is a miracle, especially for a tiny nation like ours when continents are bending under global pressure. When we came in the treasury was almost empty. Now we are stable. That’s huge. We have a long list of achievements. We are very good at not communicating what we have done. We are too busy working to keep this ship afloat.”

Not entirely true was it? The Government has declared we are in recession, urging us all to tighten our belt. A recession is defined to be a period of two quarters of negative GDP growth. So it clearly began under the Kamla Persad-Bissessar tenure. Even as the price of oil plunged to US$90 to US$45 a barrel, as columnist Raffique Shah put it, “the PP Government increased spending, scraped the bottom of the NGC barrel for every available dollar, sold off some of the family jewels (FCB and PPG-NGL shares), extracted everything it could from the Central Bank, and, on top of that, borrowed beyond the $70 billion debt ceiling it established in 2011.”

You would have thought the defeated, pummelled opposition leader would finally speak in the best interests of our country. But no—her arrogance is in abeyance waiting to emerge.

Consider her statement on the recession: “The Government would want you to believe that the People’s Partnership (PP) administration is to be blamed for the recession which Trinidad and Tobago is now in. That is not so. During the PP tenure we faced the same problem of falling oil and gas prices and did not mismanage the economy in the way the People’s National Movement (PNM) is now doing. Job loss is occurring because of flawed PNM policies, the trend did not begin under the PP. We had nothing to worry about once there was prudent fiscal management of the economy.”

Her statement included a grim forecast for our dollar for devaluation, and annunciating the foreign exchange problem.

She’s basically washed her hands of the problem of the recession which began under her and dumped it on the PNM Government. As leader, she was the absolute leader. In Opposition, ineffective. I'm no economist, but I don’t agree with the heavy government borrowing either. But without a strong opposition leader who puts country first, I’m afraid for the checks and balances vital for a democracy in recession.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/carnival/2015 ... -recession

[Redman]

Consider her statement on the recession: “The Government would want you to believe that the People’s Partnership (PP) administration is to be blamed for the recession which Trinidad and Tobago is now in. That is not so. During the PP tenure we faced the same problem of falling oil and gas prices and did not mismanage the economy in the way the People’s National Movement (PNM) is now doing. Job loss is occurring because of flawed PNM policies, the trend did not begin under the PP. We had nothing to worry about once there was prudent fiscal management of the economy

She expects people to believe this pack.of assness?

Running deficits while enjoying record revenues...prudent fiscAl management?

Steups.

[Advent]

:| But what you all want the Government to do? Pay PPG contractors money for work that was not done? The applications for payment have to be re-checked to see if they are bonafide requests for payment.

The amount of corruption that went on in the last 5 years under the PPG, it put all the corruption under the 56 years+ of PNM existence to shame.

Where UML? I actually miss her now. She has a new account?

This is what does get me with Zoom and friends yuh
His gov done fcuked it up and now he blaming the new gov for the actions of the old gov.
is like does he even economic bruh

[heads]

all this ole talk won't solve anything d gov hv to stop d blame game for now and tell d country what plans [if they hv any] how they are going to take d country forward ,d last quarter of 2015 d economy was at a stand still no growth nothing only blame this one and that one ,they running around like a set of headless chickens ,i wonder if this gov know for a country to recover from a recession ppl hv to be spending $ so that they can collect revenue ,how can they spend when they get fired sending home ppl will only create more problems for them less revenue less taxes more problems and after all is well then and only then go looking for blood and convict them spare no one don't hv drinks with them not like at a recent xmas party

[desifemlove]

#UNCLOGIC People's Republic of China saying T&T does owe $8m, but then this is PNM's fault, cos none of these projects took place in she time....

[X2]

So on top of it all... this story seems a bit strange as it's a final payment... so whether snags were sorted out or not is in question but this.... outrageous...

http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2016-01-19/contractor-loses-14m-claim

[Rory Phoulorie]

Tim Gopeesingh is a wicked man. Another company took the Ministry of Education to court to collect monies owed to them and won, but they filed their lawsuit in time.

But if Bynoe Rowe Wiltshire Partnership has signed correspondence from the Ministry of Education after 2013 acknowledging the debt, does the 4 year statute of limitations still apply in this instance? You have the client formally saying "yes, I owe you the money, but gih mih ah bligh for a while", so why shouldn't the 4 year statute of limitations begin from the last date when the debt was formally acknowledged by the Ministry of Education and not from the date when the work was completed?

Where the bush lawyers?

[10-01]

from wat we have seen in the last 4 mths is jus news of a down turn in the economy and the PM taking trips to weddings , major Audits , 1000 + job cuts , digging up of corruption to make matters worse ,NO gate soon , Land tax going up , Crime figures going up , soon mayb kidnapping ... the list goes on fill in wher i left out

Aside from you being upset that the govt weeding out corruption, murders and serious crimes are down.

emmmmm habit7 wat u have to say now bro ?

[X2]

Tim Gopeesingh is a wicked man. Another company took the Ministry of Education to court to collect monies owed to them and won, but they filed their lawsuit in time.

But if Bynoe Rowe Wiltshire Partnership has signed correspondence from the Ministry of Education after 2013 acknowledging the debt, does the 4 year statute of limitations still apply in this instance? You have the client formally saying "yes, I owe you the money, but gih mih ah bligh for a while", so why shouldn't the 4 year statute of limitations begin from the last date when the debt was formally acknowledged by the Ministry of Education and not from the date when the work was completed?

Where the bush lawyers?

The statute is actually only 1 year for government projects. The particular instance in the article involves a type of private enterprise that has a 4 year limit. I suspect there are further details behind this article that may be ignored for whatever reason... but unless product or service was not delivered as a cause... this instance is absolute bobol and puts serious doubts into my trust in the government... regardless of party... they allowing lawyers to steal from the general public while asking for their trust to dip into further reserves and subsidies.

[Rory Phoulorie]

The statute is actually only 1 year for government projects. . .

Are you sure? The company I referred to did take legal action against the Ministry of Education, and not Education Facilities Company Limited, more than a year after the last invoice was submitted to the Ministry.

[Habit7]

emmmmm habit7 wat u have to say now bro ?

But you were still wrong.

[Chimera]

i now read that article completely yes

its not that the man didnt complete the project or did substandard work or anything


the government just decide not to pay him 14 million just because they didn't have to
was this a new defence taken by the current administration or were the lawyers originally using this defence while under peoples partnership?


i find this is along the lines of basically robbing the contractor
many contractors do government work based on the fact that you will be paid after..3 months...6 months..a year after.....

[Rory Phoulorie]

The UNC were more spiteful than the PNM. With the company that I referred to previously, when the pre-action protocol letter was sent, the Ministry of Education's lawyers advised the Minister that they would lose the case if it went to court. However, the Minister told his legal team to let the contractor take them to court and drag the process out as long as they could. Even when the court found in favour of the contractor, and specified the date by which the Ministry had to pay, the Ministry still did not pay on time and then in addition to the principal amount, the original late payment interest charges, and the legal charges, the tax payer now had to pay further interest charges on the late payment. All of this was with the blessing of the Minister.

[X2]

A lot of that may have to do with the slap dash and hap hazard way that contracts and project management are handled in TnT. Contracting, A&D, government offices, PM firms operate like it were europe's unregulated auto industry. Bolts and nuts that don't fit standard tools. All while the lawyers operating ON POINT to put the screws to local contractors, manufacturers and suppliers... it's like they went to the best schools in the interest of screwing Trinis... HSE ? Ignored... International standards ? Meh... Screw locals ? BRING THE BEST EDUCATED LAWYERS WE CAN RUSTLE UP !!!

People screw up... and that is a stain of life... but to outright not pay such a massive amount without a public explanation as to why... when foreign contractors are walking out the country with fist fulls of cash shielded by tax agreements with little knowledge transfer....(PP and PNM are each to blame in many, yet different aspects)... yet they stand behind the protection of false witness to stories, bling tastic, sensational rhetoric (I mean... who CARES what Kamla wears ? No one expects a leader to dress like a wajan... but Steve Jobs led billion dollar companies from failure to success, brought the hippest, coolest industries in the world to their knees... help changed the world as we know it and he dressed like white urkel.) Our PM was in competition with the Kardashians ? Is this what I have to read about while millions go un accounted for from our Treasury... our people are horn swaggled by Caribbean carpet baggers. A country of 1.5Mm people is NOT hard to run... cities in many other countries around the world manage to run very well with less government and millions more people to service. Yet we are fooling into thinking this tiny country on a small island is some un manageable behemoth ?

A set of hogs attacked the food trough... now... when the next set of hogs come to feed... the first set blames the second set for eating all the food. So we have two group of hog fighting over an empty trough... neither of them know how to make slop... and we, the people... sit in the mud, watching like jack a fools.... discussing which hog is we favorite.... and we PAYING to put more food in there so we could watch some more.

Boy... if you don't smile and laugh... you go cry.