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randolphinshan wrote:Development is not about paving road and box drain saddis UML but about value for money in projects, diversification of the economy, increased standards of living and most importantly not stealing tax payers money for the benefit of a few like what the former unc councillor for in princess town regional corporation did.... call names i go whistle. This government has failed the people
Work in progress at Masjidun Nur, Waterloo Road
Drainage project at Bhaggan Trace, Chandanagore
Opening of Bassie Trace, Trantrill Rd and S. M. Rd. Curepe
MP Ramdial Provides Home for Carli Bay Family
Member of Parliament for Couva North, the Honourable Ramona Ramdial together with the National Gas Company (NGC) and Habitat for Humanity Trinidad & Tobago (HFHTT) constructed a home for the White family of Carli Bay, Couva and officially dedicated it on Tuesday.
Penal Rock Road Recreation Ground # 2
MP Rambachan Provides Homes for Rostant and Rampersad families
Official Hand Over of Houses in the Constituency of Tabaquite (Esmeralda Road and Corosal)by Honourable Minister of Local Government and Minister of Works and Infrastructure. Houses constructed by the National Commission for Self Help
UML wrote:randolphinshan wrote:Development is not about paving road and box drain saddis UML but about value for money in projects, diversification of the economy, increased standards of living and most importantly not stealing tax payers money for the benefit of a few like what the former unc councillor for in princess town regional corporation did.... call names i go whistle. This government has failed the people
oh really?
so tell us what has the PNM done with all the money from the OIL BOOMS?
other than steal and plunder it?!!
Redman wrote:. . .Can you provide verifiable costings on these jobs to prove that the UNC is providing value for OUR money?
Aunty Kamala wrote:UNPRECEDENTED!!!
Rory Phoulorie wrote:Daran, you really are naive, or just as ignorant as UML, with respect to what is really going with the PPG.
The PNM was corrupt, no question about that. But to tout the PPG as the saviour of the citizens is far from the truth. From what I have personally seen, the PPG is no better than the PNM.
The citizens will just have to make a personal choice come elections as to who is the lesser of the two evils.
rfari wrote:So 'designs' isn't one of the stages of any project? Why u make it seem as though its a bad thing?
Daran wrote:rfari wrote:So 'designs' isn't one of the stages of any project? Why u make it seem as though its a bad thing?
Designs are good, but no feasibility study was done and in the end, it was scrapped when they realized they couldn't implement it. However, several people advised these foreign consultants why it couldn't work, however, they knew and probably didn't care.
In the end, project was scrapped in 2009, swept under the rug and hushed up. 300M failed experiment.
UML wrote:MP Rambachan Provides Homes for Rostant and Rampersad families
Official Hand Over of Houses in the Constituency of Tabaquite (Esmeralda Road and Corosal)by Honourable Minister of Local Government and Minister of Works and Infrastructure. Houses constructed by the National Commission for Self Help
Yet the PNM built BIG POS BUILDINGS at the POOR PEOPLE EXPENSE during an OIL BOOM!!!
PPG HELPING ALL. CARING FOR THE POOR AND NEEDY.
NO DISCRIMINATION!!!!
Syberfraggle wrote:http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2015/05/15/Trinidad-and-Tobago-order-patrol-ships/8301431721059/
GORINCHEM, Netherlands, May 15 (UPI) -- Dutch shipbuilder Damen Shipyards is to build a dozen vessels for the Trinidad and Tobago Defense Force, the company announced.
The vessels, to enhance the country's maritime security, will be of three different types: Stan Patrol 5009 coastal patrol vessels, Fast Crew Supply 5009 Utility Vessels, and DI 1102 Interceptor vessels.
Patrol 5009 coastal patrol vessels are about 167 feet long, have a speed of more than 28 knots and a range of 2,500 nautical miles. They are equipped with advanced surveillance equipment and carry an on-board interceptor craft and a rigid hull inflatable boat.
Damen said Trinidad and Tobago will be supplied with four of the vessels.
Two Fast Crew Supply 5009 utility vessels are part of the overall order. The vessels are more than 177 feet long and are used for support of interceptor operations, disaster relief, search and rescue and coastal patrol.
The remainimg six ships to be supplied are the interceptors, which are about 72 feet long and which feature sppeds greater than 53 knots per hour.
"Damen is a company that prides itself on the quality and performance of the ships we build," said Damen Sales Director Americas Sander van Oord. "We are delighted to welcome the government of Trinidad & Tobago to our family and will strive to deliver this package on time and within budget. These are the hallmarks of Damen that have helped us become market leader in the Caribbean."
The value of the contract was not disclosed.
T&T AMONG LIST OF NON-EU COUNTRIES NOW EXEMPT FROM SCHENGEN VISA REQUIREMENT
Last Updated on 16.05.2015
The Council adopted today a regulation amending Council Regulation 539/2001 listing the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement (PE-COS 29/14).
According to the amended regulation the nationals from Colombia, Dominica, Grenada, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Peru, Saint Lucia , Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, the United Arab Emirates and Vanuatu will be exempt from the visa requirement when travelling to the Schengen zone.
This exemption will come into force only when bilateral agreements on visa waiver between the Union and the countries concerned have been concluded in order to ensure full reciprocity.
The evolving nature of the EU's visa policy and the increased need to ensure more coherence between visa policy and other EU policies justify that some additional criteria be taken into account when reviewing the lists of countries in Annexes I (countries subject to the visa requirement) and II (countries exempt from that requirement) to the regulation.
To this end, the amending regulation inserts a new article in Regulation 539/2001 stating that the purpose of the latter is to determine those third countries whose nationals are subject to or exempt from the visa requirement, based on a case-by-case assessment of a variety of criteria relating, inter alia, to illegal immigration, public policy and security, the economic benefits, in particular in terms of tourism and foreign trade, and the Union's
external relations with the relevant third countries including, in particular, human rights and fundamental freedoms considerations, as well as the implications of regional coherence and reciprocity.
Regarding Colombia and Peru, the amended regulation states that the Commission will further assess the situation of both countries with regard to the criteria set out in the new article before the opening of negotiations on bilateral agreements on visa waiver.
Council Regulation 539/2001 was recently amended to introduce a new safeguard clause ("suspension mechanism") allowing the temporary reintroduction of the visa requirement - in specific circumstances- for nationals of a third country who can normally travel to the European Union without a visa (countries listed in Annex II of the regulation). The new rules also strengthened the retaliation mechanism towards a breach of reciprocity by a third country ("reciprocity mechanism"), i.e. how to deal with situations where a country listed in Annex II reintroduces a visa requirement for nationals of a particular or of several member states. http://www.ctntworld.com/cnews2/index.p ... Itemid=707
Ramnarine - hard act to follow
Minister Ramnarine has presided over some important advances in the energy sector
Published on May 13, 2015, 12:07 pm AST
Yesterday, May 12, marked five years since Energy Insider has been appearing in the Business Express, during which time it has acquired a solid national and international reputation.
What's significant about the period, is that it exactly coincides with the term in office of the People's Partnership (PP) government. Rest assured that Energy Insider will be continuing, so long as this business supplement wants it. I can't say the same for the PP, however, judging by the antagonistic mood in the country.
If the PP goes, then so, of course, does its Minister of Energy and Energy Affairs, Kevin Christian Ramnarine, which I would regard as a major loss to the industry.
Minister Ramnarine has presided over some important advances in the energy sector, which I will list in a moment and could justifiably consider himself the best minister of energy ever, partly, I make so bold as to say, because he has followed my advice in many areas.
He would have a great future for himself out of politics, as a global consultant on the Trinidad and Tobago and Caribbean energy sector, moreso after being named the ?Petroleum Economist's? energy executive of the year for 2014, a designation bestowed, as the magazine explains it, on ?someone who has made, or is in the process of making, a major contribution to the industry, either regionally or globally, regardless of age.?
I hope he remembers to hire me, as a research assistant or something along those lines, when he does cash in as an energy consultant!
Ramnarine is clearly going to be a hard act to follow when the next energy minister, probably from the People's National Movement (PNM), takes office but ?Energy Insider' is always here to offer some helpful advice.
How has the minister moved the industry along in the four years he has been in office (he was preceded for a year by Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan)?
His greatest achievement has undoubtedly been getting exploration going in the country's deep water region (1,000-3,600 metres, according to the MEEA definition) after his predecessors had tried and failed, to do so.
Hydrocarbons having been discovered on land in Trinidad, in the Gulf of Paria on the west, off the north coast, off the east coast, even off the north east coast, the deep water region, which sweeps from the TT/Grenada maritime boundary line in the west, skirting the TT/Barbados boundary line to the north east and comes to rest in the south east on the TT/Venezuela maritime boundary, is truly our last frontier for exploration and, it is fervently to be hoped, discoveries of oil and/or gas.
The deep horizon area, both on land and offshore, is also ?frontier? but perhaps not as much so as the deep water, where it is expected that the prize will be bigger.
To encourage this ground-breaking deep water and also deep horizon activity, Ramnarine successfully persuaded his colleague, the minister of finance and the economy, Larry Howai, to grant a series of fiscal incentives that would sweeten the pie for companies.
These were particularly generous in the case of the deep water, which now allows a company like the Anglo/Australian, BHPBilliton to be willing to take on all nine allocated deep water blocks as operator.
As Dr David Rainey, who oversees exploration for BHPBilliton Petroleum, says: ?The fiscal terms previously on offer in Trinidad and Tobago did not allow us to make a satisfactory return on the risk of undertaking a deep water exploration programme.?
The more generous revised terms now positions Trinidad and Tobago to potentially become ?the petroleum division's third core area behind the US and Australia,? he says.
We can thank Ramnarine for that and for the deep horizon drilling tax incentives, as well as those for the development of small oil pools, the early write off of exploration drilling costs as well as incentives for workovers and qualifying sidetracks. The earlier reliefs on the development of mature and small oilfields and on enhanced oil recovery (EOR) date from Ms. Seepersad-Bachan's time (she was also quick to sanction some of the deep water incentives), though the previous PNM administration had laid the groundwork for this.
Ramnarine's other main achievements during his time in office very much include the institution of annual block offerings (also involving the onshore, which had not been done for many years) – something preceding PNM governments conspicuously failed to do, despite being headed by an oilman, geologist Patrick Manning.
Exploration acreage was offered in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 and one expects the next energy minister to continue the trend.
Moving smartly along with compressed natural gas (CNG) as an alternative motor vehicle fuel and bringing all the paperwork to fruition on at least one pair of cross-border blocks, 6D and block 2 (Venezuela), must also rank as notable.
The one area in which the minister did not live up to his goals was that of liquids production, the key to healthier tax returns and the survival of the Petrotrin refinery.
In that first ?Energy Insider' five years ago, I had pointed out that crude oil production had fallen by 14,000 b/d between 2007 and 2009, from 121,754 b/d to 107,169 b/d.
The decline continued unabated during the PP's tenure, and in 2014 only 68,582 b/d of crude were lifted on average in Trinidad and Tobago.
But its not only crude output that has plummeted: that other liquid, condensate, which comes courtesy natural gas, was as higher as 31,600 b/d in one month in 2010, the year the PP assumed office. Last year, it averaged only 14,677 b/d, according to Ramnarine's own ministry.
It is true there was a decrease in natural gas production between 2010 and 2014 – from 4,319 mmcfd to 4,069 mmcfd – but that is not enough to explain the drastic fall in condensate retrieval.
Newer gas fields less condensate rich may have something to do with it but what stands out is that the incoming energy minister will have a liquids challenge on his hands which he (she?) will have to move expeditiously to confront.
If Ramnarine's ?new energy economy? comes to pass, it could give a kick in the pants to the liquids situation, since it consists of finding producible crude in the deep water, the extraction of heavy oil, the retrieval of left-behind oil through reservoir re-pressurisation and the start of cross-border gas output.
I see the minister has finally come around to considering incentives for small gas pool development – another idea I put into his head – and that could conceivably make a modest contribution to condensate production.
http://ttweb.tnt.dc.publicus.com/articl ... /150519866
UML wrote:Not sure if it is an achievement because the article is biased and Pro-PNM as expected from the Express
Rory Phoulorie wrote:Redman wrote:. . .Can you provide verifiable costings on these jobs to prove that the UNC is providing value for OUR money?
Most of the projects that UML is touting as achievements are being done under the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure's Programme for Upgrading Road Efficiency (PURE). On that programme, there are FIXED rates that ALL contractors under PURE have agreed to.
So would someone please tell me how Junior Sammy Contractors Limited has agreed to a rate for asphalt that a next two bit contractor who has no equipment whatsoever has also agreed to? The overheads are different for the different contractors and yet they all can agree on fixed rates for work? The two bit contractor has to turn around and hire Junior Sammy Contractors Limited to do his paving for him. There is no real competitive tendering for work on PURE and the tax payer is not getting value for money.
To be fair to the PPG, PURE was started under the PNM. But the PPG also saw PURE for the cash cow that it is and did nothing to fix it. They just continued running with the ball and it seems have scored more goals with PURE than the PNM could ever dream of.Aunty Kamala wrote:UNPRECEDENTED!!!
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