.::The Official General Election 2015 Thread::.

[UML]

Victimization and broken promises to the San Juan vendors......ent the PNM is we saviour?!!!!


Take care allyuh get more than u bargain for.

Back to their old tricks!!

Nice reality check be4 elections

[UML]

[UML]

The fault in our political stars


Paula Lindo

Published:
Saturday, February 7, 2015

The Prime Minister loaded the clip in Omni colour. She packed the nine and fired it at prime time. When the smoke cleared, the political carnage was staggering. Some commentators surmised that the Prime Minister put the final round in the chamber in her own political career that evening. There are important considerations beyond the immediate Ramlogan/ West/ Rowley/ Griffith/ Bharath/ Ross/ phew! debacle.

Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s countless revocations and firings is criticised as demonstrative of poor judgement in the assembly of her cabinet. The electorate in 2010 voted for accountability in public office and transparency in the affairs of governance. Citizens may not be able to see it through their rage but over the past four years, this is exactly what they got.

The increased transparency though, is perhaps more attributable to an embedded network of whistle blowers in ministries rather than the fruit of government policy.

Still, members of cabinet such as Mary King and Colin Partap had their wickets taken early in the game for infractions which now seem negligible by comparison. Throughout her term at the helm, the Prime Minister unhesitatingly passed a scythe through the cabinet where there was sufficient cause to remove ministers who had run afoul of the public trust. Neither did she spare the rod when it came to plain old non-performance.

Both PNM supporters and advocates of good governance and accountability in public life (and never the twain shall they meet!) saw the latest round of bloodletting as a sure sign that the purge of an election is the only cure for a scandal-plagued nation. Can that really be the answer? Of course not.

The Prime Minister built her cabinet from a pool of citizens representing either the best of us or the best of what’s left. Contrary to a widely held belief, the pool of talent, intellect and ingenuity in this country is not many fathoms deep. There is an overestimation of the number of bright and conscientious people in this country. We gloss over slipshod performance in every sphere of society.

In just one evening this was made clear. The media houses reporting on the dramatic events at the diplomatic centre/abattoir all appeared caught unawares. They fumbled hopelessly through cringe-worthy live coverage woefully short on intelligent questions, leaving the nonplussed panels to interview themselves. Young presenters seemed to have been left adrift by senior producers who should have injected desperately needed context into the lopsided discussions.

The debate on Facebook was no better, reflecting Neanderthalian grunts and groans of puerile memes and utterly witless humour. The dearth of intellect, morality and conscience is more widespread than we are willing to admit.

Recently, a young businessman took to Facebook bemoaning his difficulty keeping a fledgling enterprise afloat, so burdened it was with mutinous staff who either can’t or won’t work. Whether degreed or unschooled the staff, he claimed, sabotaged his business with ineptitude, incompetence, theft and garden variety piss-poor work ethic. His troubled business is a microcosm of the wider society.

In governments past and present, there are ministers who have performed creditably. Former Minister of both Trade and Finance Mariano Browne, under the previous PNM administration, was not only competent on the job but, as a government spokesman articulating policy, he was second to none.

In the current administration, while he won’t win Mr Congeniality any time soon, Works Minister Surujrattan Rambachan has a number of impressive accomplishments under his belt, having completed projects within this government’s term that existed only as threats for decades before.

This country, however, celebrates mediocrity and impropriety so people like Mariano and Suruj are not plentiful in supply. Onlookers revelling in the government’s apparent implosion fail to appreciate that the same jubilation at the anticipated demise of the PP was the exact sentiment which flowed in the dying days of Patrick Manning’s administration. Any expectation that the PNM has changed in four short years under a political leader whose style mimics that of his predecessor is, at best, misguided.

Political parties in this country remain for the most part, unevolved since independence. They ascend to power then demit office only to hibernate. Some undergo political mitosis (UNC, COP, ILP) but they are all fundamentally the same creature.

Constitutional reform has long been peddled as the critical fulcrum upon which transformation of the political culture can be achieved. Former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday suggests a parliament elected on the basis of proportional representation could provide a needed separation of government from the Parliament. While certainly worthy of debate, it is hard to see how constitutional reform will improve the quality of citizens submitting themselves for public office.

At any rate, history shows that most parties in opposition passionately advocate constitutional reform. Once they have attained office that ardour rapidly cools.

The Prime Minister, her government and the opposition are held to standards to which we don’t hold ourselves. Whether the government survives the election is a moot point. The electorate seems yet to compute that demanding accountability of leadership isn’t enough to transform a society that punishes creativity, integrity and determination and elevates the worst in us to lead us.
http://m.guardian.co.tt/columnist/2015- ... ical-stars

Interesting

[DVSTT]

Will it really make a difference who wins? Middle class will still have to salt regardless

[zoom rader]

Will it really make a difference who wins? Middle class will still have to salt regardless

What the PP has done and very few seem to understand or don't want to know, is that they have increased the middle class to a wider band.

[j.o.e]

What the PP has done and very few seem to understand or don't want to know, is that they have increased the middle class to a wider band.

What?!! Please explain this.... how and which policy caused this over the last 4 years ?

[EFFECTIC DESIGNS]

I am amazed that the Guardian has done an honest poll but then is it really honest? that 34% might be more like 64 considering they have always been against the UNC. Still I am somewhat shocked that poll isn't like 90% will vote PNM considering the last time they did a poll they claimed that 90% was voting cop when the opposite happened.

[kjaglal76v2]

wey d nxt 17% tho?

[UML]

wey d nxt 17% tho?

Vasant Bharath 3%
Jack Warner 2%
Prakash Ramadhar 1%
David Abdulah 1%
Penelope Beckles 1%
Patrick Manning 1%
Stacy Roopnarine < 1%
Faris Al-Rawi < 1%
Gary Griffith < 1%
Basdeo Panday < 1%
No Response 8%

[zoom rader]

What the PP has done and very few seem to understand or don't want to know, is that they have increased the middle class to a wider band.

What?!! Please explain this.... how and which policy caused this over the last 4 years ?

A stable economic policy has provided this increase for more ppl joining the middle class bracket. The poorer class has dropped. A more fairer social services systems is available to all citizens under PP for the poorer class.
It was the same when UNC was in power in late 90s. However when PNM rules there is a decrease in the middle class and an increase with the poorer class.
PNM Planed Housing Tax (Injun tax) would have decrease the middle class.

As with the middle class bracket growing so is the immigration population.
More and more immgrants, illegals and legals are pouring in to trini, they are seeing something that trinis take for granted.

I expect some PNM clowns will want a paper on this, they need to get their heads out of the mud and observe everyday life. Pretty soon the new immigrant population with bypass the PNM population class.

[j.o.e]

wey d nxt 17% tho?

Don't matter..kamla in front so it must be accurate

[Habit7]

What the PP has done and very few seem to understand or don't want to know, is that they have increased the middle class to a wider band.

What?!! Please explain this.... how and which policy caused this over the last 4 years ?

A stable economic policy has provided this increase for more ppl joining the middle class bracket. The poorer class has dropped. A more fairer social services systems is available to all citizens under PP for the poorer class.
It was the same when UNC was in power in late 90s. However when PNM rules there is a decrease in the middle class and an increase with the poorer class.
PNM Planed Housing Tax (Injun tax) would have decrease the middle class.

As with the middle class bracket growing so is the immigration population.
More and more immgrants, illegals and legals are pouring in to trini, they are seeing something that trinis take for granted.

I expect some PNM clowns will want a paper on this, they need to get their heads out of the mud and observe everyday life. Pretty soon the new immigrant population with bypass the PNM population class.

Nice narrative ZR. Next time try facts.

By World Bank measurement: Most of T&T's labour force is middle class

Aleem Khan
Published: Thursday, November 15, 2012



By World Bank standards, almost the entire working population of T&T should be earning an income that qualifies them to be included in the country's middle class.

In a report released Tuesday, entitled “Economic Mobility and the Rise of the Latin American Middle Class”the World Bank said that the income definition of the middle class in Latin America and the Caribbean is between US$10 and US$50 per day. That works out between $64 and $320 per day.

In 2011, the government increased T&T's minimum wage to $12.50 per hour which works out to be $100 per day and US$15.62 per day. This means that even a worker earning the minimum wage in T&T's formal employment sector qualifies to be included in the country's middle class, according to the World Bank metric.

At US$15.62 a day, T&T's minimum wage is 50 per cent higher than the lowest threshold of the World Bank definition of middle class. T&T has a population of approximately 1.3 million and a workforce of 616,400 as at December 2011, according to the Review of the Economy published by the Ministry of Finance in 2012.

At the previous minimum wage of $9 per hour, most of the country's working population would still qualify to be included in the middle class. The $12.50 per hour minimum wage came into effect in T&T in 2011. The previous minimum wage of $9 per hour came into effect in 2005. Prior to that, the national minimum wage was $7 per hour, in effect since 2003. Therefore prior to 2005, minimum wage earners would not have qualified as middle class using the World Bank standard.

Still, according to the World Bank, T&T enjoyed the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in Latin America and the Caribbean during the period 2000 to 2010. (See Figure 3.)

The overarching claim of the report is that “after decades of stagnation, the size of the middle class in Latin America and the Caribbean recently expanded by 50 per cent — from 103 million people in 2003 to 152 million (or 30 per cent of the continent’s population) in 2009.

“Over the same period, as household incomes grew and inequality edged downward in most countries, the proportion of people in poverty fell markedly: from 44 per cent to 30 per cent. As a result, the middle class and the poor now account for roughly the same share of Latin America’s population.”This is in stark contrast to the situation prevailing “for a long period”until about 10 years ago, when the share of the poor hovered around 2.5 times that of the middle class, the World Bank said.

The study, co-authored by Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Julian Messina, Jamele Rigolini, Luis-Felipe López-Calva, Maria Ana Lugo, and Renos Vakis, “investigates the nature, determinants, and possible consequences of this remarkable process of social transformation,”the World Bank said.

The study said: “Such large changes in the size and composition of social classes must, by definition, imply substantial economic mobility of some form. A large number of people who were poor in the late 1990s are now no longer poor. Others who were not yet middle class have now joined its ranks.”

http://www.guardian.co.tt/business-guar ... ddle-class

T&T performed the best in our region in the last decade. I dont know where you were not to have noticed that.

[zoom rader]

What the PP has done and very few seem to understand or don't want to know, is that they have increased the middle class to a wider band.

What?!! Please explain this.... how and which policy caused this over the last 4 years ?

A stable economic policy has provided this increase for more ppl joining the middle class bracket. The poorer class has dropped. A more fairer social services systems is available to all citizens under PP for the poorer class.
It was the same when UNC was in power in late 90s. However when PNM rules there is a decrease in the middle class and an increase with the poorer class.
PNM Planed Housing Tax (Injun tax) would have decrease the middle class.

As with the middle class bracket growing so is the immigration population.
More and more immgrants, illegals and legals are pouring in to trini, they are seeing something that trinis take for granted.

I expect some PNM clowns will want a paper on this, they need to get their heads out of the mud and observe everyday life. Pretty soon the new immigrant population with bypass the PNM population class.

Nice narrative ZR. Next time try facts.

By World Bank measurement: Most of T&T's labour force is middle class

Aleem Khan
Published: Thursday, November 15, 2012



By World Bank standards, almost the entire working population of T&T should be earning an income that qualifies them to be included in the country's middle class.

In a report released Tuesday, entitled “Economic Mobility and the Rise of the Latin American Middle Class”the World Bank said that the income definition of the middle class in Latin America and the Caribbean is between US$10 and US$50 per day. That works out between $64 and $320 per day.

In 2011, the government increased T&T's minimum wage to $12.50 per hour which works out to be $100 per day and US$15.62 per day. This means that even a worker earning the minimum wage in T&T's formal employment sector qualifies to be included in the country's middle class, according to the World Bank metric.

At US$15.62 a day, T&T's minimum wage is 50 per cent higher than the lowest threshold of the World Bank definition of middle class. T&T has a population of approximately 1.3 million and a workforce of 616,400 as at December 2011, according to the Review of the Economy published by the Ministry of Finance in 2012.

At the previous minimum wage of $9 per hour, most of the country's working population would still qualify to be included in the middle class. The $12.50 per hour minimum wage came into effect in T&T in 2011. The previous minimum wage of $9 per hour came into effect in 2005. Prior to that, the national minimum wage was $7 per hour, in effect since 2003. Therefore prior to 2005, minimum wage earners would not have qualified as middle class using the World Bank standard.

Still, according to the World Bank, T&T enjoyed the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in Latin America and the Caribbean during the period 2000 to 2010. (See Figure 3.)

The overarching claim of the report is that “after decades of stagnation, the size of the middle class in Latin America and the Caribbean recently expanded by 50 per cent — from 103 million people in 2003 to 152 million (or 30 per cent of the continent’s population) in 2009.

“Over the same period, as household incomes grew and inequality edged downward in most countries, the proportion of people in poverty fell markedly: from 44 per cent to 30 per cent. As a result, the middle class and the poor now account for roughly the same share of Latin America’s population.”This is in stark contrast to the situation prevailing “for a long period”until about 10 years ago, when the share of the poor hovered around 2.5 times that of the middle class, the World Bank said.

The study, co-authored by Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Julian Messina, Jamele Rigolini, Luis-Felipe López-Calva, Maria Ana Lugo, and Renos Vakis, “investigates the nature, determinants, and possible consequences of this remarkable process of social transformation,”the World Bank said.

The study said: “Such large changes in the size and composition of social classes must, by definition, imply substantial economic mobility of some form. A large number of people who were poor in the late 1990s are now no longer poor. Others who were not yet middle class have now joined its ranks.”

http://www.guardian.co.tt/business-guar ... ddle-class

T&T performed the best in our region in the last decade. I dont know where you were not to have noticed that.

You can fool PNM ppl with that.

This is 2015 and not the period 2000-2010.

Those histological facts don't cover the many self employed and businessmen that are middle class.

Take a look around and notice that in UNC and PP terms you see something that you don't see in PNM terms.
You see Afro pp buying land and building their own homes, plus you see Afro business growing.

[UML]

Judge: Rowley must pay Ramlogan $30,000
For failing to file witness statement in defamation suit...

By Rickie Ramdass rickie.ramdass@trinidadexpress.com

Story Created: Feb 9, 2015 at 9:26 PM ECT
Story Updated: Feb 9, 2015 at 9:26 PM ECT

OPPOSITION Leader Dr Keith Rowley was yesterday ordered by a High Court judge to pay $30,000 in legal costs to former attorney general Anand Ramlogan after he previously failed to file his witness statement in one of five defamation lawsuits brought against him by Ramlogan.

The order was made yesterday afternoon by Justice Andre Des Vignes when the lawsuit again came up for hearing at the Hall of Justice in Port of Spain.

Ramlogan is seeking damages for slander allegedly contained in statements Rowley made at a public forum at City Hall in Port of Spain, on November 1, 2011, relating to the hiring of attorneys in private practice for State briefs.

At the hearing, attorneys representing Rowley also made an application to include in their defence the pending police investigation that Ramlogan allegedly attempted to pervert the course of justice in another defamation claim after he allegedly sought to have director of the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) David West withdraw his witness statement.

On January 19, when the matter was last called, Justice Des Vignes granted Rowley an extension of time to file his defence in the matter.

Both sides were given until January 26 to exchange witness statements before the matter could be set for trial.

Des Vignes yesterday set January 19, 20 and 21, 2016, as the dates on which the trial will proceed.

Ramlogan is accused of hiring attorneys from his former law firm to handle cases for the State, so as to receive reward, or pecuniary benefit, from them.

The ex-AG is represented by senior counsel Avory Sinanan, Gerald Ramdeen and Varun Dabideen, while attorneys Michael Quamina and PNM Senator Faris Al-Rawi are seeking the interest of Rowley.http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Jud ... 40921.html

[UML]

Judge: Rowley must pay Ramlogan $30,000
For failing to file witness statement in defamation suit...

By Rickie Ramdass rickie.ramdass@trinidadexpress.com

Story Created: Feb 9, 2015 at 9:26 PM ECT
Story Updated: Feb 9, 2015 at 9:26 PM ECT

OPPOSITION Leader Dr Keith Rowley was yesterday ordered by a High Court judge to pay $30,000 in legal costs to former attorney general Anand Ramlogan after he previously failed to file his witness statement in one of five defamation lawsuits brought against him by Ramlogan.

The order was made yesterday afternoon by Justice Andre Des Vignes when the lawsuit again came up for hearing at the Hall of Justice in Port of Spain.

Ramlogan is seeking damages for slander allegedly contained in statements Rowley made at a public forum at City Hall in Port of Spain, on November 1, 2011, relating to the hiring of attorneys in private practice for State briefs.

At the hearing, attorneys representing Rowley also made an application to include in their defence the pending police investigation that Ramlogan allegedly attempted to pervert the course of justice in another defamation claim after he allegedly sought to have director of the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) David West withdraw his witness statement.

On January 19, when the matter was last called, Justice Des Vignes granted Rowley an extension of time to file his defence in the matter.

Both sides were given until January 26 to exchange witness statements before the matter could be set for trial.

Des Vignes yesterday set January 19, 20 and 21, 2016, as the dates on which the trial will proceed.

Ramlogan is accused of hiring attorneys from his former law firm to handle cases for the State, so as to receive reward, or pecuniary benefit, from them.

The ex-AG is represented by senior counsel Avory Sinanan, Gerald Ramdeen and Varun Dabideen, while attorneys Michael Quamina and PNM Senator Faris Al-Rawi are seeking the interest of Rowley.http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Jud ... 40921.html

why so late? So this allegation will be hanging over his head during elections or it may be another defeat and disappointment for Rowley and the PNM? After elections and someone else is in govt? What sense is a win FOR the AG if the PNM is in power? No one cares if he wins if PPG not in govt!!!!

[pete]

Justice delayed is justice denied.

Innocent until proven guilty right?

[Habit7]

Justice is also blind. 2015 elections is not relevant to this, Ramlogan is not even an elected official. Ramlogan has a serious criminal accusation over his head, deal with it first. You can't be suing others for defamation of your character if your character is already defamed.

[UML]

Is this acceptable that a private company recruiting at an MP's office?

[pioneer]

Well is only dunce does apply for tha kinda work

[K74T]

Yes, nothing is wrong with it.

[Norton12005]

If I had to vote, I would choose Kamla, but none of her Ministers or Rowley with some of his Ministers

[rspann]

Something just come to my mind,with all the bacchanal and quarrelling going on all over the place over all kinds of issues, if the PP was to win the elections later this year,what going to take place then?

[mrtrini45]

Something just come to my mind,with all the bacchanal and quarrelling going on all over the place over all kinds of issues, if the PP was to win the elections later this year,what going to take place then?

lots of infrastructure work will continue around the country

[rspann]

No, I meant how would PNM supporters and the PNM, the unions, MSJ, Kirk Waithe ,Ramesh lawrence Marahaj, Panday Jack and all the rest take a PP win.

[zoom rader]

1423696772672.jpg

Is this acceptable that a private company recruiting at an MP's office?

Allyuh think is joke when I say PNM are slave owners.

[De Dragon]

Justice is also blind. 2015 elections is not relevant to this, Ramlogan is not even an elected official. Ramlogan has a serious criminal accusation over his head, deal with it first. You can't be suing others for defamation of your character if your character is already defamed.

PNM logic FTL!

[Habit7]

Justice is also blind. 2015 elections is not relevant to this, Ramlogan is not even an elected official. Ramlogan has a serious criminal accusation over his head, deal with it first. You can't be suing others for defamation of your character if your character is already defamed.

PNM logic FTL!

It's called being 'incapable of further defamation' or 'libel proof.' If you want to call it PNM logic, I am sure they won't mind the compliment.

[De Dragon]

Justice is also blind. 2015 elections is not relevant to this, Ramlogan is not even an elected official. Ramlogan has a serious criminal accusation over his head, deal with it first. You can't be suing others for defamation of your character if your character is already defamed.

PNM logic FTL!

It's called being 'incapable of further defamation' or 'libel proof.' If you want to call it PNM logic, I am sure they won't mind the compliment.

How exactly is his character defamed? I'm sure you are aware of due process right? I'm also sure that you know the difference between an investigation and a conviction right?

[Habit7]

That is why my statement you embolden is predicated by "Ramlogan has a serious criminal accusation over his head, deal with it first."

[pete]

What should they do? Ask for an earlier date and get shot down?

As of now, all they can say is that he has an accusation. All these judgements don't become null and void because of that.