San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning says the con­stituen­cy is en­ter­ing a “new day” fol­low­ing a cor­dial meet­ing with Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, and he is pre­dict­ing an “over­whelm­ing vic­to­ry” for his moth­er, for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Hazel Man­ning, in the up­com­ing con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion.

Work­ers af­fect­ed by the ter­mi­na­tion of To­ba­go’s ten-on, ten-off em­ploy­ment pro­gramme are warn­ing that the move could con­tribute to ris­ing crime on the is­land.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has re­moved two di­rec­tors from the board of the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS), say­ing they were not ful­fill­ing their man­date and lacked the lev­el of com­mit­ment need­ed to help ad­dress long­stand­ing prob­lems at the State com­pa­ny.

Op­po­si­tion MP and for­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les is call­ing for the re­moval of his suc­ces­sor, Bar­ry Padarath and the board and ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), ac­cus­ing the au­thor­i­ty of qui­et­ly in­creas­ing some plumb­ing in­spec­torate fees by as much as 700 per cent with­out in­form­ing the pub­lic.