“Ghost rentals,” an ab­sence of prop­er­ty leas­es and no Cab­i­net ap­proval of leas­es are cit­ed in the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Re­port on T&T’s ac­counts for 2024, when al­most half a bil­lion dol­lars was spent by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment on prop­er­ty rentals and leas­es, says Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has in­struct­ed Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo to have the Cen­tral Bank Cen­tral Bank’s ac­counts au­dit­ed by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.

Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty plants in sev­er­al ar­eas have been re­stored af­ter re­cent ad­verse weath­er con­di­tions af­fect­ed op­er­a­tions, says Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath.

The man seen ly­ing on the bon­net of a par­tial­ly sub­merged ve­hi­cle dur­ing yes­ter­day’s se­vere flood­ing along Trantrill Road in Ca­roni is safe af­ter swim­ming away from dan­ger.

De­spite sev­er­al heavy show­ers ear­ly yes­ter­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) dis­con­tin­ued its Ad­verse Weath­er Alert. The up­date was is­sued yes­ter­day at 10.20 am, as the threat of sig­nif­i­cant rain­fall had de­creased.

As com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ued to be dev­as­tat­ed by Thurs­day’s flood­ing, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen was ini­tial­ly con­cerned that there may have been a loss of life and se­ri­ous in­jury at Trantrill Road, St Au­gus­tine, but all miss­ing peo­ple were even­tu­al­ly ac­count­ed for.

Fol­low­ing three con­sec­u­tive days of rain­fall, flood­wa­ters in Rock Road, Pe­nal drained out rapid­ly yes­ter­day, of­fer­ing a brief re­prieve for res­i­dents.

Grand­moth­er Cindy Boo­choon clam­bered up a set of bro­ken wood­en planks, her hands grip­ping a twist­ed piece of rust­ing steel as she hoist­ed her­self in­to what was left of her ply­wood home at Gol­con­da.

As the Gov­ern­ment is propos­ing sweep­ing changes to the laws gov­ern­ing the Chil­dren’s Life Fund, the Op­po­si­tion is rais­ing alarm over how much pow­er it puts in the hands of the Min­is­ter of Health.

A 75-year-old pen­sion­er was found dead in his kitchen on Thurs­day night, and po­lice have since ar­rest­ed his men­tal­ly ill son in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent.

Al­most two years af­ter he stabbed his friend to death in Princes Town, a 34-year-old man has been sen­tenced to 11 years in jail.

An em­ploy­ee of the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, Land Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, has been ac­quit­ted of a forgery charge.