Ra­mona Ram­di­al

“Dead men tell no tales.” This al­so ap­plies to women such as the mur­dered WPC Anus­ka Ever­s­ley. Did she ever fa­cil­i­tate the il­le­gal trans­porta­tion of drugs, guns and gang mem­bers us­ing Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice ve­hi­cles? Did she par­tic­i­pate in the theft, sale and rental of T&T Po­lice Ser­vice ar­tillery? Is it al­so pos­si­ble that WPC Ever­s­ley was killed af­ter she sought to lim­it or pre­vent these crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties? Is she be­ing framed by those who mur­dered her, es­pe­cial­ly as she will nev­er be able to give her ver­sion of events?

Her col­league, PC Ji­van Coop­er, has been charged with that crime and oth­ers re­lat­ed to the in­ci­dent. It was re­port­ed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 firearms and 4,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion were stolen from the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion, and that two po­lice of­fi­cers were asleep in the sta­tion dur­ing the rob­bery and mur­der. Some of the stolen firearms were re­cov­ered. Why were they sold or rent­ed? Not to com­mit crimes?

This is ut­ter mad­ness, as it re­minds me of pre­vi­ous re­ports of shoot­ings and mur­ders where the bul­let cas­ings had T&T De­fence Force se­r­i­al num­bers! How many rob­beries and mur­ders have been com­mit­ted us­ing tax­pay­er-pur­chased guns and am­mo? Are gun rental fees based on pe­ri­od of time or amount of crime? Are they re­turned to var­i­ous ar­mouries like books to a li­brary? Maybe the de­ple­tion of bul­lets would be a bet­ter in­di­ca­tor of il­le­gal use. Has the crim­i­nal el­e­ment en­coun­tered is­sues with arms sup­ply through the usu­al il­le­gal routes? Imag­ine the gall of these peo­ple to use po­lice sta­tions, po­lice of­fi­cers, and tax­pay­er-pur­chased weapons to com­mit crime.

We per­ceived that there was a rogue el­e­ment in the TTPS but ac­tu­al proof is a fur­ther gut punch to pub­lic trust. Have these be­tray­als hap­pened on­ly in San Fer­nan­do, or have they been hap­pen­ing in oth­er mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties? All of their firearms have been trans­ferred to reg­u­lar po­lice sta­tions. ACP Suren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, head of the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice, has been sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave. Did he have any knowl­edge of these ac­tiv­i­ties, or will he be a fall guy?

Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj an­nounced a pro­pos­al to re­move the sub­si­dies on air­bridge tick­ets dur­ing peak pe­ri­ods. As such, a $400 do­mes­tic tick­et could cost $600 more if the plan is im­ple­ment­ed. The min­is­ter con­sid­ered the in­crease as “noth­ing” when con­sid­er­ing the con­ve­nience at­tached. How­ev­er, there are many peo­ple who do not con­sid­er a $1,000 do­mes­tic tick­et as “noth­ing.” Many who would have nev­er used the In­ter-is­land fer­ry ser­vice are sud­den­ly con­sid­er­ing a $150 re­turn tick­et as a great val­ue (not too sure about those like Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, who suf­fer from sea­sick­ness). The 3.5 hours each way would in­tro­duce a 6-hour loss in trav­el time for a re­turn fer­ry trip, but could save a trav­eller up to $850.

Trinida­di­an beach hous­es and “stay­ca­tion” spots could snag busi­ness from cit­i­zens who nor­mal­ly take their mon­ey to To­ba­go. I know oth­ers who have al­ready start­ed con­sid­er­ing St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and Grena­da if they lose the trav­el val­ue at­tached to the sis­ter isle. To­bag­o­ni­ans, es­pe­cial­ly those who need to trav­el to Trinidad reg­u­lar­ly for work, school and health­care, will not en­joy this in­crease.

Any sig­nif­i­cant fare in­crease will be to the detri­ment of To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor. Many Trinida­di­ans feel that To­ba­go is the on­ly va­ca­tion lo­ca­tion where their mon­ey has any val­ue. If its “val­ue for mon­ey” di­min­ish­es, oth­er op­tions will come in­to the reck­on­ing. A so­cioe­co­nom­ic di­vide could de­vel­op where the less re­sourced cit­i­zens use the fer­ry; the mid­dle class seeks to fight up for $400 flights, and the wealthy pay for their “cut the line” $1,000 pri­or­i­ty tick­et.

There is busi­ness sense at­tached, but when it is part of gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy, there can be ac­cu­sa­tions of pro­mot­ing so­cial di­vi­sion. Could Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) look in­to swap­ping out un­prof­itable routes for lu­cra­tive ones? Can there be a phas­ing in of more fu­el-ef­fi­cient planes while sell­ing off the cur­rent ones car­ry­ing high­er op­er­a­tional costs? Should we fol­low the Air In­dia or Olympic Air­lines mod­el of re­struc­tur­ing? The dis­ap­point­ing CAL board can sure­ly do bet­ter.

Last Wednes­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar turned the sod with Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels Lim­it­ed chair­man John Aboud for the new $220M Hilton Gar­den Inn in San Fer­nan­do, on her birth­day. It was good to see the in­volve­ment of a de­mo­graph­ic that has been ma­ligned by many in so­ci­ety, in­clud­ing sup­port­ers of the rul­ing par­ty. This is cer­tain­ly a sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go, with clear mes­sag­ing re­gard­ing a fo­cus on lo­cal em­ploy­ment and con­tent. This seems to be the first ma­jor project that fits in­to the Gov­ern­ment’s re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion blue­print. Many more are an­tic­i­pat­ed to stim­u­late our econ­o­my.

It is hoped that the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion will find that all is in or­der with the pro­ject­ed $3.4 bil­lion Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion projects. This will pro­vide a sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic boost. I have read of the es­tab­lish­ment of a “co­coa and cof­fee re­vival” steer­ing com­mit­tee, which is a good start, but ques­tions re­main as to when this will gen­er­ate sig­nif­i­cant forex from new ex­ports. Our ma­jor hopes for an eco­nom­ic turn­around re­main with the en­er­gy sec­tor. The ear­li­est div­i­dends from these new projects may not be re­alised un­til 2027. We hope to get more en­cour­ag­ing news in the cur­rent year, how­ev­er.