Finance Secretary of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Joel Jack says the Assembly has been assured there will be two new vessels on the sea bridge by July, bringing an end to challenges on the inter-island service. However, that announcement has been met with a mixture of scepticism and hope.

In an interview hours after he presented the $5 billion budget for Tobago, Jack said the THA had been in “back room discussions”with Minister of Works Rohan Sinan and the Board of the Port Authority.

“They have assured us in time for July they will have two new vessels,” he said.

Jack said the THA is “fairly comfortable in terms of the timeline” but admitted he is not comfortable with the current situation.

“As a Tobagonian and as a Trinbagonian, I want to see it addressed with urgency. We have been given a commitment and timelines and we are waiting on the board and the Cabinet,” he said.

Contacted on the issue, Port Authority chairman Allison Lewis said she is waiting on final due diligence and approval which she hopes to get soon.

President of the Tobago Chamber Demi John Cruickshank said he was “comforted to hear the Chief Secretary Kelvin Charles say that the vessels would be here by early or mid-July.”

“For the first time Charles is saying two boats coming, and I hope that all goes well,” he said.

“We have to have a vessel so that people feel confident coming to Tobago.”

Cruickshank is also hoping Finance Minister Colm Imbert takes the THA budget seriously and gives the island more than the minimum 4.03 per cent allowed for.

“We have to look at development in Tobago, especially with Sandals coming. This is the time for the THA to be given a proper development allocation. That is a big concern of the Chamber in terms of the THA being starved for development funds,” he said.

However, president of the Inter-Island Trailers and Truckers Association Horace Amede is not as confident that the vessels will be here in July. He said since the Superfast Galicia left on April 21, “we have been hearing that we getting a vessel.”

“Every time the Minister of Works and Transport speaks he says a vessel coming in two weeks,” he said.

He warned: “If you don’t have a mode of transport to move the people to Tobago, the economy will be at a standstill. Unless we can have the movement of people the economy will remain dormant. Local tourists are an essential part of the Tobago economy.

“The first thing to do is to fix the transport between Trinidad and Tobago so that people can be assured if they come to Tobago for the day they could get back home. People don’t want to come not knowing how they will get back home.”

JACK ON AIRBRIDGE

On the issue of the airbridge Jack thanked the staff of Caribbean Airlines (CAL) at Crown Point and Piarco who had been doing yeoman service given the problems on the sea bridge.

“They have really worked up and above the call of duty and I just want to thank them for that,” he said.

He said he had suggested to the Minister of Finance that given the challenges on the airbridge they look for some alternatives.

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He said the THA had been working with CAL and a report, is being put together with recommendations to improve the air bridge.

On Sunday, Muslims all over the world started marking the end of Ramadan and joined Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations.

After a long period that should be dedicated to reflection and reconnection with the faith, the time has come for Muslims to celebrate with family, friends and the community.

Eid is also a good moment to remind us all of a simple, obvious but now often forgotten fact that the vast majority of Muslims around the world cherish and want like any other individual: a peaceful, prosperous and healthy life for family, friends and their communities.

This needs to be stated because, over the last three or so decades, Muslims have been forced into the defensive as radical Islam gathered pace. This process took an even more dramatic turn with the 9/11 terror attacks in New York in 2001.

Since then, more terror attacks in many major European cities and some smaller scale actions in the US have kept the threat of radical Islam in the West very much on the front pages. If not enough, President of the United States Donald Trump continues to promise to fulfil a campaign pledge to add tighter travel controls to citizens of many Muslim countries, although the courts continue to frustrate his intentions.

However, it is important to remember that, in absolute number terms, the real victims of radical Islam are Muslims themselves despite the big headlines attacks in London or Paris.

Back in 2014, the BBC and King’s College produced a piece of research cataloguing all reported deaths resulting from attacks by radical Muslim groups in a single month.

The snapshot of a single month was shocking, with a tally of over 5,000 deaths that could be directly linked to Jihadist groups’ actions, with over half of them being civilians. The near total number of killings took place not in Europe or North America but in countries like Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen, with the Islamic State topping the list as the most brutal of Jihadist groups in action.

A smaller but similar snapshot test in 2015 showed a similar pattern. A repeat of the exercise today would show the same result, even if the overall numbers may be down. In the end, as despicable as attacks recently seen in London or Manchester are, the truth is that the awful destruction of lives taking place in the name of Islam are Muslims living in predominantly Muslim countries.

Before other religious followers claim the moral high ground, it’s important to remember that this kind of intra-religious violence is not unique to Islam. For centuries, Catholics and Protestants were at each other’s throats; and just being under suspicion of not being Catholic enough was a dangerous thing for anyone in Spain or Portugal during the Inquisition.

All religions may have teachings or views some of us may disapprove of but, by and large, it’s not the religion itself that is the problem. The real problem is what men and women chose to do to justify the unjustifiable, often through selective quoting of their sacred texts. After all, it is not long ago when many faith leaders would have used religious arguments to justifying abhorrent practices such as slavery. And many of those who freely persecuted and killed Jews as well as minorities in the Second World War would have been regular churchgoers, happily reconciling their criminal actions with their religious beliefs.

As a species, we seem destined to be flawed. But, just as when Christmas or Divali takes place, the arrival of Eid is a moment that can be used by all—Muslims or not—to seek peace and help guide away those tempted to use religion as an excuse for unacceptable behaviour or wanton violence.

A common teaching of religions across the world is that human beings should live peacefully and should always perform good deeds. Irrespective of your religious leanings (or even in the absence of any), let’s all try and fulfil those principles more regularly in order to contribute towards making T&T and the world a better place. We wish you and all a happy Eid.

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I’ve been writing about Black men and boys a lot.

One, who walked into a room with several others seven years ago saying they wanted to be LGBT allies, told me he wants to write a newspaper column. So, as a sort of Take Our Sons to Work exercise, he’s writing this week’s with me.

I chose Brendon. He wasn’t a son I’d made and have to love no matter how he turns out. He wasn’t a ward of a home I was choosing, like the St Michael’s boys who came awkwardly through my house as a youth, because he’s “disadvantaged.”

I chose him because he was smart and whole and open and daring—and incredibly well-brought-up. A dark-skinned, knottyhead Black youthman who walked with pride despite the fashions he didn’t have.

At 19, he had things he stood for. Values that didn’t come from Jesus or some external code.

He was this marvel of nature, this testament to what Black boys born in Sea Lots from female-headed households could turn into. (We argue over this.)

But he was this brilliant piece of Black manhood, this wholeness, this puzzle as to precisely why some Black boys turn out ethical and ambitious, intimate and polite. Full of self-worth and decency.

Okay, so it probably wasn’t really that way. Not nearly that magical or noble. Nor is he.

He was full of tardiness and borrowing, frustratingness and teenagery. And I probably really invested as much as I did because I secretly hoped he’d turn out gay eventually—just needed space.

Ironically, though, the closeness we’ve enjoyed might not have been feasible were he not unattracted.

I gave him opportunities and attention I didn’t give family or young gay volunteers who jealously felt these rightfully were theirs. And in many ways what seemed like his bravery in championing gay rights was privilege.

When he walks home through the streets wearing his favourite “Homosexual Agenda” jersey like it’s just clothes, he doesn’t walk with a body battling shame inside itself. When he’s faced stigma, it’s confrontation over a cause he supported, not his right to exist.

Still, there was something so striking about his embrace of difference and justice, it made you wonder if it was just nalve—his core sense of self-confidence, notwithstanding stories he’d occasionally share of trauma or hardship.

His story might hardly be remarkable were he a Black man my age; but in one generation he’s become testament to what Black boys could be, but aren’t.

Though I wonder if he’d have been one of those bright boys for whom what made sense in 1970 was going up in the hills.

The relationship has been incredibly rewarding. As someone who chose not to parent full-time, midlife is teaching me that raising children and caring for others are hardly as selfless as they seem, but really important things we do for our own sense of connection and importance, and our economic futures.

I don’t know when mentoring Brendon ended and family began. But too early one Sunday, my sister and I found ourselves in Curepe, watching him be youth preacher in Holy Saviour’s pulpit.

It isn’t at all true that you can’t choose your family. I know this because I chose my father; bypassing all the toxic masculinity of my own life to find nurturance and support from a man who did not have children of his own.

This fact is made more incredible to me given the tragically small number of nurturing men, and even fewer fathers.

There are, however, many like my abusive, womanising grandfather, or my almost entirely absent father.

I’ve written whole poems about those kinds of men, most of them the men of my family. For a long time, the line that rang most true of masculinity to me was “Men are made of monster parts.”

It may be true that I had already chosen the man that I wanted to be long before Colin and I adopted each other. When he asks who is responsible for raising a young man as brilliant as me, I still defiantly say I did this myself.

But I think to raise someone is to show them that the person they’ve decided to be, even when it’s sort of ridiculous, has love and acceptance and support.

Especially when that thing they want to be is as ridiculously measureless as to be a “good man.” In that way, I hadn’t been raised at all until I met this person that saw the man I wanted to be and wanted to help me.

He provided for me, not with money, but always with his hours and listening ears. He reminded me that charity also meant offering honest opinions and even heartbreaking emotions.

This is by no means a denial by me that there are a lot of often complex feelings wrapped up in masculinity, bound so tightly that many feel gagged from even the language of crying.

For someone to create a home for a young man to share, in this island where men should quicker kill than cry (and for it to be another man to boot) is a blessing.

I can give thanks for the mentor I chose, with tears, and know this doesn’t make me any less a man. Perhaps that’s a true man, even.

The Bret floods were not caused by garbage and old fridges in our drains and rivers. It was caused by the stupidity, ignorance, corruption and arrogance of successive government over the last 50 years. Here are seven such instances:

1. In the 1960’s, the Government hired Dutch engineers to cut a New Cut Channel on the Oropouche South Wetlands. Broadening and deepening this channel led to the back-up of salt water which inundated and destroyed large parts of wetland system; at high tide and during excessively heavy rainfall the tide backs up in this dominant artery causing flooding upstream. The water spills over its banks damaging property and farms. The gates, which were built to control the egress and ingress of water into the system, have become dysfunctional.

2. The decision to build a nine mile, five interchange, ten to twelve embankment, across the neck of the wetland system, from Debe to Mon Desir, was a colossal blunder. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on works, bogus technical studies, compensation, legal challenges, before it collapsed. If Government had spent its time building the San Fernando to Point Fortin highway, with the requisite hydraulic mitigation systems alongside the Mosquito Creek, this project would have been already completed. The half-mile “abandoned” embankment between Gandhi Village, along Suchit Trace, reaching Gopie Trace has considerably aggravated the flooding woes farmers, residents and transmuters. With heavy precipitation, water in Barrackpore, Valley Line, Penal, Debe will rise if there is an embankment blocking the sheet flow of water across the land; coupled with high coastal tides pushing up the rivers.

3. In 2002, based on the reports of a symposium which I organised at UWI, and on interviews conducted with 40 specialists and experts, I submitted an economic diversification plan to the Patrick Manning government. It proposed that the newly opened Caroni lands (77,000 acres) and assets be used to lever an altered economic plan for Trinidad and Tobago. This Caroni Position Paper, which called for retention ponds and a system of irrigation and lakes, to relieve flooding during the wet season and agriculture during the dry season; was ignored. The North South Solomon Hochoy Highway continues to dyke water, especially when the rivers in this delta formation are not cleared, in areas such as Caroni, Kelly, Las Lomas, Caparo, St Helena etc.

4. The Government opted to take our peoples, lands and communities with its Gaffney and Cline Master Plan in 2001, to hell in a coconut shell. This entailed the building of 14 large heavy gas based foreign industries, five industrial ports, four industrial estates, and a mega highway from Debe to Mon Desir, in addition to the Sando to Point one, which has historically been on the cards.

This entire project was, thankfully, defeated. It has, in collapsing, cost the citizens billions of dollars and a significant amount of suffering and wasted time. If even part of this plan had been implemented, where would we have been getting the gas to support it? It would have quickly busted, becoming unaffordable and unsustainable, for investors and nation alike. The time, energy and money should have been dedicated to real diversification, not fake diversification.

5. The EMA could hassle small entrepreneurs, farmers, manufacturers, developers, well good. But when it comes to large scale government projects, generally, save the brief period when Professor Julian Kenny was there, it relents to the line minister. In Oropune, for example, they shaved the land and erected high rises. The Caroni is an inland basin, a wetland plain, a riverine delta formation. The height of the land was not appropriately altered.

6. There are three such riverine delta formations in Trinidad and Tobago. Oropouche North, Caroni and Oropouche South. The sea, the sand, the mangrove, the wet pasture, the grassland, the shrubland; and the hinterland, the “godee”, the lap, where the rivers emerge to feed the system, on their complex paths to the sea. These are living organisms. A wetland is a living organism, just like our bodies, needing oxygen, solid and liquid nutrients, mobility, continual cleansing. Its hydrology is complex; there has been a rank failure on the part of successive governments to understand these systems; and the human economies associated with them. The people, with their incremental approach, creating commercial and agricultural economies on these sensitive infrastructural assets, have been more successful, sober.

7. Governments are so out of it when these natural extreme weather events occur. They say shelters, but have no plan. They wander out with their caps and workaday clothes, to watch. Hampers, toilet paper, mattresses, water. They look more lost than the citizens. Some local officials look dazed. Some politicians rush TV cameras; and when Ivan goes, they go back home. There no strategic plan to save ourselves from these extreme weather events. The exception is Tobago. It is the people, the communities, who eventually come out and render mutual assistance. It is the talent, the heart, the intelligentsia on the ground!

Our governments have failed the Bret-alyzer test. Partisan frenzy, corruption, an ignorant or sell-out technocracy and bureaucracy, take the place of ital, scientific, rational development. Governments should be hanging their heads in shame. Tobago, its municipality, is better. Municipality government! The people must now lift the burden of government from the shoulders of the parliament, party, bureaucracy, technocracy, contractocracy, and put it on their own.

DR WAYNE KUBLALSINGH

I don’t agree with everything the Government does and I understand the importance of being fair and balanced when analysing their policies and the impact their decisions make on our everyday lives. When they perform badly it must be pointed out by constructive criticism and when they do well it is essential to give them the credit that they deserve.

Floods are serious business because they have a direct impact on both individuals and communities, and have social, economic, and environmental consequences. The consequences of floods, both negative and positive, vary greatly depending on the exact location and the severity of flooding, and the vulnerability of the natural and constructed environments that they affect.

As most people are well aware, the immediate impacts of flooding include loss of human life, damage to property, destruction of crops, loss of livestock, and deterioration of health conditions that is caused by the creation of waterborne diseases. As communication links and infrastructure such as power plants, roads and bridges are damaged and disrupted, some economic activities may come to a halt, people are forced to evacuate their homes and normal life is affected and disrupted. Similarly, disruption to industry can lead to loss of livelihoods.

Damage to infrastructure also causes long-term impacts, such as disruptions to clean water supplies, electricity, transport, communication, education and health care. Floods can also traumatise victims and their families for long periods of time. The loss of our loved ones has deep impacts, especially on children. Homelessness, loss of property and disruption to business can cause continuing stress. For some people the psychological impacts of a storm can last a very long time.

The Government of Trinidad and Tobago did what they had to do to prepare this country for the impact of Tropical Storm Bret. The preparation of the Office Of Disaster Preparedness and Management and supporting agencies began long before Tropical Storm Bret was even formed. That preparation and early planning was quite evident as was observed in their skilful and professional management of the threat of the tropical storm.

The Trinidad and Tobago Meteorological Service also played a vital role in the effort to drastically reduce the negative incidents as a result of the storm, by working with the Office Of Disaster Preparedness and Management and dispensing timely information to the public and regular updates to ensure the safety of all the people of Trinidad and Tobago, all our property and livestock. We need to stop playing politics for a moment and thank all those in authority for the role they played in minimising the effects of Tropical Storm Bret.

SIMON WRIGHT

Chaguanas

While Ramadan is a time of personal spiritual reflection, improvement, increased devotion and worship; it is also very timely for us to recognise the contributions and sacrifices made by the Muslim community as a whole, to change our national landscape and to guard against any form of islamophobia, everywhere.

The holiday of Eid-ul-Fitr, “festivity of breaking the fast” marks the end of Ramadan and the beginning of the next lunar month, Shawwal. Today, I celebrate the contributions of the Muslim community to the arts and culture, journalism, politics, business and of all aspects, food production in Trinidad and Tobago.

Let us also be mindful and helpful to our brothers and sisters; men, women, boys and girls whose livelihoods and communities continue to be compromised because of the passage of Tropical Storm Bret and other pre-existing socio-economic challenges.

I have learnt to give not because I have much but because I know exactly how it feels to have nothing. Let us demonstrate love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, we celebrate—Eid Mubarak.

OMARDATH MAHARAJ

Agricultural economist

I strongly disapprove of the new Marriage Act. This act should properly be nicknamed the “The Promotion of Single Unmarried Teen Mothers/Criminals Act.”

It is a profoundly anti-father act as well, being yet another device attacking the authority of Indian fathers over their families.

The acquiescence of the UNC, and then having the gall to pretend to oppose it, is insulting to the intelligence and the spirit.

Imam Imran Hosein, for whom I have developed a great respect (watch his videos on YouTube, for example), is absolutely correct, and should be commended for supporting Sat Maharaj (while also being so outspoken against the Saudi family and critical of Wahhabism!)

This act is an attack on the family, and the Indian family in particular. It is a reprehensible attack, a total non-issue, raised gratuitously, mischievously and maliciously by the PNM.

However, I am not a strong supporter of Sat Maharaj’s Privy Council legal action. If he succeeds, more power to him.

No matter what happens in Sat’s case, I think that it is imperative that we should remember and re-assert our cultural, spiritual and religious authority over our own community.

Just as pre-1946 the non-recognition of Hindu marriages did not prevent Hindus from marrying “under the bamboo” (my Muslim mother, for example, was officially branded “illegitimate” by the colonial state on her birth certificate), Hindus should continue to marry their few troubled, strayed young pregnant girls religiously.

This is not against the law. It just will not be recognised by the State. And to that we should say, who cares? At 18, the State could catch up to reality by recognising it. But we would have married them off already anyways.

The State is not God, and this state in particular has no authority to tell us about God.

FATIMAH MOHAMMED

Cunupia

I read with interest and amazement the report which stated that EFCL paid Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) over $3 million for five audits relating to finance, procurement and administration.

Either the brief to PWC was inadequate or PWC omitted to examine the most fundamental component of dysfunction in the operation of EFCL—the role of the board of directors and the Ministry of Education in the operation of FIDIC contracts.

Virtually all major contracts managed by EFCL are governed by FIDIC Redbook contracts, an internationally accepted form of contract used in many large contracts.

This form of contract specifies the roles of three parties to the contract—the employer (EFCL), the contractor and the engineer, normally an outside consultant who supervises the contractor, makes routine technical decisions and determines payments due to the contractor. The employer’s role includes agreeing to contractual variations and making payments on time.

Over time, the employer (the management team of EFCL) and the board of directors of EFCL and the Ministry of Education have more and more usurped the role of the engineer, resulting in major delays and irrational decisions.

Furthermore, extremely late payments and failure to certify payments exacerbated the situation.

As a former employee of one of the many engineers appointed and disappointed by EFCL, I can attest to the systemic dysfunction imposed from the very top down. Failure by PWC to identify this dominant factor renders any opinion invalid.

At the end of the day, nothing has been achieved from this report. Contractors remain unpaid, projects remain unfinished and many of our children remain in unsuitable conditions to be educated.

Yet another example of how to waste the people’s money.

NOEL SAMPSON

Sangre Grande

HARLOW: PEARL IRENE a.k.a. Ms Harris, departed this life, on Monday 19th June 2017, at the age of 84yrs, she would be loving remembered as the daughter of Orland and Clementina Harlow(both deceased) Mother of: Hazel,Steve, Samuel, Keith and Kurt. Sister of: Cleopatra Harlow, Peters(USA) Norma Oliver(deceased) The lma Barrow(UK) Beryl Simmonds, Edward Harlow(USA), Amoy Harlow. Grandmother of: Avalene, Heather, Candice, Stephan, Keith JR. Stephen and Fourteen(14) others.Great Grandmother of Eight(8), Friend of: Many.

The Funeral service for the late, PEARL IRENE HARLOW will be held on Tuesday 27th June, 2017, at 11:00am at the Laventillle S.D.A Church Upper Church Street Laventille. Followed by burial at the Woodbrook Public Cemetery.

I have been a paediatrician for over 40 years now and am often asked by parents what to do to develop their child’s mind. Most parents are confused by the number of advertisements advising them to give their child vitamins to do this. And to buy “educational” toys, and to allow them to watch “educational” videos or to give them special “educational” courses. The latest “recommendation” is a certain little sachet containing “good” bacteria said to be necessary for a healthy intestine that somehow connects to the brain, making the child smarter and more likely to be in the top 100 at SEA and therefore appear on the front page of the T&T Guardian shaking the hand of smirking Ministers of Education who all believe they are the reasons why some children succeed academically.

How people fool themselves! Imagine believing a second-hand car salesman telling you that the car new, new, new, look, the odometer saying 2000 kilometres. Yet the toxic combination of adult laziness, belief in entitlement, the opinion of peers and the power of social media, starting with television, apparently compels us to believe nonsense.

In fact, children will develop regardless of what you do. Contrary to popular opinion, parents are rarely able to influence how their child will turn out. Children will invariably do their own thing and good for them! Indeed, the function of the parent is not to make the child a capable adult. The function of the parent is to establish a secure and caring environment within which the child develops into a competent adult.

A parent cannot make a child into a superior adult. A parent can make the child into an inferior adult. You can affect your child negatively. Beyond their own potential, you cannot affect your child positively.

Children develop as they are supposed to, as long as the environment within which they can develop into whatever their destiny is, is supplied by parents. They grow and do whatever they do and become what they are.

So I always hesitate to give this sort of advice. For me it is rather presumptuous.

However, there does seem to be gathering consensus among those who study child development that the single most useful thing a parent can do to assist in a child’s development, is to read. Read yourself, and read to the child. It seems the mere act of having books in a house, the act itself of reading and being seen to read by the child, has a positive effect on the child’s mind and educational attainment. Interestingly, children of lesser-educated parents benefit the most from having books in the home. Even a few books goes a long way. Having as few as 20 books in the home still has a significant impact on propelling a child to a higher level of education. Why this happens is not well understood but the more books you add the greater the benefit, up to about 500 books.

So for those of you who want to make a difference in the life of the Chance children in Penal, don’t forget to take some books as you take food and dry clothes and building materials. The books may actually turn out to be the deciding factor in whatever happens to them and may be critical in breaking the apparent endless cycle of poverty, illness, desperation, poverty, and the frustration that many people feel when confronted year after year with the same hopeless pictures and stories.

The story about giving a woman a fish to feed her family and teaching her to fish aptly illustrates this point. It is the educated mind that feeds the family and books educate minds. Not television, nor smart phones, nor slick advertisements. In fact, there it’s increasingly believed that televisions and smart phones hinder educational achievement. However, it’s difficult to say whether people who follow the advice of advertisements are dotish or it’s the advertisments that make them dotish.

There is now rather convincing evidence that reading to the child from birth makes a difference. A little more than three years ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement saying that, starting at birth, all children should be read to, loudly. See how new this is? Of course, sensible paediatricians, not waiting for policy statements, have been advising parents to read to their children for years and sensible parents, not waiting for medical advice, have been doing so for years. Followers of this column will have noted such advice. Policies have to wait for evidence and even then may get things wrong. Committees are not known for common sense.

Why reading works is not well understood. A new study out just last week used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study brain activity in 3-to 5-year-old children as they listened to age-appropriate stories and my thanks to one of my two walking partners, for pointing this study out to me (you see fellows, is not only old talk does go on when you see us around the Savannah).

To quote, “The researchers found differences in brain activation according to how much the children had been read to at home.”

The areas of the brain that are used when children are being read to, are those that process visual association, even though the child was in the scanner and could not see any pictures. When children are read to, they imagine in their mind’s eye what they are hearing. This may develop imagination and imagination as we know is highly related to creativity and creativity is the basis of human progress, if not contentment.

I had an interesting response to my article, Solar Cells—not so green from a reader who calls himself a power engineer. He agrees with the conclusion of the article that T&T should not be about the manufacture of photovoltaic (PV) solar cells. However, he went further and suggested that T&TEC should not be encouraged to include these on its electric grid since PV power is not dispatchable on T&TEC’s small grid and the commission would still have to back it up with equivalent fossil fuel turbines. PV for power generation is unsuitable for small island grids.

Before analysing the comment of this power engineer it is interesting to note that St Lucia’s Electricity Services Ltd has just signed a contract with GRUPOTEC, an international solar energy firm, for the supply and instalation of a three megawatt (MW) solar farm which can supply electricity to some 3,500 homes. The reasoning behind this purchase is that St Lucia uses diesel-powered generators and has to import the fuel to run its generation plant. Hence any energy that can be supplied by the solar farm, any local energy, will offset the need to import diesel, saving in foreign exchange. These savings will have to be offset also by the capital cost etc of the farm over time. Still, the available diesel capacity, as the power engineer suggests, will have to be sufficient to back up the solar farm. It is worth noting that the retail price of electricity in St Lucia is US26 cents/kWh, which encourages the use of PVs that are expensive, while in T&T the price of electricity, subsidised, is a mere US5 cents/kWh.

What is also very relevant is the case of Denmark. This country set itself a target of 200MW of PVs for 2020 but this was achieved early in 2012 and 36MW were being installed each month thereafter. Denmark had 790MW installed by 2015 and expects some 3,400MW by 2030. What then is the difference between Denmark and T&TEC? The reason is what is called net-metering. Unlike T&TEC, Denmark’s grid is connected to the continent wide European grid. Net-metering allows Denmark to export any excess solar power produced electricity to other countries and import from the international grid when PV-assisted local production cannot meet its demand—ie Denmark can develop energy export credits, say, in July and use these credits in December to import electricity if required. T&TEC is a small isolated grid which cannot benefit from net-metering.

Is it then that we in T&T, T&TEC, cannot benefit from the use of PVs or even other renewables and will have to depend on fossil fuels and suffer the concomitant carbon emissions? For example, St Lucia claims that its production of carbon emissions will drop by some 3,800 metric tons annually with the use of the PVs. This reason for PVs is dismissed by the power engineer since, according to him, if T&T spewed no more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from now, what difference would it make to global warming, climate change—none? This is indeed true, but extrapolate this argument to each individual power station in the world and the argument as a community of nations falls apart. Still, T&TEC has always been the world leader in low carbon emissions per MW because of its use of natural gas.

The power engineer suggests, however, that if we needed to use renewables that wind turbines would indeed be the better bet for T&TEC, assuming we have the windy locations, since they are less costly than PVs and can generate electricity even at night. His view is corroborated by much of the literature, in particular the Solar Electricity Handbook, 2017, Wind Turbines vs. Solar Panels. What is a significant point made by this engineer is that the decline of 12 per cent in the carbon emissions by the US between 2005 and 2012, back to a level not seen since 1994 and a per capita fall of 17 per cent and are now at their lowest level in 50 years, was not due to the use of renewables but the switch from coal-powered plants to natural gas—what we have been using at T&TEC for some time.

This discussion reminds me of a question I posed to an international energy expert some years ago on what should we do as a small open economy in the context of renewables, our depleting natural gas resource and the need to export energy-based products just to live? His reply was to diversify the economy, conserve our natural gas and reserve it (even with carbon dioxide capture) for providing electricity for your population and their economic development.

This is truly a discussion that raises arguments that go against conventional wisdom, that renewables and in particular PVs are the solution to our long term energy requirements.

Mary King

Gimme a break!!!!!

The picture on the front page of a daily paper of a ramshackle dwelling on the verge of collapse following the inclement weather of Tropical Storm Bret, is a good example of how people can seize upon the opportunity to fleece the Government and by extension other deserving homeowners of much needed relief.

I also note another case which has been quite publicised involves a roof that was blown off, but when you look at the galvanise sheets it is easy to see that these are dilapidated sheets that should never have been used. Now, these persons are going to claim monies from the Government’s relief fund and will be purchasing new items.

They are not the only ones. I see many people coming out of nowhere, who deliberately live in the most squalid conditions. Nobody directs these people to live on river banks with caimans for neighbours, or on hillsides or in jep-infested shacks.

Only God knows how they conceive child after child in these filthy sheds. These people do not take the required actions to prevent them ending up in a situation of some 19 children and no father, a house without a decent toilet or running water. But when anything happens, they cry out to the heavens and expect the government to come running. And the thing is, we the people go with basket after basket.

This puts deserving home owners who are forever borrowing money to keep their homes in a good state of repair at a disadvantage. There are many like myself who are constantly repairing things like guttering, gates, drains and driveways so that should something happen, we will not necessarily have to run to the state. I can assure you there is no relief available to us and so we must stand on our own, while others who say they are destitute but enjoy a rampant sexual lifestyle inclusive of drinking and gambling sprees.

This is no time for opportunists. It cannot be that someone had a dilapidated, run down board house on the verge of collapse before the storm and now, after a visit from the Prime Minister, or the Housing Minister, they expect a brand new house.

Steups man, gimme a break!

Lystra Marajh

Glencoe

After Bret we in T&T need to get our lives together as quickly and smoothly as possible. Here are some suitable suggestions:

•Contact all your loved ones at home and abroad. Let them know you are safe. Find out how those locally are.

•Check your surroundings. Downed power lines are hazards.

•Take care before cleaning. Standing water from floods is an electric shock hazard. Fallen trees, exposed structural damage, broken glass, debris pose many dangers. Find a safe place to stay till your home is cleaned and restored.

•Contact your insurance company. Get a damage assessment, submit a claim. Have a list of everything destroyed, damaged or missing. Brand names, prices, where the item was purchased are vital. Historically, dealing with the insurance companies leaves much room for improvement in T&T.

•Restore your home. Get a professional. In T&T everyone is a specialist. A guy told me he was a building contractor but had to borrow my measuring tape.

•Drive only when necessary, avoid flooded roads. No sightseeing.

•Ensure your drinking water is not contaminated.

•Check refrigerated food for spoilage. When in doubt, throw it out.

•Use phones only for emergency calls.

•Wear protective clothing and be cautious when cleaning to avoid injury.

•Take good care of your pets.

•Stay out of buildings that have water around them.

•Children, do not play in stagnant water. What is joke for children, is death for crapaud.

And may God bless our nation.

AV Rampersad

Princes Town

Petrotrin, please help WASA with pumps. Help them install pumps where they can best discharge flood water. Help them run mains that won’t burst. Help WASA integrate pumps into public waterways. TSTT, help WASA with wireless technology for remote turn on and turn off of pumps. Help WASA with remote sensors for monitoring water levels. Help regional authorities mitigate flooding with available technologies.

A few borrowed pumps from the oil industry can bring this flooding to an abrupt end. Where there’s no will to solve problems, problems linger. Why aren’t flood prevention pumps built into public drainage networks? Prevention of property damage would pay for the pumps.

Is it only oil and gas in the ocean T&T is faithful to pump? Where are the high-powered water pumps to transfer this water to WASA’s auxiliary water catchment tanks for use in the dry season? We can pump oil and gas across the ocean. We can store thousands of cubic feet of oil and gas for future use. But we can’t harvest surface storm water out of flood zones for dry season use? T&T is technology blind. Great is the lack of vision in T&T, for now.

B Joseph

via email

Many commentators, including columnists and those claiming to be friends, have jumped to have their say on the Fr Harvey incident.

Interestingly, they have all avoided commenting on Fr Harvey’s main point, which is that the officials, which includes the political elite, know who are the crime financiers and controllers.

Well I have had a closeness with Fr Harvey going on 60 years, born of a secondary school friendship and many encounters over the intervening years, and can assert that he does not make such comments lightly and knows exactly what he is talking about. He is off to Grenada and there it will rest.

Haven Allahar

Diego Martin

The Miss World T&T delegates proved that they possess much more than beauty when they participated in the Tea Party, Talent and Top Model Competition last Friday.

The competition, held at the City Auditorium, San Fernando, was part of the screening process which will determine the overall winner.

The ladies have already undergone several challenges, including the fitness challenge on the journey to the national pageant scheduled for July. The eight top contestants will make it to the finals and one of the lucky eight will represent this country in the international pageant in China, in November.

Before a full house at City Auditorium, last Friday, the contestants made their first appearance on stage, demonstrating their talent.

Leading off this segment was Tanisha Lalla, who set the bar with an upbeat performance of an Indian dance to the song Halkat Jawani from the movie Heroine.

Following in her footsteps was Anastasia Mootoo, who changed the tempo with a spoken word piece she wrote called Scars. In this monologue, Mootoo reflected on the pain and struggles of women and their indomitable strength that helps them to overcome adversity and be successful.

The haunting strings of the sitar resonated in the auditorium as Chandini Chanka performed two classical melodies—Rema and Dreadlocks, composed by Mungal Patasar.

A Caribbean fusion again took centre stage as Sherisse Bideshi chose a Neval Chatelal and Machel Montano combination—Wonders of the World—to deliver a powerful Jazz Arco Dance, choreographed by Tarrin Mc Mayo.

Dance was also the talent displayed by Zayna Mc Donald who demonstrated her dexterity with her original choreographed contemporary piece to the music of To This Day Project by Shane Koyezan. The message from this piece, Mc Donald said, was to highlight not only the consequences of bullying, but also to show how one can overcome past obstacles and see the beauty within.

Melissa Aguilleira also demonstrated the power of the dance with an evocative piece choreographed by Judy Boatswain to the strains of Andre Tanker Morena Osha, while Jade Mascall’s lyrical dance to the sound of Hallelujah by Pentatonix stroked the audience; she encouraged them to to paint their life with positivity, kindness and love.

The lone vocalist among the eight was Djennicia Francis, who gave a commendable rendition of Rihanna’s Love on the Brain.

Fashion was also the order of the night as the delegates paraded in outfits from the Zad and Eastman Designs, as well as Kooti’s, the official stylist of the 2017 pageant.

Tanisha Lalla, 22 of Woodland, a third-year student of the University of the West Indies, emerged the winner in the Top Model Segment. Zayna, 21, a student at the University of T&T, walked away with the top spot in the talent segment.

Franchise holder Vanessa Sahatoo, has partnered with the Rotary Club of Penal to assist flood victims, and the delegates will visit the Penal/Debe Region to distribute hampers and other relief supplies.

During last Friday’s show, the queens also raised $8,600 within one hour for Tropical Storm Bret victims in San Fernando by auctioning of a bottle of Moet and Chandon Champagne donated by AS Bryden and Sons.

Keirn Almarles of St Joseph Village, San Fernando was the lucky champagne winner.

They met at a church over a decade ago. He was Trinidadian and she was from Cameroon. They found much in common. One thing in particular was their love for information technology.

Julian and Nathalie Ferguson, who lived in the US for many years and birthed their three children there, are today web developers and the owners of FLOCKNet, whose function is to create simple, intuitive, user-friendly websites and apps.

Recently the pair moved to Trinidad permanently to give back to Julian’s birth land in various ways. One of those ways, they said, was the development of www.JesusBeat.com

“This website was developed because we want to see Jesus lifted high! JesusBeat.com is a worldwide movement of churches working together to change nations through a network of church leaders, gatherings, training events and resources. We are also providing Christian churches and ministries with the opportunity to list information about their organisation and events on our online directory,” said Julian.

As part of their Christ-centred mission, they are also in the process of establishing the Jesus Beat Foundation in the US. This aims to help poor families and children who are orphaned in the Caribbean and Africa. The foundation, they say, will mimic that of the world-renowned Hershey’s Foundation, founded by Milton Hershey in 1935.

The couple said the Hershey Foundation, a non-profit organisation, created a “universal development campus,” having its own college, high school, cultural centre, recreational grounds, and so on.

“This is exactly what we would like to do here, and in Cameroon, where my wife is from,” Julian said.

They say they have acres of land in Cameroon inherited by Nathalie, enough to start building their dream.

The interracial couple (Julian is of East-Indian descent and Natalie is of African descent) said it would be a dream to see such a space erected for underprivileged people—a place that is not just about giving a hot cup of soup or secondhand clothes to people (though these things are also good), but a space where underprivileged people can develop, grow and be ready to take on the world.

Julian, 36, is also perturbed by what he sees as the disunity among T&T churches. The former Tunapuna native, who left the country in his early teens to attend school in the US, said upon his return he noticed that there seemed to be as many churches as there are bars in Trinidad, yet the churches don’t seem to band together to create the impact needed for change, healing and deliverance.

The husband and wife team are hoping JesusBeat.com will mitigate this.

“We really want to combine all the institutions that were forged to better people’s lives to come together. So it is not just working with the church, but every organisation that is people-centred, people-driven and has the development of people at the fore,” said Nathalie.

“We are excited about this mission because we know we are in the right place at the right time. Everybody is searching for the hand that will rescue them and our mission is to lead them to the hand of God,” she said.