Black Immigrant Daily News

Rivière-Pilote

Des élèves de l’école mixte B En Camée ont participé, durant toute l’année, à un projet portant sur la protection des manikous. La dernière étape s’est déroulée en ce début de semaine avec la pose de panneaux de signalisation.

France-Antilles Martinique

716 mots – 07.07.2022

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File photo.

The report on the Financial Literacy Survey revealed that 35 per cent of respondents fell victim to some form of financial fraud and 19 per cent took part in what turned out to be a pyramid scheme.

Financial Ombudsman Dominic Stoddard made the revelation during the launch of the report, held virtually on Wednesday.

Stoddard said moving forward the National Financial Literacy Programme would need to do a comprehensive overhaul of content resources to include modules on using digital financial products and services, and detecting and avoiding financial fraud.

“We want to ensure that the population is able to identify fraudulent practices and keep away from them,” Stoddard said.

Given that 39 per cent of the population was affected negatively by the pandemic, the Financial Literacy Programme also plans to ensure that there are strategies to cope with the negative effects of the pandemic.

The survey was conducted with a sample size of 1,090 adults, 151 students and 160 SMEs. As far as financial literacy, Stoddard said that overall, 69 per cent of Trinidadian respondents and 67 per cent of Tobagonians were financially literate.

The report also revealed that there has been no change in the amount of unbanked people in TT since 2007.

“In 2007, we came up with a 21 per cent of the population or one in five people were unbanked. This year when we came up with the survey we came up with 19 per cent. So we had given that the margin of error was plus or minus three per cent, we could safely say there was no change in the unbanked population,” he said.

Findings also revealed that the people with the lowest financial literacy were between the ages of 18 and 24 years, with a form three education and came from lower socio-economic groups. Those with the highest financial literacy were over the age of 35, were in the higher socio-economic grouping and had a tertiary level education.

The report added that 40 per cent of SMEs said they prepare financial statements annually, 32 per cent agreed that business objectives were reasonably on target and 37 per cent felt they were not.

The report also revealed that 70 per cent of 10-17 age groups spend money on snacks.

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PHILIPSBURG — “We question if the goals set forth in the country package are realistic,” the General Audit Chamber states in its audit on the possibilities of rent reduction for government. Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs signed the agreement for the country package in December 2020. One of the measures mentioned in this deal is a 20 percent reduction of the rent the government pays for office space by 2025.

The Audit Chamber is puzzled about the basis that should be used to calculate the reduction. The budgets for 2020 and 2021 both mention total rental costs as 15.2 million guilders, but in the 2022 budget it has gone up to 17.8 million. The countries financial statements for 2020 are unreliable and those for 2019 received an adverse opinion. The Chamber states that it makes more sense to use realized amounts than to base the desired reduction on budgeted amounts.

Meanwhile the confusion remains: “We are unable to determine the basis for the 20 percent reduction and the feasibility of achieving this.”

The government rents 47 office spaces from 26 different parties; three of them are government-owned or related entities: SOG (Foundation Government Buildings), SZV and St. Maarten Harbor Cruise Facilities.

The Vineyard Private Fund Foundation rents out three buildings, located on the W.G. Buncamper Road and the Juancho Yrausquin Boulevard for a total monthly charge of $22,570. These offices are the home of, among others, the Bureau for Statistics and the Tourist Bureau.

A company called Vineyard Office Park is renting offices to the Social Health Center, the Tax Office, the Department of Hygiene and Inspection and Collective Preventive Services for a total monthly charge of $127,518.

For its seven ministries, the government spends $670,914 per month or $8,051.294 per year in rent. This does not include the rent for the parliament building, and the offices of the Audit Chamber, the Ombudsman, the Social Economic Council and the Council of Advice. This adds another $1,256,574 to the total. The parliament building is the most expensive: 1.7 million guilders ($949,721) per year.

The Audit Chamber obtained copies of 27 lease agreements from the Ministry of General Affairs. “Some were unsigned and others outdated or in the name of the previous owner,” the report states. Ten of the leases contained automatic rent-increases from 3% (annually) and 5% (after 5 years) to 10% (very two years).

Using the 2019 budget as a benchmark, the Audit Chamber points out that the desired 20 percent reduction amounts to 3.6 million guilders ($2 million) over the period until 2025, or 720,000 guilders ($402,235) per year.

But how to achieve the goal to reduce rental costs? The Audit Chamber-report mentions two options: relocation or termination of lease agreement. The report advises the government to investigate the costs of relocation and remodeling. As a possible impact the report mentions lower turnover and income taxes for the government and it observes that an impact study should have been done before setting the objective of reducing rental costs by 20 percent.

“Terminating leases could result in long-term unoccupied buildings. The possible negative economic impact should not be underestimated and it should be researched.”

The Audit Chamber did a bit of researching of its own by sending out a survey to 19 of the 26 lessors it has identified. Four lessors were left out because it was not possible to obtain correct contact information and three were left out because they are government owned or related.

Seven lessors indicated their potential willingness to renegotiate their lease agreements and six of them said they were willing to relinquish the annual rent-increase.

The lessors also offered a suggestion to bring the costs down: have the government use available office space more efficiently. One lessor suggested rent-to-buy agreements as an alternative.

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Gary Griffith. File photo/Sureash Cholai

APPLICANT for police commissioner Gary Griffith said the response to Monday’s protest by the state reeked of a lack of proper leadership.

In a telephone interview with Newsday on Tuesday, the former commissioner of police said police were seemingly left alone.

He recalled in 2020 when residents of east Port of Spain and other communities throughout the country staged multiple protests over the killing of three men, his officers then were able to quell the uprisings within minutes.

He said then there was a collaborative effort with several ministries including Works and Transport, Local Government and other arms of the National Security apparatus.

“It was shocking to hear the Minister of National Security in Parliament state that the intelligence did what was required to assist the police. If that was the case then the police would have been fully prepared and there would have been a pre-emptive strike or what is known as predictive policing based on intelligence-driven operations. That simply did not take place.”

He said there was no use of technology by the powers that be to assist police in stopping the protests which lasted for close to five hours.

Griffith said the National Operations Centre and the police operation command centre were not used to co-ordinate police responses to protests instead of officers playing a cat-and-mouse game.

“A major point was a lack of communication. The public, in contrast to two years ago, was not fully apprised of what was happening. They were fully aware (in 2020), so it did not cause panic and fake news to spread. We were monitoring through an operations centre anywhere that had traffic to ensure that it was cleared immediately. None of that was done. And this is no fault of the police officers or the police service. This has to do with leadership. If you have systems that are working, why remove it or not utilise it.”

On Monday, residents of Beetham Gardens, Sea Lots, Morvant, Nelson and Duncan Streets blocked roads and burnt tyres and debris protesting the police killing of three people.

The major protest took place at Sea Lots where the east and west bound lanes of the Beetham Highway demanding justice for the killing of Fabien Richards, 21, Leonardo Niko Williams and Isaiah Roberts, both 17.

The three were part of six people shot at by police ending in their deaths, the arrest of two men and a fourth person, 16-year-old Malakai Glenn, hospitalised.

The two men who were arrested were released on Monday night and Tuesday without charge.

The Police Complaints Authority (PCA) said anyone with information pertaining to the shooting deaths, which police said was after a shootout and car chase, should come forward.

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Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar. –

OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar on Wednesday keenly welcomed the Senate’s rejection of the Bail (Amendment) (Extension of Duration) Bill 2022 which failed to earn a constitutional majority. The government’s 18 senators voted in favour of the bill, while six Opposition and five Independent senators voted against. One Independent senator abstained.

The bill had proposed a one-year extension for a 2019 bill (with a three-year sunset clause) which denies bail to a suspect in a serious crime who has a past conviction for a serious offence.

Persad-Bissessar’s news release on Wednesday was titled, Rowley’s Government collapses in the Senate. Draconian Bail Bill defeated!

She said, “The Keith Rowley-led Government was defeated” in advocating a bill to deny people the right to apply for bail.

Persad-Bissessar said the fact the Government was “resoundingly defeated” showed it had now collapsed.

“The Government’s claim that this legislation was a solution to the crime problem fell flat, in light of evidence that there has been no reduction in crime and criminality after three years of having the bail bill on the statutes.”

She said the Opposition had consistently asked the Government for empirical evidence that the law was actually working.

“No such evidence was ever produced. Therefore, there was never any sufficient basis to interfere with the fundamental rights of citizens.

“Embattled and disgraced Attorney General Reginald Armour, in his previous incarnation as president of the LATT (Law Association), argued against the Bail Bill in 2016, which is the same bill that was presented in the Senate.”

She said the AG had earlier admitted he had no real data to back his arguments in favour of the bill.

“The bail bill presented by the Government did nothing to curb crime and, instead, breached multiple sections of the Constitution that guarantees and safeguards the fundamental rights of all citizens.

“Meanwhile, crime continues to rise to unprecedented levels with triple and quadruple killings now occurring overnight.”

Persad-Bissessar said the real reason why crime continues was the Government’s alleged complete abandonment of responsibilities.

She said the police service was crippled by Rowley’s sabotage and destruction of the Police Service Commission, while national security declined under Fitzgerald Hinds as minister.

“The only solution to the nation’s runaway crime wave is the complete removal of this failed Keith Rowley PNM government.”

Persad-Bissessar recalled Rowley as opposition leader in 2012 saying that if the then government couldn’t deal with crime, then it itself was part of the problem.

“It is clear that this PNM government has become the problem.

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