$ Billions spent without documentation

[odw]

Cecil,

I’m starting a new post with your response to my question from the “steel-drum” discussion.
My question “Has the film maker asked the government to promote or endorse the project?”
You responded…” What do the Ministry of Culture do for the steelband other than bankroll PanTrinbago? Money is useless without brain-power.”

Here are examples of where the monies are going, PanTrinbago understands how well this system works...

Several Government Ministries, including the Ministry of Finance, lack documentation to justify multi-million dollar expenses, the Auditor General’s Report on Trinidad and Tobago’s public accounts for Government’s financial year 2013 (October 1, 2012 to September 30, 2013) has shown.
The worst offenders were the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Not only did the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources fail to provide documents to support three payments totaling $266,569,000, it was not transparent with documents or answers to questions asked by the Auditor General.
The Ministry of Science and Technology failed to provide documents to the Auditor General for $19.3 million.
“In contravention of the Auditor General’s right of access to documents on demand, critical records/documents such as project files, contracts, bills, quotations, completion certificates, progress reports or status reports were not produced for audit. As a result, the validity of payments made totaling $19,300,000 on nine projects, the status of completion of each and adherence to relevant terms and conditions could not be ascertained,” the report noted.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs failed to provide documents for 40 vouchers for contract employees valued at $6.1 million.

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/-billions-spent-without-documentation-261397661.html

[Cecil hinkson]

Thank GOD for all the people the spend time on their knees in prayer for T&T because all the news we are hearing is BAD.

[Cecil hinkson]

Big-up the T&T government on their current position of NOT to proceed with approving the bills until all perspectives and opinions are ventilated.

[Pan Times]

PM Persad- Bissessar's Statement on Salaries and Pension Bills

June 24, 2014: Below is a statement of the Hon Kamla Persad-Bissessar SC, MP, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, relating to the Judges Salaries and Pensions (Amendment) Bill, and the Retiring Allowance (Legislative) Amendment Bill:

 
"It is rare that the Government and the Opposition ever agree on anything.

The Judges Salaries and Pensions (Amendment) Bill, 2013 and the Retiring Allowances (Legislative) Amendment Bill 2014 were passed in the House with the full support of the Opposition.

The Retired Judges Association has also come out in full support of the said Bill which impacts their representative group.

 

Notwithstanding this level of agreement, there have been strong objections in some quarters to the Bills. Consistent with my policy of always allowing views to be ventilated and decisions arrived at after such due consideration the government’s current position would be not to proceed with approving the Bills until all perspectives and opinions are ventilated. The Senate debate on the said Bills which commences today will allow for some of these perspectives and opinions to be ventilated.

Further, the government expresses its willingness to refer the matter to a Senate Select Committee for review should such a procedure be agreed to by all parties in the Senate debate.‎ Yet further the government expresses its willingness to accept and adhere to the recommendations made by the Senate Select Committee.

At the end of the day, the national interest is what must be served."

 

Kamla Persad-Bissessar, SC, MP
Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago

[Cecil hinkson]

All parties in the Senate debate stand to benefit from the bill,how can they be objective?

The right thing is to make the same adjustment to ALL pensions.

The wealth of the nation is not for a privileged few.

[Noel]

The Senate select committee suggestion is clearly window dressing. If the PM wants the matter ventilated, she needs either an open forum or a committee comprising representatives of public interest groups Including trade unions).

Secondly, In all of the other Caribbean (and other countries) I know of who have similar legislation, it was extended to include public servants who had served a number of years and had retired from the public service. This was also true of the MPs, you would have had to serve for a substantial period..

As the bill stands, it certainly sounds self-serving. 

[masai hall]

An entrenched culture of corruption.  As if allyuh doh know.

[Mercer Ramdoo]

How convenient! Everyone just awoke to find that T&T is lawless........and political too.

[Pan Times]

Trinidad Express Newspapers

Heartless parliamentarians

by Raffique Shah

....What the House approved last week was madness. A minister who served for four years, however many years ago, will receive a pension for life of one-third a current minister’s emolument-$20,000 a month! Eight years’ service would yield $30,000, ten years $36,000, 15 years $45,000 and 18 years and over $60,000!

Moreover, an MP or minister who runs for election and is rejected by the electorate will be entitled to a gratuity of six months’ his previous emoluments “to adjust to his new life”. Bear in mind these benefits are not static: as emoluments increase in years to come, the pensions will increase.

The population must reject this madness across the board-PNM, UNC, COP, PP, or any other pee!

Because these lawmakers-unto-themselves are urinating in the faces of tens of thousands of public sector pensioners (public servants, teachers, etc), many of whom eke out an existence on salary levels that obtained in the 1980s and 1990s. They are defecating on tens of thousands more of daily paid workers who get no job-related pension, receive only the NIS $3,000, and do not qualify for old age pension.

click to read Raffique Shah's entire piece

[nick stevens]

Sorry I didn't complete my contribution, we have to see the effects of ungodliness, I don't have to mention all that is happening in the country(village) to make my point, who is affected?..certainly not the so called head, and sorry to say it will get worse until God put a stop to it, first the people must cry out,repentance , will save a nation, this the sacrifice that Jesus. made by his blood. Trinidad people don't have to take this but they are too devided to be a people of change but God will put them together only when they all feel forsaken and he becomes their only hope. It is coming,every knee will bow down.
God Bless

[odw]

And calling it rain  or  "Pissing on my head and calling it rain ”
By Terrence Farrell

Story Created: Jun 21, 2014 at 8:43 PM ECT

The pieces of legislation recently passed unanimously in the House in respect of the retirement benefits of legislators and judges helped to clinch for me how the Persad-Bissessar administration can perhaps best be characterised. We saw it before with the Indictable Offences legislation which produced section 34 (also passed unanimously) and its early proclamation; we are seeing it again with the Cybercrime bill. The Interception of Communications legislation was soon followed by the appointment of Reshmi Ramnarine to head the SIA.

The characterisation that comes to mind is perversion of principle. The behaviour of the administration in all these instances is to use perfectly acceptable principle — the need to redress the pensions of judges, the need to compensate parliamentarians properly, the need to abolish preliminary inquiries and speed up criminal justice, and so on — and to pervert these laudable goals with provisions which are simply obscene.

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/commentaries/And-calling-it-rain-264...