An in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion has found a $3.48 bil­lion hous­ing project was pushed for­ward de­spite ques­tions about whether con­trac­tors could se­cure the fi­nanc­ing need­ed to de­liv­er it, while a key sup­pli­er flagged as ac­tu­al­ly be­ing in­sol­vent still qual­i­fied for con­tracts.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) yes­ter­day re­flect­ed a World Bank re­port last week that the T&T econ­o­my de­clined by mi­nus 0.5 per cent last year and is pro­ject­ed to ex­pe­ri­ence re­al growth of 0.2 per cent this year.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s se­nior net­ball team will not have much of an ac­climi­ti­sa­tion pe­ri­od in neigh­bour­ing Bar­ba­dos, be­fore be­gin­ning their Amer­i­c­as Net­ball World Cup Qual­i­fiers which pass­es off on Mon­day.

Shar­da Patasar has placed Trinidad and To­ba­go on the in­ter­na­tion­al map with her new piece, Au­dac­i­ty of Black Wa­ter. The track is in­clud­ed on Earth Ris­ing, Vol II: Mes­sages from the Pale Blue Dot, part of a three-vol­ume project com­mis­sioned by the UK arts or­gan­i­sa­tion, Ar­tan­gel. Patasar’s work stands out as a rare in­stru­men­tal orig­i­nat­ing from the Caribbean rather than In­dia—and the first sitar com­po­si­tion in the se­ries.

The an­nounce­ment by the Prime Min­is­ter last Tues­day that her Gov­ern­ment in­tends to bring to Par­lia­ment a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to guar­an­tee To­ba­go two Sen­ate seats from among the nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors ap­point­ed in the dis­cre­tion of the Pres­i­dent is a wel­come de­vel­op­ment.