The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is fac­ing a $287 mil­lion re­duc­tion in its bud­get­ed ex­pen­di­ture for fis­cal 2027, in­clud­ing a $233 mil­lion cut in per­son­nel fund­ing, but Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath is as­sur­ing em­ploy­ees that there are no plans to re­duce the au­thor­i­ty’s es­tab­lished work­force.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Pri­vate Se­cu­ri­ty As­so­ci­a­tion (TP­SA) is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment and the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) to ur­gent­ly pay up an es­ti­mat­ed $75 mil­lion in out­stand­ing pay­ments owed to 13 con­tract­ed se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies, warn­ing that con­tin­ued non-pay­ment could re­sult in se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers re­fus­ing to re­port for du­ty.

A star-stud­ded cast of lo­cal artistes, in­clud­ing Machel Mon­tano, De­stra Gar­cia, Su­perblue, Crazy and Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter, will take the stage to­day to pay trib­ute to ca­lyp­so leg­end Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co.

A glimpse of Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co in his jock­ey shorts, qui­et­ly read­ing the Bible, was among the mem­o­ries Dr Hol­lis “Chalk­dust” Liv­er­pool shared as he paid trib­ute to his long­time friend and fel­low ca­lyp­son­ian dur­ing a spe­cial event at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day.