The Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) has signed off on a ten per cent wage in­crease, a deal that will cost the State $2.6 bil­lion in back­pay and add $252 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly to the na­tion­al wage bill.

Teach­ers re­main in the dark over their back­pay, as the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) now says he is not aware of when the pay­ment would be made, de­spite the Fi­nance Min­is­ter’s as­sur­ance of a March pay­out.

More than 120 cubs and scouts from across the South Cen­tral Dis­trict took part in the first an­nu­al dis­trict camp over the week­end, as the scout move­ment con­tin­ues to in­stil in young peo­ple life skills, dis­ci­pline and team­work.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of ig­nor­ing a deep­en­ing health­care cri­sis, call­ing on her to im­me­di­ate­ly ad­dress the na­tion and out­line a plan to fix the sys­tem.

Dis­grun­tled nurs­es are call­ing for the Min­is­ter of Health and the chair­man of the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) to in­ter­vene to ad­dress their con­cerns about over­time pay­ment, staffing and gen­er­al work­ing con­di­tions.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) says sev­er­al busi­ness op­er­a­tions as­sis­tants (BOAs), some with up to 20 years of ser­vice, have been sent home from schools with­out re­ceiv­ing their re­mu­ner­a­tion.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has bro­ken weeks of si­lence over the con­tro­ver­sial Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) ex­ec­u­tive re­treat, dis­put­ing claims that it cost the State more than $400,000.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is push­ing back against sug­ges­tions that Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) should be shut­down or sold, ar­gu­ing that the air­line’s eco­nom­ic val­ue to the coun­try far out­weighs its fi­nan­cial chal­lenges.

An em­ploy­ee of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is among nine peo­ple de­tained in con­nec­tion with the van­dal­ism of four crit­i­cal wells in To­ba­go, an at­tack that se­vere­ly dis­rupt­ed the is­land’s wa­ter sup­ply.

Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors are await­ing le­gal ad­vice from the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions as they con­sid­er charges in the killing of Ce­dros crick­eter and sales mer­chan­dis­er Rashme Deoa­jit.

For­mer Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (MR­CRC) chair­man Glen Ram and cur­rent Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PTRC) chair­man Gowrie Roop­nar­ine have suf­fered a sec­ond de­feat in their le­gal bat­tle over a de­ci­sion to stop them from re­ceiv­ing their salaries for mi­nor lo­cal gov­ern­ment po­si­tions they held be­fore their ex­ec­u­tive roles.

A prop­er­ty de­vel­op­er has lost an ap­peal over a de­ci­sion by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Com­mis­sion to is­sue de­c­la­ra­tions against it and or­der it to pay com­pen­sa­tion for de­vel­op­ing a prop­er­ty in Las Cuevas with­out first ob­tain­ing a cer­tifi­cate of en­vi­ron­men­tal clear­ance (CEC).