Re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture al­lo­ca­tions have been re­duced for sev­er­al min­istries, in­clud­ing the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, whose fund­ing for grants to the pub­lic has been cut by ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1 bil­lion.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer so­cial de­vel­op­ment min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Mar­lene Attzs are both ques­tion­ing the true ben­e­fits of the pro­posed in­creas­es in grants un­der the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices.

Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get has wel­comed the Gov­ern­ment’s bud­get, as he main­tained con­fi­dence in the an­tic­i­pat­ed restart of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery.

Trade union lead­ers are now press­ing ahead with a march set for Oc­to­ber 30, warn­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s bud­get promis­es on back­pay can­not set­tle their griev­ances over dis­placed work­ers, un­re­solved wage ne­go­ti­a­tions and em­ploy­ees still sur­viv­ing on 2013 salaries.

Sev­er­al fans of ca­lyp­so leg­end Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co left dis­ap­point­ed yes­ter­day af­ter ar­riv­ing at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) in San Fer­nan­do, hop­ing to view his body, on­ly to learn that the cas­ket would re­main closed. The body of Spar­row, born Slinger Fran­cis­co, lay in re­pose in the venue’s Lit­tle The­atre lob­by as mem­bers of the pub­lic gath­ered to pay their fi­nal re­spects.

That was Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning’s view af­ter coun­cil­lor Nigel Cout­ti­er de­feat­ed Hazel Man­ning on Mon­day for chair­man­ship of PNM’s San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive.

Po­lice said a team led by Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Sr Supt Bhag­wan­deen, along with of­fi­cers of the Home In­va­sion Task Force, An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Squad and Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force, were re­spond­ing to an in­ci­dent at Per­ry Street, Per­se­ver­ance Road, around 7.30 am.

Pres­i­dent of the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers' Trade Union (SWW­TU), Michael An­nisette, says work­ers of An­gos­tu­ra Ltd are firm in their de­ci­sion not to ac­cept a four per cent wage in­crease, con­tend­ing that in­dus­tri­al ac­tion is pos­si­ble if man­age­ment does not meet with them to fur­ther dis­cus­sions in a time­ly man­ner.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic at­tend­ing the ly­ing in re­pose and cel­e­bra­tion of life for ca­lyp­so leg­end the Mighty Spar­row are be­ing asked to ob­serve strict guide­lines, in­clud­ing a ban on pho­tog­ra­phy, videog­ra­phy and flow­ers at the venue.

A 29-year-old Pe­nal man charged with home in­va­sion was grant­ed $75,000 bail when he ap­peared be­fore the Siparia Mas­ters Court on Mon­day.

It is my priv­i­lege to present the 2027 Na­tion­al Bud­get to this Ho­n­ourable House and to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

PwC has warned that sev­er­al de­tails of the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed tax changes re­main un­re­solved, in­clud­ing how Trinidad and To­ba­go in­tends to col­lect VAT on dig­i­tal ser­vices sup­plied by for­eign com­pa­nies with­out cre­at­ing ad­di­tion­al costs or com­pli­ance bur­dens for busi­ness­es.