Let me begin by addressing myself directly to the families of the divers whose lives were snuffed out in the Paria incident: those of us who have lost family members and friends understand your pain. So we hope that eventually, you will remember those who were lost more with joy than with sorrow.

On the Paria Fuel Trading Company website, you can find these words: “We are looking for the right people with the talent and drive to deliver quality, every day.”

Well, Paria, it looks like you found the wrong person to fill the post of communications lead. More than 24 hours after tragedy struck, there was no formal response about the fatalities which occurred under your watch. Your organisation chart suggests that the communications lead is a loner with no support or anyone reporting upwards.

It is shameful that yet another state company has been caught with no communications crisis plan and a newspaper editorial is inspired to comment on the apparent absence of protocols and plans for handling a crisis.

I wonder if there will be any accountability for this tragedy. I wonder if the CEO will be held accountable and what plan will be engaged to prevent a recurrence. I wonder if there will even be a report released about what happened and what plans are now in place to prevent it from happening again.

My first exposure to the concept of crisis communications occurred when I joined Texaco in 1979 and the exposure continued at its successor companies until 1989.

When 14 people died in the explosion at Pointe-a-Pierre in 1985, I was called to report for duty and, within 24 hours, my colleague and I were driving to Port-of-Spain with news releases to be delivered to the then existing media: two newspapers, one television station, and two radio stations.

The world has evolved significantly since then and nowadays people can simultaneously issue news releases to our multiple newspapers, radio, and television stations as well as social media outlets without leaving their chairs.  The last news release on Paria’s website is dated 27 April 2021.

Communications professionals are fully aware of the importance of activating the communications crisis plan immediately upon being advised of a crisis. They know the importance of a quick, transparent response. They know that a dedicated spokesperson must be trained and holding prepared statements just waiting to be edited and released.

These are the fundamental activities to be launched when a crisis occurs. It is neither rocket science nor ground-breaking technology; it is basic. The fundamentals remain the same: plan ahead, respond quickly and be transparent in your engagement.

Our state companies and leaders in government continue to fumble and embarrass us with their lack of knowledge of the basics. I am convinced that the challenges faced by state organisations begin in the selection process.

How are people hired? What kind of screening do they go through? In the Private Sector, many jobs require a university degree as a prerequisite. Shouldn’t those handling public funds and other resources be equally well or better qualified?

Trinidad and Tobago is facing a crisis of leadership at all levels and we have tainted every process with our politics. Unless there is a fundamental redesign of our systems, processes and procedures, tragedy will continue to befall us. We have the talent but we seem to lack the political will to do what is right every time.

Hopefully, our leaders will all learn from this Paria tragedy.

Property taxes are necessary no matter who is in government.  The goal of property tax is to generate revenue to fund the government’s expenditure.  Prior to 2009, most homeowners paid their land and building taxes and would have dutifully continued paying into an improved, modernized, and efficient system.  Our country has lost more than 10 years of revenue and some new homeowners are convinced that the tax is burdensome, oppressive, and regressive so they refuse to cooperate with any efforts to implement the renewed version.

We got to this situation because, under the PNM administration which ended in 2009/2010, the law was withdrawn without a new one being fully implemented.  A clever “Axe de Tax” campaign helped to oust the PNM Government and from 2010 to 2015, the country was led by the People’s Partnership.  During this period, new legislation to regularize the tax was not put in place so we continued to be unable to collect property taxes.  Then came the PNM administration of 2015 to 2020 and again property tax was not implemented.  Now the 2020 PNM administration is trying to implement it and they are “ketching their nenen”. 

One way to guarantee the successful implementation of this new property tax approach is for us to see collaboration across the floor between the PNM and the UNC.  Agreement on this issue can send a strong message to John Public that we need to work together on issues of national interest. No matter who is in government, the collection of property taxes will positively impact the government’s coffers and provide the much-needed income to fund the government’s projects.  Once the government can fund necessary projects, we the citizens all benefit.

Our current reality is that there will be a continued significant decline in income from the energy sector and the government has limited options to raise revenues.  Property taxes, therefore, become even more important as a way of expanding income to fund recurrent expenditure.

While I support the re-introduction of Property Taxes, I am concerned that Taxes disappear into the abyss of the “Consolidated Fund” and citizens can make no direct correlation between their taxes and the delivery of services in their communities.  Maybe the time has come for a national discussion about a way to use property taxes to improve the geographic areas in which they are collected.  

Dennise Demming Tuesday 8 February 2022 Environment

After 22 years of passing the buck, the government has failed to pass the Beverage Container Bill which was intended to provide a structure for the collection and safe disposal of beverage containers. Their collective incompetence has facilitated the degradation of our environment, the clogging of our waterways, and litter on our footpaths, streets, rivers, and streams.

But what about the manufacturers of the beverages we purchase? What is their responsibility?

During the short 22 years of the rise of the bottled water culture, a few manufacturers have become multi-millionaires while presiding over the destruction of our island’s ecosystem. And during this time, WASA continued to shame us by their underperformance.

If the beverage container tsars cared about our country, they would have established the infrastructure to take care of the recycling of the plastic bottles which house their products. Instead, they sit on their hands waiting for the government to act.

According to the website of one such company: ‘The vision for the company is to provide one bottle a day of high-quality healthy beverages to every man, woman, and child in the English-speaking Caribbean.’

With a regional population of some seven million and a conservative estimate of one dollar profit on each bottle that is a daily profit of TT$7,000,000.

How much more money do you need?

In a Parliamentary debate in 2012, then Senator Faris Al-Rawi, the current attorney general, laid out the business case for a recycling business when he said: ‘If you do any conservative extrapolation of the numbers and you look at an average between 25 cents and one dollar, and you take it at 75 cents for plastic bottles alone, Mr President, you are looking at a half-a-billion-dollar industry for plastics alone.

‘Add on to that cans, add on to that packages by Nestlé, et cetera, anything that is a beverage under the terms of the Bill, you are looking at a billion-dollar industry.’

What is needed to solve this problem is a system and a process to incentivise the collection and recycling of beverage containers, especially plastics. The current players in the market have the expertise, competence and experiences to take advantage of this business opportunity but they just don’t care. And the government is happy to pussyfoot around while our island deteriorates.

The public is not without responsibility for the degradation of the condition of our island but we know that punitive measures seldom work. What is needed is the system, structure and process to make it easy for us to be part of recycling activities.

While our island continues to be covered with trash, here are three things I would love to see us do to help solve this wicked yet very preventable behavioural problem.

Firstly, find a reusable bottle; especially if you are going to exercise, then you will not be tempted to just throw away the bottle. More importantly, you will also be assured that the water you are drinking is free of microplastics.

A second though probably more important measure we can embrace is to separate all our plastics and take them to a neighbourhood recycling bin. Separating at home can go a long way towards preventing plastics from entering our waterways, rivers and streams, and also teach children that reusable is more desirable than disposable.

A third measure focuses on women and the shift towards reusable sanitary napkins and pads for menstruation.

Everyone has a part to play but bottled water is our biggest culprit and it’s time for the bottled water tsars to show that their caring includes taking leadership in the recycling sector.

Sherri Mason, a sustainability researcher at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College commented: “If we took what we spend on bottled water just in the US and we used that instead on water infrastructure, every person on this planet could have access to clean water three times over.” 

Her essential point, I am sure, is also true of Trinidad and Tobago.