Over the past year, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ad­min­is­tra­tion has tak­en some steps to trans­late its 2025 man­i­festo promis­es in­to con­crete ac­tions for the food and agri­cul­ture sec­tor. The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries has pri­ori­tised train­ing and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing, launch­ing the Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Train­ing Ini­tia­tive (NATI) in ear­ly 2026 to train rough­ly 20,000 farm­ers and agri-en­tre­pre­neurs across 35 cours­es, with a strong fo­cus on mod­ern, cli­mate-re­silient tech­niques and agro-pro­cess­ing. This aligns with the man­i­festo’s pledge to mod­ernise farm­ing through pre­ci­sion agri­cul­ture, dig­i­tal tools, and ded­i­cat­ed train­ing cen­tres, and marks one of the most clear­ly rolled-out man­i­fes­ta­tions of the UNC’s agri-mod­erni­sa­tion agen­da.

Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd will im­ple­ment a se­ries of fee in­creas­es on se­lect prod­ucts and ser­vices from this Fri­day, May 1, prompt­ing con­cern from busi­ness groups who warn the changes could add pres­sure to al­ready strained en­ter­pris­es.

T&T con­glom­er­ate ANSA McAL Ltd is seek­ing to raise US$15.31 mil­lion through the sale of shares in the Bar­ba­di­an com­pa­ny, Roberts Man­u­fac­tur­ing Ltd, which is prepar­ing to list on the is­land’s stock mar­ket next month.

In a news re­lease on Fri­day, the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny ex­plained, “The trans­ac­tion low­ers Dig­i­cel’s bor­row­ing costs on its ex­ist­ing debt and re­flects im­proved op­er­at­ing per­for­mance, dis­ci­plined fi­nan­cial man­age­ment, and con­tin­ued progress since its re­fi­nanc­ing last year. The repric­ing of its first lien term loan fol­lows a re­cent US$100 mil­lion vol­un­tary pre­pay­ment, un­der­scor­ing Dig­i­cel’s fo­cus on delever­ag­ing and fis­cal dis­ci­pline.”

The Steel­work­ers Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SWUTT) is call­ing for ur­gent State in­ter­ven­tion af­ter 48 work­ers at Crys­tal Stream, a bot­tled wa­ter and bev­er­age com­pa­ny lo­cat­ed at the Fred­er­ick Set­tle­ment Eteck Park in Ca­roni, were sent home with­out sev­er­ance fol­low­ing the sud­den clo­sure of the fa­cil­i­ty.

George Aboud, who died on Sun­day night at the age of 77 af­ter a pe­ri­od of ill­ness, was yes­ter­day de­scribed as a pi­o­neer and gi­ant of T&T’s busi­ness land­scape, leav­ing be­hind a re­tail and prop­er­ty em­pire built over decades.

Bus tick­ets and pen­sion grants in Trinidad and To­ba­go are set to go dig­i­tal, as the Gov­ern­ment moves to mod­ernise pub­lic ser­vices and elim­i­nate pa­per-based sys­tems.

Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says a sig­nif­i­cant boost in nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion is on the hori­zon fol­low­ing the ar­rival of heavy equip­ment at the Point Lisas port on Fri­day.

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Port of Spain North/St Ann’s West, Stu­art Young, has met with Act­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has raised con­cerns over the “sus­pi­cious” ac­qui­si­tion of Am­plia Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Lim­it­ed, con­firm­ing that a for­mal probe will now be launched in­to its op­er­a­tions and pur­chase.

A lead­er­ship shake-up has tak­en place at Am­plia Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Lim­it­ed, with Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Shawn Clarke out and a new act­ing head now in place.

Con­struc­tion on a new in­ter­na­tion­al­ly brand­ed ho­tel in South Trinidad is ex­pect­ed to be­gin with­in the next 60 days, bring­ing an es­ti­mat­ed 400 jobs dur­ing the build­ing phase and a fur­ther 150 per­ma­nent po­si­tions up­on com­ple­tion.