Ahead of the up­com­ing na­tion­al bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, stake­hold­ers are call­ing for strate­gic pol­i­cy shifts and tar­get­ed fis­cal in­ter­ven­tions.

In a no­tice post­ed to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change and pub­lished in the me­dia, ma­jor­i­ty state-owned First Cit­i­zens said Haqq’s ap­point­ment took ef­fect on Au­gust 24, 2026.

The Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NID­CO) record­ed a sharp de­cline in prof­itabil­i­ty for its 2021 fi­nan­cial year, with prof­it af­ter tax falling by more than 96 per cent to $354,216.

Kiss Bak­ing Com­pa­ny has ad­just­ed the prices of sev­er­al of its snack prod­ucts, with dis­trib­u­tors and su­per­mar­kets re­ceiv­ing a re­vised price list ear­li­er this week.

Fol­low­ing the re­lease of the Caribbean En­er­gy Price In­dex H2 2026, two cli­mate change and re­new­able en­er­gy ex­perts are sup­port­ing the call made to up­date poli­cies to in­crease re­new­able en­er­gy adop­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

For­mer min­is­ter of fi­nance Colm Im­bert has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of cre­at­ing a multi­bil­lion-dol­lar pub­lic-sec­tor wage and back­pay bur­den through what he de­scribed as un­re­al­is­tic elec­tion promis­es, warn­ing that the fi­nan­cial pres­sure is al­ready af­fect­ing the de­liv­ery of ba­sic pub­lic ser­vices.

State-owned Ude­cott, which is the man­ag­er of the car park in down­town Port-of-Spain, an­nounced a $50 in­crease for re­served and VIP park­ing, in a no­tice post­ed around the Parkade, as part of its changes to its park­ing arrange­ment.

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Work­ers at An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Ltd protest­ed out­side the com­pa­ny’s Laven­tille head­quar­ters yes­ter­day, as share­hold­ers gath­ered in­side for the com­pa­ny’s 44th an­nu­al meet­ing, with the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union (SWW­TU) ac­cus­ing man­age­ment of putting pro­duc­tion ahead of work­ers’ health and safe­ty.

Six­ty-four years af­ter in­de­pen­dence, T&T stands at a crit­i­cal de­vel­op­men­tal cross­road, with its tra­di­tion­al en­er­gy-based mod­el fac­ing grow­ing pres­sure and the need for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly ur­gent.

Gen­er­al Ac­ci­dent In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny Ja­maica Ltd is aim­ing to com­plete its mul­ti-step ac­qui­si­tion of Bea­con In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny Ltd by the fourth quar­ter of 2026, as the planned amal­ga­ma­tion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go in­sur­er with its ex­ist­ing sub­sidiary clears an­oth­er reg­u­la­to­ry hur­dle.

The com­men­tary be­low was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished on April 3, 2025, and is be­ing re­pub­lished to­day as a re­sult the re­ac­tions to last week's col­umn in this space, head­lined 'Will trade unions turn against Govt?'

An­gos­tu­ra di­rec­tor Jen­nifer Fred­er­ick sur­vived a heat­ed chal­lenge to her re-elec­tion as a di­rec­tor of the rum and bit­ters com­pa­ny yes­ter­day, with its 44th an­nu­al meet­ing ex­pos­ing a sharp di­vide be­tween mi­nor­i­ty share­hold­ers and in­ter­ests con­trol­ling a large por­tion of the com­pa­ny’s vot­ing pow­er.