New­ly ap­point­ed chair­man of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), Roshan Bab­wah, says tack­ling the coun­try’s wa­ter sup­ply chal­lenges—par­tic­u­lar­ly in un­der­served ar­eas—is the new board’s top pri­or­i­ty.

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter and for­mer En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young, has re­spond­ed to com­ments made by his suc­ces­sor, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, re­gard­ing a High Court rul­ing in­volv­ing the Min­istry of En­er­gy.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has ac­cused the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of pros­ti­tut­ing CEPEP and us­ing the pro­gramme as a slush fund to ben­e­fit se­nior par­ty of­fi­cials.

Se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port were strength­ened overnight on Fri­day, fol­low­ing a dar­ing rob­bery at the Pi­ta Pit in which cash and valu­ables were stolen at gun­point.

Hours af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned of a surge in hu­man and drug traf­fick­ing—fu­elled by Venezue­lan na­tion­als and in­volv­ing lo­cal gang mem­bers—po­lice un­cov­ered a traf­fick­ing ring in Tu­na­puna, res­cu­ing 12 women, in­clud­ing three vic­tims.

Hun­dreds of pa­tients across Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pub­lic hos­pi­tals may be wait­ing in lim­bo for crit­i­cal surg­eries—some for months, oth­ers for years.

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin has promised to give an up­date in­volv­ing a two-year old in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions that “se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials” have been in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing.

In the fish­ing vil­lage of Ica­cos in Ce­dros, where Venezuela is just sev­en miles away, res­i­dents and fish­er­men fear for their safe­ty and liveli­hoods amid ten­sions be­tween the two coun­tries.

Reg­gae artiste Siz­zla has re­ject­ed as false a claim that he de­mand­ed a fee equal to that of fel­low Ja­maican artiste Vy­bz Kar­tel to close the One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val af­ter Kar­tel failed to ap­pear.

Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has wel­comed re­cent progress on Shell’s Man­a­tee gas project and urged the com­pa­ny to ex­plore in­creas­ing gas out­put to ad­dress Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ur­gent gas short­age.

Lo­cal na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and law en­force­ment of­fi­cials met yes­ter­day evening to dis­cuss al­le­ga­tions of a lo­cal link to desta­bilise Venezuela.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says the “ho­n­our sys­tem” for forex dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­mot­ed by the last gov­ern­ment has not worked to the ben­e­fit of the econ­o­my or the small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es.