The Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme Com­pa­ny (CEPEP) has claimed that its for­mer board was de­ceived in­to con­tro­ver­sial­ly re­new­ing the con­tracts of over 300 con­trac­tors days be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion on April 28. The com­pa­ny said the re­newals were based on a fraud­u­lent mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion that the ac­tion was ap­proved by the then-Cab­i­net. 

As thou­sands of Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) work­ers re­main in lim­bo over the fu­ture of their jobs, cur­rent and for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties min­is­ters Bar­ry Padarath and Mar­vin Gon­za­les con­tin­ue to trade blame over the award­ing of CEPEP con­tracts.

Two for­mer min­is­ters of en­er­gy be­lieve that while it’s not detri­men­tal to have a non-ex­pert lead­ing the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny, Ger­ald Ramdeen must quick­ly learn the in­dus­try and un­der­stand the weight of the task ahead, as NGC is the coun­try’s pri­ma­ry en­er­gy earn­er.

At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har says the new board at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing has raised hopes that a set­tle­ment will be of­fered to the griev­ing rel­a­tives and sur­vivors of the 2022 in­ci­dent.

The Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment has ap­point­ed Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress na­tion­al cam­paign man­ag­er Feeroze Khan as the new pro­gramme man­ag­er of the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP).

Trinidad and To­ba­go and af­fect­ed ter­ri­to­ries in the wider Caribbean re­gion are once again be­ing urged to main­tain a fair and trans­par­ent tax sys­tem to un­lock deep­er trade ties and job-cre­at­ing in­vest­ments from the Eu­ro­pean Union.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says Gov­ern­ment has met with Oan­do PLC and has in­formed the com­pa­ny that the process is con­tin­u­ing now that the Re­fin­ery Restart Com­mit­tee has been ap­point­ed.

No one has stepped for­ward to chal­lenge Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the post of UNC po­lit­i­cal leader as the par­ty gets set to hold its lead­er­ship elec­tion on Au­gust 17.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion says it has start­ed pro­cess­ing pay­ments un­der the 2025 School Sup­plies and Book Grant for 20,000 stu­dents at­tend­ing gov­ern­ment and gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools.

A de­layed ship­ment of Tacrolimus—the es­sen­tial an­ti-re­jec­tion drug for or­gan trans­plant re­cip­i­ents—is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive to­day, Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe con­firmed.

The Prime Min­is­ters of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da are call­ing on Trinidad and To­ba­go to share rev­enue col­lect­ed from over­flight fees through the Pi­ar­co Flight In­for­ma­tion Re­gion (FIR), which they ar­gue en­com­pass­es por­tions of their sov­er­eign air­space.

The Min­istry of Health has con­firmed the ar­rival of 90,000 vials of In­sulin 70/30, al­le­vi­at­ing a tem­po­rary short­age that be­came a full stock­out late last month.