Port-of-Spain – Former prime minister Basdeo Panday last week sued the All Trinidad General Workers Trade Union following eviction from his office at the union's headquarters at Rienzi Complex in Couva.
In his lawsuit, Panday is asking the court to reinstate him as an occupier of the office on the north-eastern corner of the ground floor of the building. He also wants an injunction restraining the union from interfering with him while he uses the office and preventing it from locking him out.
In support of his lawsuit, Panday said when he became president general of the union in 1973, he realised the ATSGWTU did not possess its own building, and Rienzi Complex was built to house its offices during his presidency.
Panday said he continued to maintain an office space at Rienzi until his resignation in 1995, when he became prime minister.
He claimed he was told by the then general secretary, Sam Maharaj, that the union passed a resolution to honour his contribution to the ATSGWTU. It made him honorary president general for life, and together with that accolade he would be given an office space at Rienzi Complex, also for life.
Panday denied being notified of his removal as honorary president or any of the rights bestowed on him by the trade union.
He also noted he renovated the 930 square feet office at a cost of more than (TT) $120,000. Also, he denied occupation of the office was by virtue of a tenancy, or that he was indebted to the union for rent due on the office space.
Panday noted it was to his “horror and dismay” that the union, on February 21, put “locks with huge chains” on the front door to the office, preventing him from getting access to it.
Said Panday: “This has caused me great distress as I have many of my important documents and papers stored in the office. In addition, I have many important and significant gifts that are of great sentimental value kept in that office. Further I am unable to attend to my many commitments as many of my files and other important documents are housed in my offices.”
The union was accused of acting “maliciously and out of spite for me and with the intention of humiliating me and injuring my proper feelings of dignity and pride and causing me to be held up to ridicule and contempt before my family friends and the general public”.
Additionally, “I have been subject to humiliation and suffered great anguish and mental distress.”
Following Panday’s eviction, the union’s current president general Nirvan Maharaj claimed the union took the decision to evict him since he had accumulated over $500,000 in unpaid rent since 2012.
Maharaj claimed the union requested payment from him over 50 times, but was ignored.
In July 2016, the union evicted the UNC, saying the party failed to pay increased rent from $12,000 to $25,000 per month.

Port-of-Spain – Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar on Friday called on the government to withdraw the Non-Profit Organisations Bill, saying certain clauses in the bill are draconian, dangerous, and dictatorial and could infringe on the rights of many groups in the country.
If the government fails to go back to the drawing board with the bill, Persad-Bissessar threatened to take them to court if it is passed by a simple majority.
Persad-Bissessar said the bill came like a “thief in the night” and had ill-intentions. It seeks to provide the registration, establishment, and maintenance and obligations of NPOs.
During Friday’s Parliament sitting, she said environmental group Fishermen and Friends of the Sea stated that the proposed law, if abused, can be used to persecute independent civil society groups that stand in defence of public rights.
While the expressed intention of the bill may cross the constitutional hurdle, Persad-Bissessar said it does not strike a “proper balance”, as certain clauses seek to interfere with the rights to property of NPO bodies, which was a violation.
“There are clauses in the bill that are clearly disproportionate, and the powers propose to give sanctions which are arbitrary and not properly justified in law or logic,” Persad-Bissessar said.
She said Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi had indicated that there were 104,000 companies, of which 9,000 fell under NPOs that had been registered. She questioned why the remaining 100,000 private companies were left untouched.
“There are people with many companies right here getting (TT) $23 million contracts and more million-dollar contracts. That is where the money is. Follow the money. But you are coming after the small man, the little man, as your first hit,” she said.
“The sporting groups, the village council, the pepper roti and bake and shark producer. I am not saying you must not come. That is your first hit, man, and you have not consulted with them,” she noted.
Persad-Bissessar said this was a violation of their rights, and many of the clauses out-lined were “dictatorial, dangerous and draconian”.
She identified Clause 4, which seeks to make the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) “the regulator” of NPOs”, noting, “It’s clear that the FIU cannot be the regulator of non-profit organisations. It would be a conflict of interest. You cannot have a regulatory body which is also an investigatory body with powers under the other aspect of the criminal law.”
Persad-Bissessar also found Clause 18 to be draconian. This clause deals with the surrendering of registration and 21 on the distribution of property. “If you surrender (your property) they are going to give it to somebody else,” Persad-Bissessar said. Why it was necessary to give up your property if you would have broken no law, she wondered.
“You want to tell me what I must do with my property? So that makes it more arbitrary and disproportionate,” she added.
Persad-Bissessar also insisted the aim of the bill was not to monitor and regulate NPOs.
“It is punitive. Therefore, in its present form we cannot support this legislation,” she maintained, while calling on the government to withdraw the bill and go back to the drawing board.
"Do your consultations. Go back and look at the UK model. Let good sense prevail," she advised.
Persad-Bissessar was certain the government would pass the bill with a simple majority.
“Should you succeed with passing it, as you will be because you have your own built-in majority, we will challenge it in the courts,” she vowed, as Al-Rawi burst out laughing in the Chamber.

Port-of-Spain – The government indicated last week a passenger vessel has been leased to replace the ailing T&T Express, and is due in Port-of-Spain next month to service the faltering inter-island sea-bridge, Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan has revealed.
However, following Sinanan’s announcement, chair of the Inter-island Transportation Committee Diane Hadad said information from the media about the imminent arrival of another passenger vessel was news to her.
Sinanan made the revelation on Friday while speaking about the proposed Toco port. When built, this port will provide a fast ferry service to Tobago to ease the lingering sea-bridge woes between both islands.
“We could have a ferry service running like in all the islands ...all the countries in Europe. A ferry service running every hour because the cost of operating would be significantly lower than it is now,” Sinanan said.
He said the money collected from passengers utilising the current service was a small percentage of the (TT) $150,000 actually spent by the government for each trip.
“People don’t understand that. The boat may break down for one reason and you may have about 25 or 30 people on that boat. It’s $150,000 to run that boat up and down,” Sinanan said.
“You have to have the service. This service could allow you to run smaller vessels too. Use the existing vessels and have them running every hour at a significantly less cost,” he said.
Sinanan said a good ferry service in Toco would bring Tobago closer to Trinidad in response to a question regarding the ailing sea-bridge.
“What you would have is two access points. If you notice, you don’t hear nothing much about the sea-bridge again because we told the population the vessels were in a bad shape, and you can’t just go outside and buy a vessel. There are no vessels available,” he said.
Sinanan noted the (US) $17.4 million Galleons Passage purchased last year has done the job.
Said Sinanan: “Very soon we have another vessel coming in by the end of May. So we would have three vessels operating. One will then come out and go into dry dock. Cabinet has already approved that. We are expecting that that will happen very soon.”
However, Hadad said she was unaware of the latest move by the government in leasing another vessel. “We have no communication from the minister or ministry with regards to such. We have no such information about any boat. We are not aware of anything. The relationship has been awful, non-existent,” she said.
Hadad said it would be interesting to find out who leased the boat, at what price, and for how long. Insisting she no longer had faith and confidence in the current administration, Hadad said the collapsed sea-bridge had caused businesses in Tobago to crash.
Additionally, “There is nothing to have a problem with the sea-bridge anymore. People have given up on sailing across there. The people who use the Galleons Passage are those who are desperate, and they tell you that.”

Port-of-Spain – Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley last week responded yet again to claims Trinidad and Tobago was “snubbed” by US President Donald Trump in a meeting held with five regional leaders. Also, Rowley again defended the relationship with China against claims it was a “predator” in the region.
Last month, Trump met with leaders of the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Saint Lucia at his private resort at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. The reason for the meeting was to discuss the Venezuelan crisis and China trade practices.
Speaking during a radio interview last Thursday, Rowley described complaints about Trinidad and Tobago’s exclusion from the Trump meeting as “nonsense”, while noting an item on the agenda was discussion about China’s “predatory” presence in the Caribbean.
Said Rowley: “It means that there are people who are seeing China as predators in the region, and Trinidad and Tobago’s relationship with China as bothersome. Trinidad and Tobago’s relationship with China goes back to the founding days of Trinidad and Tobago under Dr Eric Williams.”
Rowley said Trinidad and Tobago has a strong relationship with China, adding people must know their history.
He also denied claims Trinidad and Tobago had taken a position of non-interference in the Venezuela crisis to protect the Dragon Gas deal.
“We said we are going to maintain our neutrality and our stance on peace and our standing principle of non-intervention and non-interference. Because the day you violate those two principles, you can't come back to it,” Rowley said.
He added the countries invited to the meeting with Trump were the ones supporting regime change in Venezuela. Consequently, Trinidad and Tobago was not expected to be invited.
However, he noted a disagreement between countries is nothing new, and will not affect the relationship between Trinidad and Tobago and the US.

Port-of-Spain – Pundit Shervon Narad continued to struggle for his life at the San Fernando General Hospital last week, the victim of gunshots to the chest and abdomen by a bandit on March 27. He underwent emergency surgery last week, and remained listed in a serious condition, police said.
Earlier this week, Homicide Region Three investigators were questioning people but no arrests had been made. According to reports, police were trying to locate the man who shot the pundit and another man, Joseph Narine, 60, during a prayer service on the night of March 26 in Hardbargain, Williamsville. Narad and Narine were friends.
According to police, at 11.30 pm that night, Narad was leading prayers in a prayer room with Narine when a bandit entered and demanded money and jewellery.
The wounded pundit told investigators the bandit pointed the gun at him while making his demands. Narine was shot in the head and chest, and died where he fell.
Narad said he was shot in the stomach when he fled. The bandit continued firing at the fleeing pundit. Following this, the thief then ransacked several rooms in the house and made off with jewellery.
Narine’s relatives showed blood trails starting from inside the prayer room and leading to other areas of the house, indicating the pundit’s escape path from the gunman. Neighbours who heard the gunshots found the bleeding man in the bushes.
An autopsy showed Narine died from a bullet to the head. He had turned 60 on March 16.