THE EDITOR:
SIR, the Regulated Industries Commission (RIC) has announced that electricity rates will increase, effective March, 2006.

The original concept of the existence of the RIC was to seek the welfare of the consuming public.

The government must be reminded that TTEC, TSTT, WASA and CCTT are all full-fledged monopolies, which were created by them.

This effectively means that there is no competition whatsoever, and consumers are at the mercy of these monopolies, with absolutely no redress.

One would have thought that the RIC was established to protect us, the consumers.

So it is back to the old khaki pants, holding the population to ransom.

A clear-cut case was NFM, which, when Nutrimix came on the scene, all their prices dropped, there was a cut in their cinderella staff, as competition emerged.

TTEC is not a business enterprise, it is a service rendered to the people, by the government and a government service is either free or non-profit.

No reasons have been offered for the rise in rates TTEC operates in a vacuum, as nobody knows its modus operandi. What the public needs to know is the salary scale under which TTEC operates, then one would understand the reasons for the hike in rates.

These workers are amongst the highest paid in the West Indies.

Up to November 5, inflation stands at 23 per cent, and rising.

The government must be mandated to absorb this unnecessary rise in rates.

As it is at present, billons are being frittered away on useless projects, and no concern is given to such a vital product as electricity.

Why should we have to pay for poor negotiations by government with other companies?

Why not remove VAT from public utilities?

Why not trim the fat to an acceptable level, and allow the nation to live a life.

THE EDITOR:
THE March 1, price-hike for electricity supplied to TTEC’s industrial, commercial and residential consumers will have the same unforeseen, negative and domino effects across the economy as the ill-advised gas price-hike introduced by the current administration.

In fact rising inflation, tax increases, high wage settlements and rising food and household expenditures have become the DNA of People’s National Movement (PNM) Administrations past and present.

The proposed 35 per cent electricity-price increase cannot be justified having regard to the current escalating inflationary pressures that are further pauperising 35 per cent of our people living in a poverty trap amidst galloping and rising prosperity.

This is a virtual 35 per cent bread hike against which the people must rise up in orchestrated anger and premeditated disgust having regard to the overflowing coffers of the Exchequer.

We cannot compare electricity prices in TnT with the rest of the Caribbean because gas is produced locally and we have our own peculiar economic operating conditions.

The control and management of inflation to single digits is the heart of sound management of the economy and economic survival and social welfare.

Ours has already breached the eight per cent prohibited zone. It is daily powering ineluctably into the uncomfortable and uncontrollable double-digit realm.

Soon the purchasing power of people’s hard-earned savings and fixed pension payments will be decimated.

The TT dollar will soon begin to depreciate again leading to large-scale increases in the price of imports and the purchase of foreign currency.

The 35 per cent electricity price-hike will create pervasive havoc in the economy and affect the welfare of the ballooning underclass in TnT.

It is like a potent dose of senna tea being administered to an already ailing patient.

Government intervention is now critical to avert runaway inflation and stem further currency depreciations.

The Manning Administration must zero rate VAT on electricity bills and subsidise gas to PowerGen to act as a palliative to stemming the spiral rising electricity costs.

This electricity price increase is insensitive to the prevailing culture of stress and tension in the society that cannot guarantee the basic safety and security of the citizenry and the integrity of the creators and generators of wealth.

The latter is on an exodus mode to safer climes.

Does David Abdullah of FITUN support this punitive 35 per cent increase in household expenditure seeing that his OWTU will benefit substantially?

THE EDITOR:
IN his/her letter to the Press of 14/1/06 A.D. Jennings concludes, re the Privy Council’s decision on Brad Boyce, that “one law for some, another law for others” is alive and well in TnT.

Since in developing his/her argument, the point of which, if not blind prejudice, escapes me, he/she predicts that another high-profile trial currently in progress is destined for a similar conclusion.

In so doing, Mr./Ms. Jennings raises more questions than answers.

Might a concerned citizen enquire about the morality and authority upon which the charge against an assassin for hire, was reduced from that of murdering another citizen in cold blood, to one of manslaughter, for which he is serving a 30-year sentence?

As a concerned citizen, beleaguered by murder and kidnap, robbery and rape, I demand an explanation why my tax dollar will support a self-confessed, cold-blooded murderer for the next 25, or how many years, as opposed to guaranteeing him a prompt date with the appropriate sentence for premeditated murder.

If, as appears obvious, his life has been spared in return for incriminating evidence, in a trial pregnant with ethno/political implications, 13 years after his crime, can there be any hope of effective official confrontation with bloody criminal anarchy under this ineffective ruling dispensation?

Not even in Alice’s Looking Glass world is justice inverted to the point where a self-confessed “gun for hire” would voluntarily abandon the relative security of the USA, to face a possible murder charge in TnT.

Nor even in that inverted world, would the State reduce, for a contract killer, the mortal jeopardy of a murder charge, to a non-lethal charge of manslaughter.

For Jennings’ further enlightenment, that killer did not cause his victim’s demise from behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, nor on the spur of the moment in the heat of altercation.

He lurked in ambush and shot his victim to death in cold blood!

He can be thus no more guilty of manslaughter than I, and if not charged and convicted of murder, his prosecution, conviction and sentence on any other charge, is a prostitution of justice.

Only in the Republic of TnT, chronically ill since “morality, spirituality and the rule of law” was permitted to usurp the sanctity of the majority vote, can the word of a career killer be employed by the State as the basis for the prosecution of individuals of impeccable social, religious and professional standing in their community.

If that was the point of A.D. Jennings’ “letter of the day”, then I heartily concur.

In light of all the foregoing, I cannot but again concur with Jennings’ prediction of the inevitable result of an ongoing and expensive parody of justice, whatever the ethnic, economic, or social status of the accused .

It is for this same reason that I vehemently reject his/her implied criticism of the wisdom and impartiality of the Privy Council’s verdict in the Brad Boyce case.

Under the extant ruling dispensation, TnT will never be ready to accept the CCJ as its final arbiter of justice. While Trinis, like justice, may be blinded by political rhetoric, they are not that stupid.

Unless, of course, to Jennings’ apparent bias, ethno/political expediency and the politics of mass distraction are suitable substitutes for justice and equity.

THE EDITOR:
PM PATRICK MANNING’s prevarication on withholding of confirmation of Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police, Oswyn Allard in the position 13 months after he assumed the acting post, at a time when the nation is literally under siege from criminals, makes no sense.

Manning should now have had a fairly good idea of whether Allard was or was not capable of performing his functions.

What a pity that, unlike the PM, we the citizens, do not have the power of veto after an election!

With talk of constitutional reform in the air it is vital that a referendum midway through a PM’s term of office be considered as an integral part of any such reform.

How many of this performing (or non-performing) administration would we have confirmed for the balance of their term?

Do we need a shake up only in the Police Service?

Are we perhaps looking at things through the wrong end of the telescope?

About 287 murders for the year just ended and 28 in the first 18 days of 2006 is no recommendation for either Allard or Manning.

An astronomical increase in homicides since the Manning elevation speaks for itself.

How many schools, police stations or hospitals (excepting the controversial Scarborough Hospital, yet to be completed) have the People’s National Movement (PNM) built?

So what else is new -- beyond multimillion blimps, eyes in the sky, tsunami shelters to come and despair all around -- except for a PM handing out letters of appointment to a Police Commissioner and a Permanent Secretary advising an Ag. CoP to go on leave?

Housing yes -- but for what agenda, and even that far below the promised quota.