by: Geisha Alonzo

Has­sle-free loans and same day ap­proval are among the ser­vices be­ing of­fered by JMMB Ex­press Fi­nance (T&T) Ltd, the newest ad­di­tion to the JMMB fam­i­ly, which is pro­vid­ing a con­sumer fi­nanc­ing so­lu­tion pred­i­cat­ed on in­clu­sion, fair price and a quick re­sponse.

CEO of JMMB Ex­press Fi­nance El­son James said the dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing fac­tors are built on im­prov­ing the fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances of clients. While the com­pa­ny promis­es to de­liv­er com­pet­i­tive un­se­cured loans, the main goal is to break the cy­cle of debt clients ex­pe­ri­ence.

James, who un­der­scored the im­por­tance of hav­ing a cred­it score to se­cure a loan and at­trac­tive low­er re­pay­ment rates, said: “There are a lot of peo­ple with­in our mar­kets who have loans with var­i­ous in­sti­tu­tions and they don’t ben­e­fit from that loan da­ta. They go, they take out their stuff on hire pur­chase, they pay for it for years but they don’t have any sort of cred­it his­to­ry be­ing built.

“When it comes for them to get their car or mort­gage, there is no cred­it his­to­ry. For us it’s to try to get that mar­ket and bring them in­to the fold, so we al­low them to build a cred­it his­to­ry on a small­er loan. Then when they’re ready for that car or mort­gage or even in­vest­ments they have a path to that. They start with JMMB Ex­press Fi­nance and then they grow in­to the bank and then in­to in­vest­ments.”

The cen­tral ethos of JMMB is hav­ing the client’s best in­ter­est at heart.

Not­ing that in­ter­est rates are of­ten very high, James said be­cause tra­di­tion­al banks didn’t step in, clients have been forced to go to non-tra­di­tion­al lenders at high rates.

“We saw that as a busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ty but to al­so en­sure clients are get­ting a fair rate or a fair price for the loans that they are tak­ing and not be­ing tak­en ad­van­tage of,” he said.

He said JMMB’s prod­uct is dif­fer­ent from the of­fer­ings at oth­er lend­ing in­sti­tu­tions be­cause of the speed with which the trans­ac­tion is com­plet­ed.

“When you ap­ply—whether on­line or with­in our branch or on the phone—there is im­me­di­ate feed­back re­gard­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tion and then we send you to get your doc­u­ments. I think we’re the first to try to turn the whole process up­side down so that you don’t in­cur that time and ex­pense,” James ex­plained.

“We are al­so dif­fer­ent by rate. We are cheap­er than a lot of the oth­er mi­cro-lenders. Cred­it card rates in the mar­ket go from 24 to 27 per cent. We ac­tu­al­ly start at 20 per cent and max­i­mum at 30 per cent but it all de­pends on your cred­it score.

“For us, whether you’re a new or ex­ist­ing client, we are go­ing to give you that feed­back right away.”

James said the size of the mar­ket in T&T for con­sumer fi­nance loans is es­ti­mat­ed at be­tween $20 to $30 bil­lion, rang­ing from un­se­cured prod­ucts to high end loans.

“In cre­at­ing this prod­uct we self-reg­u­lat­ed our busi­ness to $40,000. We al­so have a bank, so the idea is at that dol­lar amount most peo­ple can get the things they want for an emer­gency. Any­thing be­yond that you can go through the bank it­self and go through a lend­ing process,” he said, adding that JMMB’s door is open to any­one, mem­ber or not.

The new fa­cil­i­ty is lo­cat­ed at 86, Ram­saran Street, Ch­agua­nas.

“It’s cen­tral. So if we’re go­ing to start there, it’s easy to ac­cess Ch­agua­nas from both sides of the is­land.”

The com­pa­ny is al­ready con­sid­er­ing open­ing an­oth­er lo­ca­tion at Up­per Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain in a month’s time, as well as a branch at Cipero Street, San Fer­nan­do, with­in two months.

“Next year it will be the East-West Cor­ri­dor and To­ba­go, so be­fore we fin­ish our fi­nan­cial year we’re aim­ing to have four to five branch­es,” he said.

Bor­row­ers can ac­cess loans up to $40,000 with a re­pay­ment pe­ri­od of three years, from the JMMB Ex­press Fi­nance.

The ap­pli­ca­tion process is faster and re­pay­ment is made con­ve­nient with Ex­press Fi­nance. Clients can make loan pay­ments us­ing sev­er­al op­tions such as via Sure Pay, a Trinidad-based pay­ment cen­tre, JMMB Bank (T&T) and JMMB Ex­press Fi­nance lo­ca­tions.

Speak­ing at the launch of the ser­vice, JMMB Group chair­man Archibald Camp­bell gave an in­sight in­to the im­por­tance of the fa­cil­i­ty in T&T’s fi­nan­cial land­scape.

He cit­ed World Bank sta­tis­tics which show that while ap­prox­i­mate­ly 75 per cent of T&T’s pop­u­la­tion over the age of 15 have bank ac­counts, on­ly an es­ti­mat­ed 34 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion over the age of 18 is con­sid­ered to be fi­nan­cial­ly lit­er­ate. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 58 per cent of peo­ple over the age of 15 in­di­cat­ed they have been un­able to save any mon­ey over the past year and on­ly 8.4 per cent of the over-15 pop­u­la­tion has ever bor­rowed from a li­censed fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion.

“Com­ing out of those sta­tis­tics the con­clu­sion to us was clear—more peo­ple need to be both brought in­to and in­clud­ed in the for­mal fi­nan­cial sec­tor,” Camp­bell said.

He con­clud­ed that more peo­ple are in dire need of be­ing per­son­al­ly-em­pow­ered through fi­nan­cial ed­u­ca­tion.

“Guid­ed by the team of our co-founders Dr Noel Ly­on and (the late) Joan Dun­can, JMMB has tak­en on the man­date of broad­en­ing the net of fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion in T&T with the roll-out of our first branch of JMMB Ex­press Fi­nance,” he said.

Yvonne Webb

Pan is the in­stru­ment that will take chil­dren around the globe, to places some on­ly dream of. That was the mes­sage de­liv­ered by Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az as he ad­dressed scores of young peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing in a Pan Ex­trav­a­gan­za at Skif­fle Bunch Pa­n­yard, San Fer­nan­do, on Ju­ly 3.

Billed Ju­nior Cham­pi­ons in Steel, the event, now in its fourth year, was host­ed by the St Mar­garet’s Boys’ Steel Or­ches­tra. Lend­ing sup­port to this award-win­ning band were Grant Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian Lit­tle Bunch, Gold­en Hand Steel Or­ches­tra and the Skif­fle Bunch Youth band, all win­ners of var­i­ous pan events.

Rose­marie Abra­ham, SEA teacher of St Mar­garet’s Boys, ex­plained the idea for the ex­trav­a­gan­za was con­cep­tu­alised around cre­at­ing a non-com­pet­i­tive at­mos­phere where the chil­dren could show­case their tal­ent and so­cialise with each oth­er. This event, she ex­plained, was al­so twofold in that one of the ob­jec­tives was to raise mon­ey to pur­chase pans for next year’s panora­ma.

St Mar­garet’s, which has en­cour­aged past stu­dents to re­turn in a spe­cial class where they are ex­posed to both the prac­ti­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal as­pect of the pan, won their third straight Ju­nior Panora­ma cham­pi­onship in the Un­der 13 cat­e­go­ry this year.

Their Un­der 21 team, placed third.

Di­az ad­vised the young play­ers, who not on­ly demon­strat­ed their dex­ter­i­ty on the pan, but their well co-or­di­nat­ed and chore­o­graphed move­ment, “please con­tin­ue to go for­ward by play­ing this in­stru­ment.

“This in­stru­ment will car­ry you to many parts of the uni­verse where you will be able to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

To the par­ents present, Di­az said, “this in­stru­ment is be­ing used around the world to open their minds for stud­ies.

“I hope our par­ents in this coun­try take heed and look at the in­stru­ment to el­e­vate your chil­dren ed­u­ca­tion­al­ly, for their fu­ture and the fu­ture of T&T.” Di­az not­ed there were many steel­band chil­dren in T&T who had ex­celled ar­tis­ti­cal­ly and aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly. Vic­tor Prescott, project co-or­di­na­tor, Pan in the Class­room Unit, brought greet­ings on be­half of Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Goopeesingh. Prescott said the Min­istry re­mained com­mit­ted to the de­vel­op­ment of the to­tal hu­man be­ing in every­thing they do.

“This is why we have of­fered a wide range of sub­jects on the school’s cur­ricu­lum, in­clud­ing vi­su­al and per­form­ing arts, of which mu­sic is a part.” He ex­plained that through the Pan in the Class­room project, they have em­barked on plac­ing the na­tion­al in­stru­ment at the cen­tre of the mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion. At present they have placed a 16-piece en­sem­ble in ap­prox­i­mate­ly 160 pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools to teach the read­ing and writ­ing of mu­sic.

by: Hazel Ross-Perot

Hazel Ross-Per­ot

“With Sat­is­fac­tion and Thanks, Ru­pert In­dar, Cel­e­brat­ing a Son of San Fer­nan­do,” Dr Hamid Ghany’s bi­og­ra­phy of sur­geon and en­tre­pre­neur Ru­pert In­dar de­picts a life filled with pur­pose and ac­com­plish­ment.

Ru­pert In­dar’s dri­ve and am­bi­tion has brought him suc­cess through­out all the stages of his life. Dr Ghany has di­vid­ed Dr In­dar’s life in­to eight chap­ters: The Stu­dent, The Doc­tor, The Busi­ness­man, The Banker, The Horse­man, and Ru­pert The Man. A chap­ter ti­tled The Fam­i­ly Man was writ­ten by Aas­ma Sinanan and the fi­nal chap­ter ti­tled Trib­utes in­cludes re­flec­tions writ­ten by Dr In­dar’s fam­i­ly and friends.

Lay­out and de­sign were by Paria Pub­lish­ing and the bi­og­ra­phy in green and gold hard­cov­er has a lux­u­ri­ous feel. The jack­et cov­er, de­signed by Al­ice Besson, has a pho­to of In­dar the hand­some young grad­u­ate re­splen­dent in fur-trimmed gown.

Fore­word was writ­ten by Baren­dra Sinanan, SC. He wrote about In­dar’s strong fam­i­ly bonds. “Ru­pert could not have achieved his suc­cess in life with­out the sup­port of his sib­lings. His wife, Pol­ly, with whom he shares a won­der­ful re­la­tion­ship, ably as­sist­ed him through­out his ca­reer. To­geth­er they have raised four chil­dren who are each suc­cess­ful in their own right as med­ical pro­fes­sion­als. Ru­pert and Pol­ly are now en­joy­ing to the fullest ex­tent the thrill of be­ing grand­par­ents.”

In­dar com­bined a ca­reer as a sur­geon in San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal while es­tab­lish­ing a pi­o­neer­ing pri­vate hos­pi­tal, the South­ern Med­ical Clin­ic, with his now-de­ceased broth­er-in-law Dr Per­ci­val Harnaryan.

While es­tab­lish­ing the South­ern Med­ical Clin­ic, In­dar al­so launched Carib Con­tain­ers Ltd, a pa­per man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­ny. Se­nior Coun­sel Sinanan wrote: “Ru­pert’s busi­ness acu­men and suc­cess did not go un­no­ticed by the busi­ness elite in Trinidad. Com­ple­ment­ing this at­tribute, he was a man re­plete with so­cial graces who was well re­spect­ed by his peers.” He be­came chair­man of the Bank of Com­merce of T&T Ltd. “He was ex­treme­ly suc­cess­ful in guid­ing the af­fairs of this bank and dis­tin­guished him­self in the ne­go­ti­a­tions for the buy-out of this bank by Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd.”

He al­so not­ed In­dar’s pas­sion for horse rac­ing. “Ru­pert al­ways had a fond­ness for hors­es and has be­come a suc­cess­ful own­er and breed­er of hors­es. The sport of kings is tru­ly his pas­sion.”

From doc­tor to horse­man and in be­tween

In Chap­ter One, we learn that In­dar’s par­ents, Joseph and Ma­ha­rani, owned a garage and were fo­cused on en­sur­ing their six chil­dren got a good ed­u­ca­tion. In­dar at­tend­ed Grant Memo­r­i­al Pri­ma­ry School and from 1939-1943 was a stu­dent in Na­pari­ma Col­lege. He moved to Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege in Port-of-Spain to study for the High­er School Cer­tifi­cate. He lived with his un­cle who was the dri­ver for then gov­er­nor of T&T, Sir Be­de Clif­ford.

In Chap­ter two, The Doc­tor, we learn about In­dar’s path to a ca­reer in surgery. Af­ter QRC he stud­ied in Ire­land, in Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Dublin. He was ad­mit­ted to the Fac­ul­ty of Nat­ur­al Sci­ences and sub­se­quent­ly chose to study med­i­cine. Af­ter grad­u­at­ing in 1952, In­dar was in­vit­ed to join the staff of the Anato­my de­part­ment as an as­sis­tant lec­tur­er.

He even­tu­al­ly de­cid­ed on a ca­reer in surgery and trained in Eng­land, the USA, and Eu­rope. He joined the staff of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in 1962 as a con­sul­tant sur­geon and worked there un­til 1989.

In Chap­ter three, we are in­tro­duced to In­dar—The Busi­ness­man. We learn about the es­tab­lish­ment of Carib Con­tain­ers Ltd. In Chap­ter four, The Banker, the ac­qui­si­tion of Bank of Com­merce by Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd is dis­cussed. In­dar served as chair­man of the bank be­tween 1994-1997.

In Chap­ter five, The Horse­man, there is a brief his­to­ry of horse rac­ing in­dus­try in Trinidad with ex­cerpts from the 1968 Cof­fey Re­port. We learn about In­dar as an own­er, breed­er, and ad­min­is­tra­tor. He was an hon­orary med­ical doc­tor at the Union Park Turf Club from 1982 un­til 1988 when he joined the club’s man­age­ment com­mit­tee. Af­ter the cen­tral­i­sa­tion of rac­ing, he served as pres­i­dent of the Ari­ma Race Club from 1997 to 1998. He al­so served as chair­man of the Bet­ting Levy Board from 1996 to 1998 and served as a mem­ber of the T&T Rac­ing Au­thor­i­ty.

Chap­ter six is ded­i­cat­ed to In­dar the Man. Dr Ghany ex­am­ines the fac­tors in In­dar’s suc­cess in­clud­ing his “core qual­i­ties of en­tre­pre­neur­ship, an un­par­al­leled work eth­ic, an over­ar­ch­ing hu­mil­i­ty and a de­sire to suc­ceed”.

In Chap­ter sev­en, we see the por­trait of In­dar as The Fam­i­ly Man, who has com­bined a busy pro­fes­sion­al life with a ful­fill­ing fam­i­ly life. In­dar has been mar­ried to his wife, Pol­ly, since 1966 and they have raised four suc­cess­ful chil­dren.

Chap­ter eight con­sists of trib­utes to In­dar by his daugh­ter An­drea; sons Adri­an, Ru­pert Ju­nior and Nicholas; his daugh­ters-in-law Sa­ree­ta and Kim­ber­ly; his nephew An­drew Seenath; and friend and col­league Dr Lal Sawh.

In­dar’s bi­og­ra­phy is il­lus­trat­ed with de­light­ful pic­tures of fam­i­ly wed­dings, grand­chil­dren, hol­i­days, and gath­er­ings, Roy­al As­cot, awards cer­e­monies and the South­ern Med­ical Clin­ic. In­dar was award­ed the key to San Fer­nan­do in 2017 for his ster­ling ser­vice to med­i­cine. In 2008 he re­ceived a Hum­ming Bird Medal gold.

As Dr Ghany re­flect­ed “there has nev­er been any room for fail­ure in Ru­pert’s life be­cause fail­ure it­self was nev­er an op­tion. In the evening of his years, he can look back at a life well lived and a lega­cy that can make any­one beam with pride”.

MOO­NAN: Ram­per­sad (al­so known as Boyie) of #6 Her­rera Street, St. Joseph Vil­lage San Fer­nan­do (for­mer­ly of Rio Claro), died peace­ful­ly at his home on the 3rd March, 2014. He was the lov­ing Son of: The late Ma­habir and Pop­eye Moo­nan. Hus­band of: Tara Moo­nan. Fa­ther of: Videsh, Vi­jaya and Visham Moo­nan. Grand­fa­ther of: Hay­ley and Hay­den. Fa­ther in law of: Tri­cia Moo­nan. Broth­er of: Dr. Sankar Moo­nan, Lin­tie Bis­soon­dath, Chan­dra Singh, Car­lo Moo­nan (dec) and Lynette Sook­bir (dec). Broth­er in law of: Bet­ty Moo­nan, Carl Bis­soon­dath, Sylvia & Rawle Thack­o­rie, Joan & Car­los Seu­dat, Cyn­tra Ramkissoon, Lin­coln & Hul­dah Ramkissoon. Fond­ly loved and re­mem­bered by his nieces, nephews, in-law and friends. Rel­a­tive of: The Dook­er­an, Dur­bal and Lowkie Fam­i­lies.The fu­ner­al ser­vice for the late Ram­per­sad Moo­nan will take place on Thurs­day 6th March, 2014 at House of Mourn­ing #6 Her­rera Street, St. Joseph Vil­lage San Fer­nan­do @9.30am fol­low by cre­ma­tion at Shore of Peace, Mos­qui­to Creek. En­quiries can be made at Bel­groves Fu­ner­al Home at 223-2178.

by: Sascha Wilson

As a street in San Fer­nan­do was of­fi­cial­ly re­named af­ter pan ex­tra­or­di­naire Lennox ‘Bob­by’ Mo­hamed, a call whas been made for cit­i­zens to be ho­n­oured for their out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions while they are alive.

“Our icons let us not wait un­til they are no longer here to recog­nise and re­ward the con­tri­bu­tions that they have made,” said San Fer­nan­do deputy may­or Vidya Mun­gal-Bisses­sar at the cer­e­mo­ny at the band­stand on Har­ris Prom­e­nade.

The one-way street runs to the back be­hind the band­stand to Li­brary cor­ner. Mun­gal-Bisses­sar said the chil­dren and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions need­ed to know the “the his­to­ry that has come to­geth­er to cre­ate Trinidad and To­ba­go that we live in. That is some­thing that we miss.”

She en­cour­aged oth­ers to fol­low in the foot­steps of mu­si­cian Krys­tal Yacub who did her the­sis on Mo­hamed. “Start record­ing. There are peo­ple who make con­tri­bu­tions to our coun­try like Bob­by and no­body re­mem­bers be­cause no one has record­ed it.”

Sev­en­ty-six-year-old Mo­hamed led the San Fer­nan­do-based steel band Guin­ness Cav­a­liers to vic­to­ry, cap­tur­ing two Panora­ma ti­tles with his San Fer­nan­do, in 1965 and 1967.

He al­so made his­to­ry as the youngest arranger, at age 22, to win the Panora­ma ti­tle.

Shar­ing her re­search on Mo­hamed, Yacub re­called at the Panora­ma fi­nals in 1965, “Bob­by’s band the Guin­ness Cav­a­liers was the last band to per­form that night and ru­mour is the band sound­ed as if there were 100 base play­ers when in re­al­i­ty there were on­ly four his ar­rang­ing quick­ly caught on to oth­er arrangers and Bob­by is now cred­it­ed to have in­vent­ed the sound which is known as the sound of the south band.

“Bob­by has al­so been cred­it­ed for in­tro­duc­ing the bell in Panora­ma arrange­ment and a mul­ti­tude of oth­er fea­tures such as the Panora­ma base move­ment that us­es paus­es and sud­den drops.”

Mo­hamed, Yacub said, re­ceived a mul­ti­tude of awards and ac­knowl­edge­ments, in­clud­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Hum­ming Bird Gold medal and was in­duct­ed in­to the Caribbean Sun­shine Award Hall of Fame in New York in 2000. As­sur­ing that a lot of thought and re­search is done be­fore a street is re­named, San Fer­nan­do May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo said the for­mer name of the Lennox Bob­by Mo­hammed St, was Har­ris Prom­e­nade East.

Re­spond­ing to an ob­jec­tion to Quen­ca Street be­ing re­named Dr Ru­pert In­dar Street, he said Mr Quen­ca was the clerk of Gov­er­nor Cha­con and made no mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of San Fer­nan­do. “Mr Mo­hamed and oth­ers like him has shaped the land­scape of the city of San Fer­nan­do and is wor­thy of this recog­ni­tion. We at the coun­cil will con­tin­ue to look at those who have made con­tri­bu­tions not on­ly in the art form.” Mo­hamed ex­pressed his heart­felt thanks for the ho­n­our. “First of all, I thank God for this priv­i­lege, to keep me alive so I could see this.”

Say­ing that mu­sic is a great part of his soul, Mo­hamed re­called that he grew up hear­ing his moth­er play the pi­ano. Kaisokah Moko Jumbies leader Ju­nior Bis­nath cre­at­ed a ban­ner in Mo­hamed ho­n­our which was stuck to a pan car­a­van. Among those at­tend­ing the cer­e­mo­ny were Mo­hamed’s band mem­bers Ter­ry Laka­too and Lester Mo­hammed.

by: Akash Samaroo

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress sup­port­ers liv­ing in the con­stituen­cy of San Fer­nan­do East say they are in full sup­port of the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s pro­pos­al to move their polling di­vi­sions to San Fer­nan­do West as they be­lieve their vote will fi­nal­ly count.

Liv­ing in the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy, they’ve grown ac­cus­tomed to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment win­ning that seat, in fact, the par­ty has nev­er lost it.

Now they say they have a rea­son to vote.

They re­side along Rush­worth and Blanche Fras­er streets which fall with­in polling di­vi­sions 4190 and 4195, the two the EBC pro­posed to be trans­ferred to San Fer­nan­do West. The Op­po­si­tion Leader on April 15, said the move would ben­e­fit the PNM, but that may not nec­es­sar­i­ly be so.

One res­i­dent along Blanche Fras­er Street said she and her hus­band were strong UNC sup­port­ers and they ful­ly en­dorsed the EBC’s pro­pos­al.

“I think it’s a good thing be­cause for the past years I’ve been liv­ing here, it’s just one par­ty win­ning, now I will be more en­cour­aged to vote, over the years I go to vote I know the re­sult would al­ways be the same, now I want to vote,” said the busi­ness own­er, who asked to re­main anony­mous due to the po­lit­i­cal na­ture of the top­ic.

A few hous­es away, an­oth­er el­der­ly woman, who al­so asked for anonymi­ty, said she and her hus­band have al­ways vot­ed for UNC in the PNM strong­hold. She too is wel­com­ing a change.

“I think it is a very very good idea, I’ve al­ways been a UNC sup­port­er, I am very much in sup­port of the EBC’s pro­pos­al.

But Pa­tri­cia Serette did not hide her iden­ti­ty or al­le­giance. She proud­ly de­clared her sup­port for the PNM and said she does not mind tak­ing her vote to a mar­gin­al seat.

“I could help the PNM as long as I know what the can­di­date stands for, you have to be­lieve that vote will count.”

Serette ad­mit­ted that she was not aware of the EBC’s pro­pos­al but to her, it does not mat­ter as much, she will con­tin­ue to vote for the PNM.

A res­i­dent of Rush­worth Street said he has grown ac­cus­tomed to the po­lit­i­cal game in the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy. He said in the past the vot­ing pop­u­la­tion in the con­stituen­cy had been al­tered by way of HDC homes. The man said there were a lot more peo­ple of East In­di­an de­scent in the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy in the past. He says the EBC’s pro­pos­al is just an­oth­er move in the chess game of pol­i­tics.

Par­lia­ment will de­cide on the trans­fer of the polling di­vi­sions for those two con­stituen­cies as one of sev­er­al pro­pos­als sub­mit­ted to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

by: VINODE MAMCHAN

Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do is the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion cham­pi­on team of the Pow­er­Gen Sec­ondary School tour­na­ment for the first time in 26 years.

The Tariq Mo­hammed-led south­ern out­fit de­feat­ed Cou­va East in its round-robin round match to lift the South­ern Cham­pi­onship ti­tle to book its place in the top flight next year.

Bat­ting first, Cou­va East made 122 all out with Dil­lon Manohar get­ting 26 and open­er Den­zil An­toine 19. the pick of the Pre­sen­ta­tion bowlers were na­tion­al youth play­er V0anir Ma­haraj 3/19, off-spin­ner Jalen Agard 2/10 and Shem Acevero 2/11). In re­sponse, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege San Fer­nan­do made 124/3 with Mo­hammed lead­ing the way with 42 and the hard-hit­ting San­jay Jawahir get­ting an un­beat­en 46.

Al­so mak­ing their way to the top rung is St. Mary’s Col­lege, which won the North Cham­pi­onship with a vic­to­ry over To­co by six wick­ets.

Sachin Sood­een played a great hand in dis­miss­ing To­co for 112. He snared six wick­ets for 14 runs, as on­ly Eli­jah Williams 36 and Trevon Bobb 23 showed any fight. St. Mary’s Col­lege in re­ply got to 116/4 as Leon Bas­sano 36 and Ger­ard Chin 36 made light work of the tar­get.

In the Pre­mier­ship, Hillview end­ed the league un­beat­en, when it got the bet­ter of Fa­ti­ma Col­lege by three wick­ets. Navin Be­daisee was the star of the show as he claimed 5/23 to bowl out Fa­ti­ma for 129. He then scored 31 which helped his team to the win­ning tar­get.

POW­ER­GEN SEC­ONDARY SCHOOL SCORES

PRE­MIER­SHIP

At Bene­dicts: Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege Chag 103/9 (26.5) – Aban­doned due to rain.

At Mu­cu­rapo: Fa­ti­ma 129 all out (Je­re­mi­ah Cruick­shank 29, Navin Be­daisee 5/23) vs Hillview 134/7 (Navin Be­daisee 31, Rick­ash Boodram 31, Jonathan Ramd­hanie 2/28) – Hillview won by 3 wk­ts.

At Lewis Street: Na­pari­ma Col­lege 57/7 (Avinash Ma­habirs­ingh 26, Isa­iah Gomez 2/8) – Match aban­doned due to rain.

NORTH CHAM­PI­ONSHIP

At Ser­pen­tine Rd: To­co 112 all out (Eli­jah Williams 36, Trevon Bobb 23, Sachin Sood­een 6/14) vs St. Mary’s Col­lege 116/4 (Leon Bas­sano 36, Ger­ard Chin 36) – St. Mary’s won by 6 wk­ts.

SOUTH CHAM­PI­ONSHIP

At NCC: Cou­va East 122 all out (Dil­lon Manohar 26, Den­zil An­toine 19, Javed Mo­hammed 18, Vanir Ma­haraj 3/19, Jalen Agard 2/10, Shem Acevero 2/11) vs Pre­sen­ta­tion S’Fdo 124/3 (Tariq Mo­hammed 42, San­jay Jawahir 46no, Am­rit Ma­haraj 17) – Pre­sen­ta­tion won by 7 wk­ts.

by: Sascha Wilson

SASCHA WIL­SON

The bev­er­age re­cy­cle law is com­plete and will soon be go­ing to the Cab­i­net for its con­sid­er­a­tion.

This was re­vealed by San Fer­nan­do West MP and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi at a tree plant­i­ng ex­er­cise at San Fer­nan­do Dis­trict Scouts Head­quar­ters in San Fer­nan­do on Sun­day.

While the law will al­low the coun­try to prop­er­ly re­cy­cle its plas­tic, he said no amount laws will make a re­al im­pact if peo­ple don’t change their at­ti­tudes and come on board.

He added, “And I am al­so pleased to tell you that we went a step fur­ther. We are right now eval­u­at­ing the base of com­pa­nies to es­tab­lish some­thing called waste to en­er­gy where we take all of the garbage, we take all of the waste and we con­vert it to en­er­gy but that can’t be done un­til we take pride in our com­mu­ni­ty.”

T&T, he urged, need­ed the par­tic­i­pa­tion of all of cit­i­zens. “The Gov­ern­ment can give you bev­er­age re­cy­cling laws, laws to stop plas­tic from be­ing thrown away. We can in­crease lit­ter fines. We can cre­ate re­cy­cling in­dus­tries, all of which we have done. We have banned Sty­ro­foam…but we can’t change peo­ple.” the AG said.

He re­called that in a clean up ex­er­cise, not far from the head­quar­ters, they emp­tied four 40 foot con­tain­ers of garbage from around peo­ple’s homes.

He said the garbage con­sist­ed of plas­tic, bot­tles, tires, fridges, stoves and cars.

He said, “We can­not al­low our coun­try to con­tin­ue to be pol­lut­ed be­cause it af­fects all of us.”

Re­call­ing that he start­ed as a cub scout at the age of six, Al-Rawi said the scout move­ment teach­es ho­n­our, dig­ni­ty and dis­ci­pline.

“Things which are miss­ing in our coun­try to­day. Things which are im­por­tant to your char­ac­ter.”

He ad­vised par­ents to nev­er let their chil­dren drop out of scouts and in­volve them in mar­tial arts. He re­mind­ed scouts that a plas­tic bot­tle takes 450 years to dis­in­te­grate.

Ear­li­er in the day, scouts, mem­bers of the Li­ons Club, Ro­tary Club, and Court Sham­rock par­tic­i­pat­ed in a street pa­rade from Har­ris Prom­e­nade to the head­quar­ters.