Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: The best insight Instant feedback Accountability the all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5 we
[00:00:09] Speaker B: are set to chat in our post budget discussions our guest rival Chattagoon, president of the owner dealers association as we deal with gas and the energy sector. So good morning to you Reval and Welcome back to Freedom 106.5 FM.
[00:00:23] Speaker C: Good morning to you David, to your viewers and your listeners online.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Indeed. So the budget has been read, a lot has been said in the budget. You can get those inserts in the papers locally, check your social media platforms and you would see the different parts of the budget that you know might be of interest to you.
When it comes to this 202627 fiscal package, where does the owner's association interest lies?
[00:00:53] Speaker C: Well, owner dealers association interest lies in gas stations. But in order for us to do our business we have to invest in our communities and so on, right? So if a community have to tighten the belt as the local balance course, right. Then that affects all of our operation.
In coming from this budget, of course we didn't increase the super.
We are going to pay more in subsidies which we will talk a lot more later on Davy, once time permits.
In terms of the actual budget, I have a disclaimer. I am not a finance person nor am I an economist and most of this was very much confusing in terms of what is said on paper and what we feel on the ground in reality.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: I am very happy that you mentioned that because when we think about the language spoken in these budget presentations, one walks away and may have comments. Do you think that because of not being able to dissect the language we tend to think the layman on the ground tend to think that this budget is not for the poor and only for the wealthy.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: While most people don't listen to the whole budget, most most people don't really budget. Most people do not go and look after a budget as lay the PSIP to understand.
Well, where are numbers going? But I'm talking about one particular thing in this case, right? And I'm reading an excerpt from the actual budget, right. For the same period manufacturing sector marginally contracted by 0.7%. So that means it actually gets smaller, it shrink, right? However, the non energy manufacturing sector grew more than 11.6%. Now this is good news, right?
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Watch me come closer to the mic.
[00:02:49] Speaker C: So this is good news, right? But then it says that the food, beverage and tobacco sector grew by 20.5%.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: That was confusing to me.
[00:02:59] Speaker C: Well, let's just say for argument's sake that these numbers are Indeed correct. And we would have economists and finance people who are going to test the, the, the. The arithmetic status. Right. But it just does not make sense. Which is a basket of goods that they're going to measure. I mean they say all our customers, our community people saying that 18 is real hard. They could have gone to eat grocery with a hundred dollars and get this, they can't get no more. Everything is going up. So this here really tells me a kind of complete different story. And then later on any budget, some numbers were thrown out. And I think that we have to start to test these numbers. And I could elaborate more.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Well of course I want you to. This is the conversation.
[00:03:47] Speaker C: So for, for gas station people. Right. Our liquor license Davy went from 1800 to 9000.
Right. And that was as I will say now the more to come to it was not announced in the budget. It, it came sometime after.
[00:04:06] Speaker D: Right.
[00:04:07] Speaker C: So he has here club and gaming tax like $65.2 million in terms of what they would have as a result of this.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: It went up.
[00:04:18] Speaker C: Yeah. So if we take 65.2 million and divide it by 9,000 we get 722.2222 something.
[00:04:26] Speaker E: Right.
[00:04:27] Speaker C: Businesses.
We have 139 gas stations in the country. Of course, although I have liquor license. So let me say argument 100. Are you saying 600 is your total amount of grocery, rum shop, restaurant and bar, hotels? Well, you know, dig in, you get more information. So I wrecked. I reached out this morning to somebody from Car General question how much customers you all think you all have in Trinidad and tobias? Not a 5,000.
So on this particular license for anybody to sell beer. Yeah. So if you have 5,000. Oh, and it gonna buy.
But how.
[00:05:10] Speaker F: Right.
[00:05:11] Speaker C: And this is what I'm saying. Remember disclaimer. I'm not an economist nor am I a financial person. But when we started test some of the numbers, it's somehow not making sense.
[00:05:23] Speaker F: Right.
[00:05:23] Speaker C: And I'm calling on those with these specialists.
[00:05:27] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:05:27] Speaker C: To start to test some of these numbers because we very happy to throw this way. We doing this, we're spending this. But let me start to audit it because as a country taxpayers dollars and government spending is the same. If a government has to spend money, you the taxpayer have to earn it, you the taxpayer have to pay it. So it's now that we as a society really narrowing on some of these things to ensure that every tax dollar that we spend, we benefit. We talk about security and you know, we like to talk about security.
Billions and billions are being spent well, recently I did an article. I don't know if you. You got view of it, right, right. We have 13,000 crimes reported every year, right.
That is one hour, that is, you know, however you want to take it. Let me look at it from this point of view. We have about 6,7000 officers active.
[00:06:28] Speaker F: Yeah, right.
[00:06:29] Speaker C: Are you telling me that one officer for the year cannot stop two crime?
Now you see, when you start to look at it like this, right, in terms of a management perspective, then perhaps it might make a little more sense or perhaps you might ask more questions or perhaps we go back to the drawing board for perspective.
We see that we're getting cars but instead we putting fix, I want to term it correctly, fixed temporary mobile posts.
[00:06:57] Speaker D: Right.
[00:06:58] Speaker C: I think that's how the Minister put it. Right. But understand this is a temporary police station that you're putting for you to come to after the crime is committed. Yes, it will have a present, but what is the cost for that, to maintain that, to maintain infrastructure? You still had to put a car phone, whatever, whatever, whatever have you. Would it have been more prudent to put forecast on your own patrol in 24 hours perhaps because nobody knows the cost. That is top secret and I've been calling out on this for some time. All these spend that we spending, the public is just not aware the information is not forthcoming and I hope it's not that we have to go to Freedom of Information act to get to file to, to get this. And it's unfortunate in this budget they got a billion dollars more.
Well, you know, they had a 800 million owing for overtime. So I think was two, three years. Yeah, that is almost 10% of the budget at that budget gone it gone.
I left Arima 5 o' clock this morning to come to you, right.
And I didn't see one police presence on the highway from Arima to here passing through Port of Spain, the heart of Porter Spain.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: I noticed the same right. I coming down from Arima and usually as you reach the Beetham landfill, as you pass Beetham by that desalination plan down there, just before np, there's usually a static there.
[00:08:24] Speaker C: Yeah, and there's one of the Beatham gas stations.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: At the gas station there was no static. I wondered if they were changing shift at the time. I couldn't tell, but this morning it was bare.
[00:08:35] Speaker C: Well, you know, on some of the prerogative or provocative things that we talk about is that are we getting value for money?
We have officers who work in 24 hours, right. Are you productive for 24 hours? Absolutely not.
[00:08:51] Speaker F: We buy.
[00:08:52] Speaker C: Well, I shouldn't say we buy. We have a rental agreement which nobody knows what are in terms of that for EV vehicles, how long this can take to charge? 8 hours, 16 hours. So that is not a 24 thing. So that in itself was a bad decision. And of course when it now come out, you said, I see a few vans on the road and realize they are saying none, one mashup already. Well, we saw that in our accident. But the thing is you're not seeing them. Is it that they have problems? Is it that they're doing some other job, you know? So again, value for money is what we have to continuously look at our leaders and our politicians.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: I like the fact that you mentioned national security. Let me take this call quickly. Good morning.
[00:09:37] Speaker D: Morning, Davy, I just joined. Who is your erudite guest?
[00:09:41] Speaker B: Mr. Rival. Chattagoon.
[00:09:44] Speaker D: Mr. Chattagoon. Okay, Mr. Chattagoon, I heard you speaking on money and I want you to understand something.
2009 Mr. Manning said we need a revenue authority. If we do not have it, we would not have the same standard of living that we are custom having now. They knew since then that the country has bleeding money because they are crooks and gifts bandits in the board of Inland Revenue who assist private sector in stealing the people's money.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: Eric, where are you going with this?
[00:10:16] Speaker D: Let me finish, please.
Yesterday the minister was telling me he now put 100 something new persons in BIR and they're speaking to someone from foreign.
What they are doing, they are duplicating what had been done more than 15 years ago. All the research done as to how you could have fix the revenue Authority in order to collect more revenue. So when they're finished with this now, they'll be finished with it next five years and they will have a new BIR system. There'll be no penalties for persons who steal our money and there will be no KPIs and you will have the same set of people inside of it doing the same thing again. So we'll get absolutely nowhere in the next five years. The BIR need to fix the fix for it was the ttra. They have refused it. I listened to comments.
[00:11:06] Speaker C: Well, I don't know how to comment because when BIR started and is a revenue earner for the country or collector, right?
And then the last government wanted to intertwine everything in terms of your. Your revenue office and customs and everything was there in terms of having unwarranted persons collecting or thing. I cannot speak to that. But we as a Society have to ask every tax dollar that you spend or give the government what value you're getting out from it. Because we as a society have to understand when I pay a dollar.
[00:11:45] Speaker F: Right.
[00:11:46] Speaker C: We have to pay somebody to collect it.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: True.
[00:11:50] Speaker C: So that dollar just reduce the other pay. You gotta do government printry for filing. Then it have to be cool and you have to use security and then it goes as central government and then it has to be reallocated. So you know it'd be interesting once we kind of start these conversations through the various economists and finance person to really measure this. Right. Of course it's a hard thing to measure to see what every dollar we spend as taxpayers what we're getting.
But if we go into real just rely on central statistical thing.
Those are not real time numbers. So you know I think that we lag in for once or for better words. But I think the caller is very much well aware what's going on and I applaud him for that. In terms of what's going on in country and it's just a matter of continue to look and regardless of who in government and let me say this from the get go as a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, we all want our government to succeed regardless of who's in power, regardless of who you vote because our win for the government is a win for all of us. Yes, you could show some gratitude and say well this one do that or that one do the next. But we have to want the government to succeed because it's at the end of days. We going after shoulder Wally Burden now because remember we do have security entourage and live the luxury life.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Exactly. And you know, and I'm happy that you mentioned that. Let me take this call quickly. Good morning.
[00:13:29] Speaker F: Hi Good morning gentlemen.
[00:13:30] Speaker D: Huh.
[00:13:30] Speaker C: Good morning.
[00:13:32] Speaker F: Talking listening to this guy. He's somebody that really sounds independent making a lot of sense to totally point buddy.
Honestly, I think that they overspend money in ministry of national security.
Take for instance it seems that the police just love new model Prados. You know was it cost of one
[00:13:56] Speaker C: of those city price fallen at this point about 700.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:02] Speaker C: From one point something. But they would have up backed that through Toyota. The 1.8. Yeah. Kind of price.
[00:14:07] Speaker F: Right. And we we could have gotten probably
[00:14:10] Speaker D: about four or three other vehicles because
[00:14:13] Speaker F: when you're buying through ministry and things they have a special price.
[00:14:17] Speaker C: Absolutely. Where you have this we call fleet discount and ecologist.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:21] Speaker C: In saying is value for money is why you're spending $2 million and they could get six vehicles instead of one.
[00:14:28] Speaker F: Yeah. And why does who are they to be driving the latest model Prado? Let me be real on that point.
[00:14:35] Speaker C: Well, you know, ttps.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Thank you caller.
[00:14:39] Speaker C: TTPS many years ago answered me in this format when I was the chair of Arima Business association, right. And they were saying that These vehicles work 24 hours and is high mileage and all of that. I agree 100% BIR allows you at the think 30%.
Depreciation on your car. So each car should last three, three and a half, let me say at most four years. But yet we have vehicles and TTPS 10 years. So if I know that this is the life of the vehicle, well then I should have a plan.
Because when you say that all what we're going to do is 60 vehicles a year, right?
What system you use to come up with that? What system are you using to say well okay, 10 are going port a spin and one go San Fernando.
What, what you know, what are the leverage or what statistics are you using? Because as I've always said over the years Northern division of the highest crime recorded for many, many years. But we're starving for service. We're starving for vehicle. Are we saying well okay, we will sell two vehicles here because they call to service and call to service means how much reports somebody call and you have to investigate or respond to. Is that your benchmark or is it how much crime or is it that? Okay, well because I'm from Arima I could talk to talk to her about Arima. Arima Police station had to respond to things in Blanche she shares. So imagine your core there and the vehicle go out take let me Say arguments take 45 minutes to get it. Something happened on Arima that'll come back there. You know, we need to make it sense. In this case I could see the permanent mobile temporary put police post. Makes sense there that you put a police post remotely. Remotely. Because when you put police posts close
[00:16:36] Speaker B: by to a major station. Let's look at Takarigua and Five Rivers.
[00:16:39] Speaker C: It's close.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: The Aruka police station is what right up the road. And upon mobile unit by Eddie Han
[00:16:45] Speaker C: and the people who using the Savannah hunting right.
Of course they feel that okay, police is there. I feel safe. Would it have been any different if you actually had a car with two officers there?
[00:16:59] Speaker B: And the thing is the corporation already have a police presence at least until 10:11pm daily for vendors in the Etihad facility.
That is vendors pay a rent to use there to sell food and they provide police service.
That police service in those areas are not coming freer.
Don't tell yourself that. The ttps, they guarding you in the public space, they are being paid extra duty.
These are officers who on the off duty and want a little extra duty. Get, get those things. That is no Wonder we have 800 million. But then I think under those circumstances like policing effects and your parties, they are not. That cost is not borne by the government.
[00:17:43] Speaker C: Correct.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: You apply to the police, you, you give them the, the trajectory and the, the specifics of your event and they will tell you how many officers you need on the ground.
[00:17:53] Speaker E: Correct.
[00:17:54] Speaker C: And they will also tell you the ranks and they will say, well, I need to have this sergeant and this corporal. And they'll tell you, yeah, yeah.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: And that is for public safety as well. And you can quite, you could, you could challenge the amount. But it's simple. Go down to the basic services that you solicit from a bar and waiter. So you have an event and you want to say, well, I only need two bar men, but it's 300 people at your event. That's ridiculous. So they tell you one bar or one bar personnel or serviceman to every 20, 25 patrons.
[00:18:26] Speaker C: Correct.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: So, and one waiter.
If you're in a table setting where you have 15 wrong tables, you can have two waiters to service 15, each table carrying 10 persons. So they'll tell you you need at least X amount of waiters and how much per table, how much tables one waiter can cater to. And that's how you rationalize it. You ration the thing similarly with your events. So the police service sends out personnel based on what you say your, your event is and what they know from, from data from history. This event will attract 500 people. We need this. And as you rightfully say, rank and file. Yeah, because you can't have 500 corporal police constables on the ground who in charge of who?
[00:19:11] Speaker C: Correct. Now what you're saying is we call special assignment extra duties.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Right. Before you get to that, let me just pause you very quickly. And here's today's cyber insight brought to you by 800 tech. Now having backups is reassuring, but here's the real question. How quickly could you restore them and get your business operating again? A backup is only as valuable as your ability to recover from it. Today, Cyber Insight brought to you by 800 Tech. Your tech tip. In a minute.
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[00:21:22] Speaker A: welcome to the Morning Rumble with Davey Murray on Freedom 106.5 FM. Speak your mind.
[00:21:40] Speaker H: Pleasant Good morning. I'm a committed listener for ever since this radio station prior to this new renaming was first introduced to Trinidad and Tobago.
I'm a sincere listener.
I'm on first time I'm gonna make contribution here as regards to just foreign taxes on the medians and so forth.
I went to pay my B mobile bill on Friday and I was informed by the clerk that as of Monday, which was yesterday, my bill posted Bill, sorry my wi fi bill from 160 will be going up to 200.
So I want to know what is that tax and what is the the amount a percentage on my my package that I have to repay.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: I want to say thank you for sending me your message and I also thank you for the love and support shown to the frequency.
But that is nothing new.
They continuously revamp their package, repackage what they already give you and then they charge you for it.
Now it's going to get worse with the anticipated online charges. Now rival was about to make a point and I don't want him to lose his trend of thought you probably forget I and all because he was going down. But we will get it back. We'll get it back on TTPS on the TTPS special thing Right, So there's those special duties. Right, Let me just dissect this twice to see if I can get it. My bearings one, the online taxes is not for Netflix alone. Disney plus and Max and what have you. It goes to your shopping and everything that you're doing, but it's nothing new.
This is not a new initiative that this government is doing to the people of Trinidad and Tobago. Let me send your minds back back to column Imbert when he did a study, a feasibility study and see how much. Because the locals, you know, the domestic businesses was crying out, you know, by their fault. Because persons was able to bring in their stuff, their sneakers, their clothing, whatever they needed. They had to go down to the local variety store. They could bring in that.
And then websource and other businesses get smart and start to raise the price. I know people boycotting certain services, courier services, because they decided to raise their prices. So people cut them out. And that's fair. I agree with that. It's the, it's the, it's what we call. Oh my gosh, the word is eluding me. Democracy. That's a democracy. We are a democratic society. So if, if Reval decides what's going on, Some people using my thing and I get greedy now. So I up my thing because my thing efficient, right? We ain't have much losses. So I up it and I come down and see freedom own doing a little cheaper and getting the same service. Boy, Reval can rock. So you know, I go in so and then Reval go get smart and realize wait now losing customers, what do I do? Do I match what freedom doing and drop? Or do I grab freedom by the throat and say, hey, let me call we form an association. What we doing here?
You dig? So outside of that, when we come back to the police service rival made a very, very important contribution this morning and I'm sure we missed it flew over some of our heads value for money when it comes to the TTPS.
Billions of dollars in allocation. We now mentioned 10% of that approximately going to overtime payments. $800 million that we have to pay or accumulated over time. I don't know if it's arrears two years, but I don't know. Has it been paid already or is it to be paid? I'm not sure.
We couldn't remember. I didn't think it was stated. But if it's to be paid is a fraction of the allocation that comes in one. It's a continued or revolving door situation. It does not. It's not going to stop.
[00:25:50] Speaker F: All right.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: That over time continues. It's probably more checks and balances and accountability under this commissioner. But here's the thing for me and Gary Griffith said it best out of the billions. We talk about vehicles. Where is the maintenance? We have a graveyard of police vehicles parked up there, deteriorating, going down. That's it.
There's no coming back for those vehicles, right? Because we don't have proper maintenance and we don't service them on time.
[00:26:19] Speaker C: So it comes to accountability. And again with the next hat that I Wore, I helped TTPS fix 18 vehicles.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: 18.
[00:26:28] Speaker C: 18 Arima only had one car.
Right. And with in conducting that, you realize there are some things that need to be corrected. Let's talk insurance. I'm sure we paying premium insurance for vehicles that that crash, right? Is any officer or officers being accountable for. For neglect of a vehicle? The answer is simply no.
Then you have.
You cannot take part, let me say parts from one to make a next one. So you can't.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: You can't cannibalize, correct?
[00:27:01] Speaker C: Right. And I want to correct you. There are many graveyards. There's not only one, but of course this is money spent. But come back to planning. If we know that the usefulness of a police vehicle is for argument's sake, two years because it is of high maintenance, high mileage, whatever, or three years. Shouldn't you start a planner replacement upon buying a one today? Because you know it's only going to last three years. So let me start to provide from it now. Is it that now, you know, when we like to look at externalities and the Americans and you know, in America and so forth, the officer is responsible for his. His.
I forget how they called it the Actley police vehicle. There's a term for it.
So that any accident scratches, he is not responsible. And when he goes home with that car, the village, the street is now protected because you have a response there. So you have accountability. But it's a mindset that you have to change because do we have 7,000 vehicles for 7,000 officers? I don't know. I have never seen the in terms of resource. But even when they have the audit, what do they do? How do they interpret it? And let me come back now to juxtaposing special assignments and special duties and all that, right?
And I suppose this is something for the bar associations and the associations who is whole fats and things to talk more on, right?
In our industry there are persons who tell gas stations how to operate, what they should do, what they shouldn't do with zero experience in our industry.
So I do not know what qualified them to say, hey, I need 10 officers or 100 officers. What I do know is that when you go to them, they have to recommend your license. So if they tell you is X and you want to go with Y, well then they don't recommend your license. But again, this is not my feel, this is not my specialty. And I just want to juxtapose that our industry, where gas station people are always being told what to do and not taking our operational skills and sets in terms of the organization.
[00:29:21] Speaker B: You raise a valid point. Because what qualifies these people to tell you what you need and what you don't when they don't specialize in that field. But then one can look at security risk and assets and ascertain the area, location, the cash flow, the trajectory of those things and decide, listen, for greater protection this might be needed.
What I employ the owners association to do is the research to figure out if what they are suggesting is best international practice and standards.
[00:29:54] Speaker C: Well, it's not for the owner, dealers association and it for bars and promoter.
[00:29:59] Speaker B: They should look at it for best practices and see what happens in Madison Square Garden, for example, locations in Notting Hill in London. See how they quantify the arrangement between the law enforcement security personnel and that of their own needs. Here in Trinidad and Tobago as well
[00:30:18] Speaker C: as you have to have to interpret our culture. You remember, if you go to India, you don't see an officer with a gunner, with a bato and he look at you and you behave.
And in Trinidad, what we do, we go up to the officer, talk straight in his face, spitting them, assault them and whatever. So the officers in Trinidad have a hard time, you know, I mean, they say while we criticize them here, they have a really hard job and they go to work knowing that they don't have all the resources and yet they go on a performer duty. Of course you'll have a few bad apples in the case, but in my experience, I will say 9 out or 19 out of 20 are good guys and. And ladies, huh? So we have to be mindful of that as is now, right?
Is that everything? We blame ttps, we adding on more and more burden as we go along. But if it are working in a smaller scale, if you add on more duties and you continue rolling bar, you expect to get better results. I would have thought at some point in some administration would have spent some time in prosecution in CSI work in terms of predicting events before it happened. And Gary Griffith, whether you like him or not made a dent in terms of being able to see that presence and feel that value. You know, we have seen recently, I don't know how true this is, but this is all over social media that a phone call got somebody detained.
[00:31:56] Speaker D: Right.
[00:31:57] Speaker C: We have seen that. I'm not going to call names, but that is what we have seen. But why that same phone call or phone calls like that?
Esther PA kidnapping est up drugs, estopper murder.
Are we really using now in ideas? I think was under Patrick Manning's organization. I think it's Manning or not Pandy where they had brought any blimp.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: Manning.
[00:32:18] Speaker C: It was Manning.
[00:32:19] Speaker D: Right.
[00:32:20] Speaker C: These are the equipment that it would have had. Of course he had his loading over your roof and you know, India. But it was projecting so far that you couldn't tell. Yeah, right. And then coupled with air guards. I mean I said the last administration dropped the ball where air guards where they didn't have personnel or equipment. But if you as national security could manage all the arms of that right. To show that presence. Do you know in Trinidad if you see a fire vehicle, you behave differently. He can't lock you up, he can't shoot you. He can. Well, of course he could lock you up. A citizen arrest. But understand, you see our customs, you see a license officer. All of these are things under national security security or some purview. So why don't we just all of a sudden from 7,000 officers jump to 20 something thousand from let me say 200 cars that you use resources. We I don't think we really looking at this from a managerial perspective or logistic perspective in terms of really trying to keep Trinidad crime free. But we can do it and you
[00:33:28] Speaker B: know, to lend credibility to you when you call a police station and by guys, this is not a police conversation and we're still on the budget, we're still dealing with the effects of it.
No vehicle simply doesn't mean that we don't have a physical car there. But the driver because out of the 7,000, it's just a handful authorized to drive the police vehicles. Every police officer who is in on work, those sign into work and they all right. We had to go out and do a patrol while you drive in. And no.
So the charger might have four people inside there, none of them authorized to drive.
[00:34:04] Speaker C: Well, that's interesting and that's facts.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: So no vehicle available, no driver available, overtime has to be done because the driver on the last shift realized there's a shortfall. The sergeant permit to stay on because you are the Driver for the shift.
Now, here's the irony of it.
When you look at the driver leaves and goes out on a call and a remaining officer is there and he could respond to something very quickly within the area, quickly could respond and probably thwart whatever is taking place. If he does so and it's successful, he might be commended for it.
But if he bongs the vehicle in the process or somebody bonkers him, would he damage the car? Who authorized you to do it?
[00:34:54] Speaker C: Correct.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: So you face punitive measures for your actions. So it's damn if you do, damn if you don't. Hello.
[00:35:04] Speaker D: Good morning, baby.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Good morning.
[00:35:06] Speaker D: As you say, we are not discussing the police this morning because noon I believe to myself that the corruption of the police service is responsible for a lot of the crime that we have continuing in the country. But anyway, Mr. Chattagoon, the minister spoke a lot. He spoke about jobs and all of that, but I did not see them. You know, we need to start doing things where our people go to a place and produce and add to the gross domestic product of the country.
Have you ever wondered who supply all the furniture for all the schools, all the hospitals, all the government offices? Who fixes them, who repairs them, who builds them? Can't we set up a situation whereby those same persons who denied work in cpap, URP and all of that go to different centers and do these things, add in to the gdp, build something substantive and pay them for doing it and spend less money on national security. Every year we pump billions and billions and billions with the national security and our return is so paltry. You get me at 10%. Murders kept the madness. So we need to do things differently and we need not to forget the persons at the lowest rung of the ladder.
[00:36:23] Speaker C: And you're absolutely right caller, is about management and seeing the, the value for it, you know, and I agree with you year in terms of being more productive because we do give out grants and social services for people who don't necessarily need it.
[00:36:42] Speaker F: Right.
[00:36:42] Speaker C: And even some of them who need it prefer a job because as they rightly say that what about the furniture is a thing. So do we have woodworking skill set, whether be any prison, whether be in borough, corporations or so on, you know, members of each community, once you have a standard. But you know, we as a Trinidad and Tobago like to look outside. But are we bringing that shed and make it here? And that is our problem and is our appetite and accountability is to talk about crime in terms of TTPS and say I cannot talk to that. I don't have that information and so on. But if you look at everything through accountability, then you realize that, that all these gaps suddenly start to close and you get better value for your money being spent. Yeah.
[00:37:29] Speaker B: Hello. Good morning.
[00:37:31] Speaker F: Good morning, Mr. Devi.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: Good morning.
[00:37:35] Speaker F: And your guest, Princess tong. Good morning, Mr. Devi and your guest listeners. I think the budgets for me and for many citizens represent a paradigm shift in the thinking of government and governance practices in the country. And I want to congratulate the government for that, for that shift away towards value for money and into the productive areas. For example, they are talking about employing more persons under the national improvement environment that they have now under the regional corporations, which is a good thing, Mr. Devi, because you eliminate all the contractors and this and that, whatever they are under the supervision of the regional corporations and more persons will get sustainable jobs. A CPEP worker and a URP worker. Mr. David, could they go to the bank and get a loan? Do they have collaterals, etc. No, that is just temporary employment. We want long term sustainable employment where people can take a loan, purchase a vehicle, pay down on a little property, all these kinds of things where you can have real social and economic mobility for the small man, as we would say. And the only way that can happen is when they get permanent, sustainable, real jobs. We are hearing about more prison officers and police officers and of course the steel mill is coming back on, the refineries coming back. And all that is going to happen in the oil and gas next year must augur well for the economy and the expansion of the economy.
So I think when you put into context where we came from 10 years backwards, I think we are in a much better place now and things are looking much better for Trinidad and Tobago going forward. And I would invite all citizens to come on board, come on board and see what contribution, what role you can play as a citizen, regardless of your political affiliation, to promote Trinidad and Tobago. I think this was a red, white and black border.
Thank you, Princess Tong.
[00:39:41] Speaker C: So, you know, I hear the patriotism in the, in the caller and I think that what he's trying to say is that we need to have productive persons who's getting government salary in terms of being apolitical, one party or the next. I think that if you're neutral, you will see that there are many things in this budget that will go to the householder and drill a big well in their pockets. If you really understood what it is happening in the budget, the minister say, and more to come. Let us not forget that the last budget, while it didn't have it had some goodies and whatever subsequently after is every Monday morning something was going up.
So we have to be mindful of data. I will not hold my breath on all of these things. In terms of where we going. Yes, we get some oil and gas coming in that will materialize sometime later on. We welcome that. Yes pensioners now have a higher threshold. Yes you have these grants but yes we somebody have to pay for it. Right. So when you see Tian Tech and I've said this before it seems as though we are targeting we call the voiceless wide gaps that people do have a voice. When your household scent, your TNT goes up 5 cents a kilowatt. Well 5 cents neither here nor there but that translates to nearly 13 and a half percent. You know it does. Your bill just went up by 13 and a half percent. And let me refer to my industry now. The gas tank industry, any gas station industry.
We have to calibrate by Borea standards twice a year because it's a meter that regulates how much fuel passing. You ever hear any meter TNTEC meter calibrated?
Nobody ever think about that.
So if it is like NP who calibrate any trucks and selling we gas and we had to say hey short gas and smile and go back right? Who doing it for Tiantech? I have heard between yesterday and today because I have friends and relatives that live both Trinidad and we and they spend a number of months away and they say that the kilowatts is almost negligible.
So is it? And of course. And, and we could put this out there. How many people have realized in the past eight or nine months that your kilowattage increase and by how much? I think that is for you to discuss later on.
[00:42:22] Speaker B: I thank you very much. Rival. I'm out of time for chatting with me this morning on this very very important topic.
As the debates continue Friday, we expect the opposition leader to grace the house at 9:30 with her rebuttal to the budget and I look forward to her contributions.
Whether she's just going to rubbish down every single thing of the budget or whether we would get aspects of it where we can pull out and say okay, this was fine, let's see. Because it's a wait and see game. The kilowatts, the recalibration of your meters. We don't see that happening. We never heard of it.
[00:42:57] Speaker C: Nobody never think about it up until today.
You see what happens as a nation.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: We take everything wholesale and we just run with it.
[00:43:05] Speaker C: And we run with it. The Netflix stocks it's not Netflix alone or.
[00:43:08] Speaker B: No Davey, it's every streaming platform, your Google accounts, your cloud accounts, your cloud storage, everything you paid for. But guess where the idea came from. The pnm, you know column did it first.
[00:43:22] Speaker C: Yeah but there are big parts of it that we as a nation not seeing. Yes, we will say Google and, and Facebook and they all that marketing just go on to your course, you know. Yeah. What about antivirus for your software?
[00:43:34] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:43:34] Speaker C: What about Microsoft? What about all these new cars with software upgrade Mostly manufacturing plants. Right. Have technology that they could go in any gas station. We have to use agents of Petrosoft.
[00:43:48] Speaker B: Right.
[00:43:49] Speaker C: To run our station that we have to. That is what I was quarreling about. I need more US to pay for routers and is it that going to pass on?
[00:43:58] Speaker B: I'm happy that you mentioned that.
[00:43:59] Speaker C: What about merchant fees, Master and Visa card? All of these are online stuff. So I guess we'll have to wait and see how far is this reaching and how it is going to affect each and every one of us but the voice of the voiceless it seem as though we are being punished indeed.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: So I thank you.
[00:44:18] Speaker A: The best insight constant feedback accountability the all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.
