Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago Flooding 2018: Observations; Logistics (Pt 3).

~ Taran ~ 2 Comments

120314-N-WG146-042In Part 2 related to my Observations of the Trinidad and Tobago Flooding in 2018, logistics gets mentioned and it’s worth noting that a lot of people don’t really understand what logistics is.

Logistics, in it’s simplest form, is the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. Disaster response tends to be complex because what is happening on the ground is not about what is happening in one place, but in all places related to the situation.

Logistics would have helped to avoid issues such as people asking for and receiving things they didn’t need.  It would have helped avoid situations where police had to defend mattresses. It would have helped get aid to people faster, getting what was needed where it was needed most as quickly as possible.

Logistics During

In a disaster that is happening over a period of time, logistics is pretty simple.

During the disaster itself, such as the flooding, rescuers – trained personnel that can save lives – shouldn’t run in like a Hollywood movie or dance in like a Bollywood movie. Fools rush in, typically – if it’s not safe and you lose rescue personnel, the capacity to save more people later on is compromised. Patience is of utmost importance at this time – a downed rescuer becomes a victim.

In extreme cases, rescuers are sent in when there is no other choice – which is the stuff Hollywood is made of.

During the disaster, the idea is to put things in place? A flood? Well, you’re going to need boats – something that the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago has identified.

In being prepared for a disaster – any disaster – you need to have inventory. You need potable water that can be distributed, the capacity to assure food, shelters, medical support (that doesn’t rob other people of emergency personnel), communications to and from a command center, and unfortunately, yes, security forces to protect the supplies.

The command center plans, assesses, and tries to put things as close to the disaster areas as possible to minimize time for distribution. They have to have decent estimates of how many people are affected, what sort of medical issues that they will have to contend with, and what sort of disbursement issues will arise and plan for them.

Logistics After

On one side, you have people who need help – the disaster victims. They don’t really care about logistics because they have a direct need and that direct need is all that they can see – and it’s not just frustrating, it can mean the loss of quality of life and life itself.

On the other side of things, you have the people who want to help – this involves the government and the private entities, from the person with a boat or 4×4 to the non-profits collecting goods to be disbursed. This is where a command center and communications are most important.

Everything should be coordinated by the command center. Does it have to be a government organization? No. Does it mean supplies go to the command center? No, it means that the command center coordinates efforts, gets feedback on the ground, redirects supplies as needed, and assesses needs. And in Trinidad and Tobago, you would think that the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) would have done this.

Honestly, if there was a command center during the flood in Trinidad, it wasn’t readily apparent. We had Ministers out and about, one flying around, others wandering around doing their own assessments (when they should be in a command center coordinating such things). What happens if we lose a Minister during or after a disaster?

Sure, people want to see people in authority. But more importantly, people need for their needs to be met.

Priorities: Needs over wants.

While the ODPM defends itself, I can’t help but wonder why they weren’t more visible in coordinating efforts. There should have been a message that went out – “If you have donations, please contact us so we can get your supplies to the right spot”. Maybe I missed it, maybe it wasn’t spread on social media, maybe they did do it – but as someone who was watching, I didn’t see anything from the ODPM on that.

Instead, the ODPM gave a withering response about Regional Corporations being the entities supposed to handle things in their area… which is an implicit logical flaw when it comes to disasters, because the specific Regional Corporation is probably compromised. What a stupid ‘plan’.

During the whole incident, it was unclear who was in charge of what – something that should never be a question when it could have been planned for. This wasn’t the 2010 Earthquake in Haiti. It was a flood. There was time.

So, Trinidad and Tobago’s government failed – but too, so does CARICOM in the larger scope of things – and even the people who helped significantly did not use logistics as well as they could.

That support was given is great, and everyone should be proud of their efforts – but everyone should also be considering how they could be doing it better for the next time.

There is always a next time.

Trinidad and Tobago Flooding 2018: Observations on Government (Pt 2)

~ Taran ~ 2 Comments

800px-Flag_of_Trinidad_and_Tobago.svgIn Part I related to the 2018 flooding in Trinidad and Tobago, I was very upbeat about how the community was handling things, and here, now, I will be less upbeat – but not as a matter of politics. The government response is a symptom of a lack of preparedness for a disaster at this scale.

When I write of ‘this scale’, too, this is not as large a disaster as we have seen in the past internationally with earthquakes or hurricanes or tsunamis or typhoons or… and yet, the reality is that for anyone affected or responding to any disaster, it’s huge. It’s emotional, it’s frustrating, and well intentioned people want to do more and expect governments to do more.

It’s clear that the government of Trinidad and Tobago is overwhelmed at this time. While many people only heard a part of what the Prime Minister of Grenada commented on the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago’s statement that Trinidad and Tobago was not accepting aid at this time, they did not hear the key to it all: Logistics. The Government of Trinidad and Tobago cannot handle the logistics of disbursing more aid at this time according to Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Keith Rowley.

In essence, a flood of aid might be wasted, and the sane thing to do is to hold off on asking for assistance until what is needed is actually identified. This is common sense, but it’s common sense that leaves people when they are flooded with imagery of homes underwater, of people who have lost all but the love of their brothers and sisters.

In the end, while unpopular, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago was honest about the capacity of government to handle the situation – something which has been neglected for decades. People have been uttering, “God is a Trini” for as long as I can remember, a testament to faith that Trinidad and Tobago alone had some form of relationship with a superior being. God simply doesn’t handle logistics when the… water… hits the fan.

Flash Flood South of Couva
Flash flood on the highway near Couva, Trinidad, 2008

I’m critical of government, apolitically. I have been publicly critical of one Minister flying around in an airplane instead of being at his desk, among others, and I have been critical of the Trinidad and Tobago Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) for years.

It was only a year ago when we had to deal with Tropical Storm Brett and it’s fallout – and I wrote some things in that context a year ago that have apparently not been addressed. Flash flooding is not new in Trinidad and Tobago.

It’s getting worse – scientists agree on climate change though politicians do not; the complexity of climate change is lost on many. Sea levels are rising. We’ve been seeing increased rainfall in parts of the world, droughts in others.

red-house---colourSystems do not change quickly. When I wrote about Brett last year in Trinidad and Tobago, I didn’t expect an immediate change – but I did expect at least a few things to change. The ODPM still has a useless app, it’s still ponderously slow to respond for such a small organization in a small country… it’s a bit like a mouse that lacks agility, slamming into walls with the precision of a meteorite. And it’s a symptom of larger issues that plague Trinidad and Tobago.

So no, the government of Trinidad and Tobago doesn’t get a free pass, but the present government needs to turn decades of lack of exercise of this arm of government to deal with things – as well as other things, which I’ll get to in a later post.

The global economy isn’t waiting for Trinidad and Tobago.

Neither is nature.

Trinidad and Tobago Flooding 2018: Observations, Pt 1.

~ Taran ~ 3 Comments

Caroni Swamp, TrinidadI’ve been quiet about the flooding, observing and absorbing.

It’s no secret that there has been flooding this year in Trinidad and Tobago, enough so that Trinidad and Tobago asked for the regional catastrophe facility for financial help.

The Trinidad and Tobago community rose to the challenge even while government seemed as overwhelmed as the flooding victims. Emotional postings on social media are ubiquitous – the best of humanity shown by everyone from the individual to the non-profits that were quick to respond, and as the scale of it became more understood, the corporations lent a hand.

It’s all commendable. I just want to quietly point out that the person who rips his own slice of bread to share gives more than than the person who owns the bakery and gives loaves – yet, that half a slice that comes at a higher cost to an individual is not enough on this scale. Everything, regardless of motivation, is useful and it doesn’t matter how much one gives.

I did my part as I could. There was a time not long ago that I would have been out there with a raised 4×4 myself, but I don’t have that anymore and, truth be told, I have regretted that but have found solace in not having to deal with all the little things that come with that. It’s tiring, frustrating and at times heartbreaking work to go out there and see the devastation and the human price to be paid. And, if I’m honest with myself, I loved that sort of thing even with the price it comes with – including the frustration of disaster experience that is not respected. The frustration has waned with age.

Yet I can witness. I can pay attention and try to make sense from nonsense, without the need for deadlines for tomorrow’s newspaper or video stream or the hope that my blog post will be first and therefore most popular with a clickbait headline.

That being said, I’ve been paying attention with a critical eye. I’ve felt like throwing the government under the bus more than once, and with emotional social media posts and heart-tugging headlines it’s very hard to remain objective.

A few have even taken stabs at politics during this time, perhaps because that’s the default setting of some – but the flooding wasn’t politically motivated, and politics isn’t going to solve the real issues for people on the ground. Frankly, if you have time for politics during this time, you’re value to people is dubious.

My misanthropic heart can’t help but be lifted by people doing what they do during and after any disaster, and from this new and strong bonds will be formed that will transcend much that may have helped cause this in the first place – which will be fodder for my next post(s).

 

If Not Labeled Obscenely…

~ Taran ~ Leave a comment
cof
It probably helps if your items are fuzzy when they pass through Customs and Excise, Trinidad and Tobago, to pass for not being indecent or obscene.

Not long ago, Trinidad and Tobago was dealing with a strange situation – whether ‘sex toys’ were illegal to import. There were first stories saying that sex toys were banned, and I noted this as peculiar and took the media to task on it for doing less research than I did in less than an hour.

Then, there was a rebuttal by Trinidad and Tobago Finance Minister Colm Imbert saying all of this was fake news – though I wonder if this was all a setup to get  a Minister to discuss sex toys.

The question, though, was what was considered indecent and obscene – or not. Lyndon Baptiste (RedWallNews) expressed this clearly in one of his videos.  2 months in prison for being a ‘rogue’ or ‘vagabond’? 

It’s a lot like the Law in Trinidad and Tobago that leaves whether automobile tinting is too dark and thus illegal – it’s at the discretion of someone in positional authority.

Positional. Sex Toy. Umm.

If only someone with journalistic integrity and maturity would delve deeper into this issue for the ladies – and I suppose at least some men.

For lack of anyone with these attributes, I decided to do it myself.

Before I left for Tobago, I went on Amazon.com and searched for what might be considered an ‘adult toy’ for women – men tend to take things in hand – and was amazed at the wide…. array… of things available to women. My. Word. Ladies, I had an idea, but my word, are you catered for.

Since I’m presently not in a relationship and have no idea what a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ one might be, I opted for something that might be less likely to be fingered by Customs and Excise. After all, though I was making sure I had a vacation in between, I wasn’t too interested in being called a ‘rogue’ or ‘vagabond’ over this, and I certainly didn’t want to spend 2 months among hardened criminals:

“What are you in for?”
“Customs…”
“Smuggling?”
“You could say that…”

So I did a search related to internal massage. Given the number of orifices on the average human – are you counting right now? – I thought that might be more likely to pass the test versus, “BIG LIFELIKE —– VIBRATING D–D- WITH MOUNTING SUCTION CUP”.

I ordered it. While it spent it’s time in a box being shipped, I considered the possibilities. Should I do a faux interview with it about Customs and Excise should it make it through? I decided it should have a stutter, but since it was made in China I wasn’t sure how to do the voice. It took a while, but it got here . When I spoke with the young female clerk when I picked it up, she confirmed my suspicions.

It’s really about what you call it.

What’s more, it seems that they threw in a ‘finger massager’ as well. I didn’t even know that was a thing.

So ladies – and I suppose some men, too – just be careful with what it’s called. ‘Discrete’ shipping is typical with such items, I saw, but what they call it might mean the difference between pleasure and pain.

Items for this research have already been donated to a suitable… charity. 

A New Chapter for Trinidad and Tobago

~ Taran ~ 1 Comment
P1070144
Petrotrin at night, courtesy Gavin, made available through this Creative Commons License.

I’ve never written about the oil and gas industry. I’m certainly no expert – there are plenty of people claiming to be with or without credentials, and I don’t wish to intrude upon their space.

Oil and gas, after all, is a messy affair. In Trinidad and Tobago, even more so since it has and continues to depend so much on this sector for income – something that I do write about in the context of diversifying the economy through technology, which in turn could finance further development in those areas. That’s crazy thinking in Trinidad and Tobago for anyone in a position to do anything about it.

So first I’m not going to write about Trinidad and Tobago. I’m going to write about a place few from Trinidad and Tobago have ventured to before I bring it all back to Trinidad and Tobago.

The place?

Beloit, Wisconsin Watertower
Photo by me, July, 2010.

Beloit, Wisconsin.

This was a place that Margaret Mead, a renowned cultural anthropologist, once called ‘America in microcosm’. Many families there once worked for a company some have heard of – General Motors (GM).

The nearby GM assembly plant was open in 1919, and lasted until 2009 – 90 years. So it was pretty much settled that as children grew up, they’d get a job at GM. In 1970, the peak employment of that plant was 7,000.

When I got to Beloit in 2010 or so, it was a very different Beloit. I didn’t get to see it on the upswing – I am too young for that – and I didn’t see it dwindle. I saw the results – a small economy within Wisconsin that had high unemployment and all the stuff that goes with it.

An interesting and unrelated thing to note is that the city fines people who don’t keep their lawns mowed or their houses painted. This had resulted in even small time criminals maintaining nice lawns, and some pretty annoyingly colored houses as a form of rebellion.

The economy was hyper-dependent on GM. And I expect that even now, the recovery from that weaning was difficult.

Now, Beloit was in a quandary when GM shut down operations in the area. They likely still are.

Downtown Beloit Sunset
Downtown Beloit at Sunset, also by me. 2012.

Yet, they have one of the most highly rated Main Streets, and in 2015 Milken Institute Best-Performing Cities Index ranked the Janesville-Beloit metropolitan area #4 by how well they created and sustained jobs and economic growth.

I don’t know much about what happened when I left – what I do know is that Beloit was in trouble. And I saw opportunity for technology companies there – and some showed up, though I’m not certain how that all worked out.

But I do know one thing. Beloit’s still there.

Petrotrin oil refinery
Petrotrin Oil Refinery at Night, made available by Marc Aberdeen through this Creative Commons License.

Back to Trinidad and Tobago and Petrotrin: There are parallels with Beloit, and there are some things that are not. For example, Petrotrin is only a part of the oil and gas sector in Trinidad and Tobago – and also, it’s government owned – though the Wikipedia article presently discusses Petrotrin in a past tense.

This morning, I watched Curtis Williams say that the Trinidad and Tobago government bought the refinery, now being closed according to a leaked internal memo, to save 3,000 jobs. He went on to say that this seemingly remained the main thrust of what Petrotrin did in later years – profitability was never really seen as important.

Now, some people talk about this as a business – as they should. Still, the government buying the refinery was a risky proposition for the long term. But politics requires jobs – and every political party that has been in power has kept that ball in the air.

That ball in the air is now a can being kicked around on the ground now.

And so, the conversations about privatization I’ve seen have been lacking in understanding that it’s simply a bad business proposition for a private entity to run. The cost of production is, from most reports, too high.

Now, to be fair, I didn’t dig into the financials – I could, but if I dig into the books of any company, I’m only looking at what is reported – and no one has reported anything good.

So the question is whether it’s worth keeping at all. There’s enough inefficiency that it should be a wake up call; to me it seems an indictment of a culture that allowed it to happen – something no one in Trinidad and Tobago wants to hear.

But if they look carefully, they can see it.

I will point out that Beloit, Wisconsin has found ways to recover – and I’m pretty sure there are at least parts of it that are unpopular. Beloit survives. So will Trinidad and Tobago. But there are necessary differences between what they were and what they must become.

The time for thinking about economic diversification is over. With a lowering interest in oil and gas technologies, it’s time for the Government of Trinidad and Tobago – as well as it’s stakeholders, every citizen, to start working on that diversification.

Want things to change? Read more. Think more. Think about repercussions of actions at even the most personal of levels – there is opportunity in even the most dire of circumstances, if only the Government and people would get out of their own way.

Or you could paint your house a bright orange in protest – an appropriate mix of red and yellow political filters – and hope for the best.

I’m not a big fan of orange, yellow or red.

Writers Without Borders.

~ Taran ~ 5 Comments

Chimpanzee playing with a laptopWhen Renard Moreau wrote about the six things that baffled him, I had to respond – and I did. Yet there is more I’d like to say on the topic of, “Where are the bloggers from Trinidad and Tobago?”.

There was a time when I was considered to be a blogger from Trinidad and Tobago. Geographically, right now, I would have to agree to the fact that I’m blogging from Trinidad and Tobago. And I’d also have to agree that I’ve been writing a few posts lately that are about Trinidad and Tobago, because I happen to be here and I happen to notice things.

GlobalVoices once thought I was a blogger from Trinidad and Tobago, but then they realized I lived in South Trinidad and that I didn’t write incessantly about Trinidad and Tobago.

I lost clique status, quietly, and my feelings were not hurt. That’s just not what I write. And I also don’t write about places where unicorns dance around rainbows with leprechauns, for that matter, and much of what is written about Trinidad and Tobago seems to be that. Just like everywhere else I’ve lived or experienced. That’s just not what I see.

I believe writers are witnesses of a sort. What we witness defines what we write, be it science fiction, be it fiction, or be it obituaries.

“I see dead people”, said the obituary writer.

There are more places to list than a single nation, and to define me by one nation is a little insulting.

The truth is that there are two things that legitimize a writer: Actually writing and not being horrible at it, and being read. My dues in that department are so old that the receipts add up to broken links.

But back to these borders, these boundaries that people want to neatly place other people in when their sock drawer is likely in need of more attention instead. I write. Others write. And when people write, certainly they color their writing with what has made them… them. Yet, unless they marched around under a specific nation’s flag all the time, it’s hard for me to imagine a writer to be from anywhere.

What writers write, though – that’s something completely different. If you write solely about Trinidad and Tobago, I’d say you’re a Trinidad and Tobago writer (small market). If you write solely about the United States, I’d say you’re an American writer (big market). If you write solely about Jamaica, someone’s going to annoy you with a poorly done Jamaican accent and tell you they love Bob Marley.

It’s the way of it.

So, while there are boundaries in this world, writers that I read are not limited by those boundaries.

Stories practically write themselves everywhere. Recently in South Oropouche, a man was dismayed to walk into his own wake – and I know the fellow. The sex toy ban has everyone murmuring with friends, laughing and joking, but the ineptitude related to that government and media conversation is something out of a Pink Panther graphic novel.

But that’s not what defines me as a writer. That I am a writer has taken over a decade for me to admit, even after having published through O’Reilly publishing, writing numerous articles, and so on. But I’m a writer.

And that’s enough, really. I’m not out there flying a flag for a nation. I’m writing what’s on my mind. Nobody’s paying me at this time – feel free to send me money – but don’t expect me to change what I’m writing.

It’s my thing. It’s what I do. And I’d like to think that writers themselves are larger than the borders they live within.

The Failure To Communicate. [Updated 22 Aug 2018]

~ Taran ~ 4 Comments
Giant cucumbers from Doug and Ariana.
Cucumbers, which are not sex toys, provided here as a neutral image for this article. Use through a Creative Commons License which can be found by clicking the image.

I found yesterday (21 Aug 2018) that I had made an error in this; the Customs Act does in fact have something on obscene materials. The mistake I made was in assuming that they had searchable text. They do not have searchable text in the PDFs they have online, something worthy of note – but not an excuse. Lesson learned. 

When the Great Ban on Sex Toys in Trinidad and Tobago was announced, I was both slightly amused and curious. It’s not that I write about such topics, it’s that I’m human and that Trinidad and Tobago in it’s entirety doesn’t cease to surprise me when it comes to odd things.

You see, there were articles written as if it weren’t a developing story – there was no notation, as an example, that the Government of Trinidad and Tobago’s Customs and Excise Division website did not make mention of ‘sex toys’. Of course, maybe it just wasn’t updated, but a search of the Trinidad and Tobago Gazette didn’t reveal any new changes either. That took me less than 30 minutes to go through as an uninterested person, not a journalist. And I’m not a lawyer. So it seems to be a spurious claim, one that doesn’t jive. Update: Section 45 l of the Customs Act does mention things that can be related to ‘sex toys’, but not directly. 

The law being quoted is Section 46(g) of the Criminal Offences Act which says: “Any person who offers for sale or distribution or who exhibits to public view any profane, indecent, or obscene, paper, print, drawing, painting or representation may be deemed a rogue and a vagabond and if found liable, to imprisonment for two years.” Update: They were quoting the wrong law in the article. The Customs Act was the appropriate Act to quote, which would have been 45 L. 

It says nothing about importation. Granted, the last group of people I’d want to know what I do with myself would be the government and it’s employees, but the published Acts and Amendments related to Customs and Excise says nothing about sex toys, or anything profane, indecent, or obscene…

So I’m writing this, despite my misgivings about the topic, because to me the topic at issue is not sex toys, but instead appropriate research for an article that is supposed to inform the public. There is a big question here that, sure, Ministers should be able to answer – but they’re ducking it.

Selling the items is one thing. Importing for personal use seems to be quite another.

And while I wouldn’t want to know what the government would tax on sex toys, given how much I paid on a simple book recently, I don’t know that anyone would think it worthwhile – but articles that are about an alleged ban of importation of sex toys doesn’t make sense to anyone who bothers with a short amount of research.

And can someone, please, give a legal definition of a sex toy that isn’t subjective?

This is a failure of the media, in my eyes, though my eyes see the world differently than others. I view the media’s job to inform and question appropriately. The very first article should have been able to say that no one has mentioned the laws related to customs and excise, that the law quoted was about the sale of the items.

This has blaring questions attached that are so apparent that they might as well be painted bright neon pink.

And made to vibrate.

Now, if they start dealing with Internet Enabled… devices… and privacy issues, such as this data breach, I’ll write more about it. But to me, this is all about improper communication from the people we depend on to communicate.  

The Reading Tax: Trinidad and Tobago.

~ Taran ~ 2 Comments

The last copy I'm buying. Too many given away or stolen.While we live in an era where digital books are prevalent, and I have many of them, there are certain books that I like to have physically. And I like to have them in hardcover because, if a book is worth having physically, it’s worth having the hardcover.

So I ordered the book on the right through Amazon.com- the Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. It’s somewhat rare as seen, so it ended up costing me $58 U.S. from a third party vendor through Amazon.com. I got it today, after Aeropost covered customs for me – which cost an additional $24.39 US (or $164.35 TT).

All in all, this specific book cost me $82.39 US, or $555.18 TT. It’s something I’m willing to pay for; it’s an important book for me.

Still, that is a little pricey, isn’t it? If it wasn’t important to me, I wouldn’t bother.

I recalled that Nigel Khan’s bookstore used to do special orders years ago, and I thought maybe it would be worth exploring – they do, after all, import books. So I wandered into Southpark and asked the lady about it, and she said ‘yes’. I provided her a few titles I wanted in hardcover, English translations… and started off with ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ (Paulo Freire).

She dutifully tapped away at her keyboard, then asked me to come around and choose which edition I wanted. When I wandered around, my mind’s internal jaw dropped.

I was staring at Amazon.com’s page search for ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’.

Still, this was an experiment and I wanted to see where this would go. Maybe they had a better deal for me. Maybe it would be something worthwhile, maybe there would be some value added to me somehow. So I chose the 50th year anniversary hardcover of ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’, which I saw was clearly was $64.47 US.

And we worked through the other book – Musashi’s, “Book of Five Rings”.

Then, she whipped out her calculator – because no one uses the calculator on the computer they access the Internet on (there’s money down the tubes) – and she started working out the pricing.

Now, I paid about 30% markup on the Douglas Adams book myself, which is pretty steep for any book – but let’s work with a 30% markup. So, at $64.47 US, I should be looking at about $84 US to bring the book in. That’s about $566-570 TT.  In my head, I averaged roughly $575 TT, which wasn’t too far off as I write this.

That solar powered calculator had other numbers in mind.

It spoke with the woman’s voice and told me $1200 TT/$180 US.

For a $65 US book. For something I could bring in myself for roughly $84 US.

What?! For one book? That’s effectively buying the same book almost 3 times and getting only one copy. I buy the government a copy they don’t get, I buy the bookstore a copy they don’t get, and I get one.

I’ll bring it in myself when I’m ready. Or, at those prices, maybe I should fly to the U.S. and bring in a suitcase of books.

Everybody knows it.

But people in Trinidad and Tobago, largely, know this. And this is one aspect of living in small economy with little purchasing power, subject to pricing necessary to maintain a business presence in Trinidad and Tobago based on importation. I can get screwed by the government alone by bringing it in myself, or I can get screwed by the government who subsequently screws a business that’s screwing me.

Yet not everyone can order the books off of Amazon – foreign exchange is a commodity unto itself in Trinidad and Tobago. So if you want a book and you can’t get the foreign exchange together, which is just about everybody these days, you get charged about 3 times the book price for a special order.

And can everyone afford that? No.

Reading in Trinidad and Tobago seems to have become a luxury. We live in a global information economy, and these prices for books in the Trinidad and Tobago Information Fiefdom do not bode well for the future.

See An Attorney: Purchasing Land in T&T

~ Taran ~ 1 Comment

Survey PointThere’s always a deal too good to be true anywhere, but in Trinidad and Tobago it seems those that are easily swindled are found all over – I’ve met more than a few.

This post on Facebook about an allegedly dishonest real estate agent is what prompted this post. I’ve seen it too many times, partly because I own property.

It’s easy for anyone to say derogatory things about people who fall for land related fraud. I see it as an issue of a lack of education, of desperation, and the promise of something too good to be true. And on the flip side, there are enough people out there with property that don’t understand the process themselves and dig their own holes.

And, to be clear, I am not an attorney. I just know one thing that should be the mantra of anyone who is going to purchase property: Consult an attorney with land conveyance experience.

What I share beyond that is subject to about 20 years of indirect experience and 13 years of direct experience of dealing with property sales in Trinidad and Tobago.

The First Steps

The first step is, so that everyone knows, not to build a house and hope that the owner never shows up. It’s actually to have a conversation with the landowner – and from there, the following should be done if a sale is agreed upon:

(1) A deed search: Don’t buy property without a deed because then… you’re not really buying property. You may be buying rights, and I’ve seen instances where the rights are dubious.

Any attorney can do a deed search. It verifies that the deed is legitimate. However, it doesn’t verify that the deed being shown represents the land that is being sold. See part II.

If someone is selling rights, that’s a legal process as well which involves notifying the landowner. 

(2) A survey: You can’t buy or sell anything without defining what it is.

Get a survey.  That survey will also verify that the deed shown in step 1 is the same one being dealt with.

Purchase agreements can be done without surveys, but without very specific circumstances the best bet is to have a survey – and I think it’s in the purchaser’s interests to have their surveyor do it.

(3) Purchase Agreement: Once everyone agrees to a price for the property being sold – conveyed –  everyone goes to an attorney to do the purchase agreement. The purchaser can select their own attorney (I encourage it).

It usually means putting 10% down, as well as other things that the attorney will advise you on –  such things can change, so I won’t get into that. Attorneys get paid to stay on top of that. See one.

Do not simply hand money over to someone without a signed agreement.

(4) At the end of the purchase agreement period, pay off what is owed. You pay the lawyer for services, as well as deed registration, and so on.

You’ll need an assessment number as well – the attorney should already have that from the people selling – and you’ll go get your own assessment number, which is it’s own process.

And that’s basically how you purchase land/property. And even with this simple thing, you’ll note you always start at an attorney to verify that the deed is legitimate, and you should get your advice about everything else right then and there. I don’t expect the overall process to change, but your attorney will advise you.

Do it right or don’t do it at all. Don’t cry fraud if you never went to see an attorney, you just look silly.

Ferrying The Wrong Questions Without Data

~ Taran ~ Leave a comment

leaving TrinidadPeople have been talking a lot about the new ferry between Trinidad and Tobago, the MV Galleon’s Passage. There’s been plenty of coverage in the media – some I’m certain I haven’t seen – but I ignored much of it because it was apparent that people talking about the ship and the one it had replaced didn’t know too much about ships.

I found myself staring at a comparison between the MF Panorama and the MV Galleon’s Passage on Facebook. Assuming the information is correct, there’s a lot to speculate on – but there’s not enough.

Ship Name MF PANORAMA MV GALLEONS PASSAGE
Built 1987 2016
Length 101.28 m 74 m
Breadth 17.54 m 22 m
Speed (Top) 14.6 knots (19 knots) 11.6 knots (22 knots)
# Passengers 1,000 700
# beds 45 0
# cars 145 100
Time to Tobago 5 hours 6-8 hours

Let’s assume for a moment that this is all correct – I’m not sure.

On the surface, this is a pretty clear comparison between two ships. In this comparison, the new ship, the MV Galleons Passage is smaller by length, yet wider. It’s maximum speed is slower. It carries less passengers. It has no beds, and it carries less cars. That’s all pretty damning, right?

Not really. Probably the most important aspect of a ferry is the displacement. You can have a ship that has lower length and breadth that has a higher displacement. I’m not saying that this is the case here, I’m saying that information isn’t available here and can’t be found easily on the Internet, if it exists at all. The draft of the ships could have hinted at that. A read of ship measurements might be revealing.

The point is, the data we have here really doesn’t demonstrate much except some decreases – the number of passengers, cars and beds have decreased – the beds all the way out of existence – but then we get into different things that should have been considered when looking at getting a ferry.

What does the ferry need to do?

The ferry needs to transport people and things back and forth between Trinidad and Tobago. We could leave it at that – in fact, it seems everyone has – but really, it’s more complicated than it has been framed in the media and by politicians.

When purchasing something, we should be looking not only at it’s capacity – it’s value, per se – as well as it’s cost. If you don’t know the difference between cost and value, hold your breath. The cost of air is presently free. The value of air is revealed the as you hold your breath. Take your time.

So, like everything else, there’s an initial cost. There are also maintenance costs. In the context of a ship, you’re looking at electromechanical maintenance, other maintenance (painting, et al), as well as the cost of the ship’s complement (the people who work on the ship) and their salaries. Where’s this data?

And while we’re here, while there are no beds for people to take naps in the new ships, this information is lacking something probably more important to businesses and people in Tobago: how much cargo can be packed in there? That isn’t mentioned at all – and the difference between the Loaded and Light displacement might tell us something. We don’t have that.

That can also be a factor in speed. Most people know that if you want to go fast, you get a sports car. If you have cargo, you want a heavier vehicle which is typically slower. We don’t know that the new ship is slower because of this, but it’s worth considering.

And that gets us into historical data, as well as present day demands.

Where’s The Historical Data?

How many passengers at most need to be transported at a time? How many vehicles at a time? How many people at a time prefer a slow boat over a short hop on a plane? How does that change throughout the year?

The short answer is, we don’t know. We simply don’t have that data, and we assume that the government has that data hidden away somewhere and we would hope that the best decision would be made that fits the requirements of the ship as well as affordability. But we don’t actually have any of that data available.

There’s no actual transparency here, and while we can hope that journalists asked these questions, we don’t have evidence of that.

Open Data

And this is where we can drag it to the Trinidad and Tobago National ICT plan. There’s supposed to be ‘open data’, allowing the general public of Trinidad and Tobago information in decisions such as this. All we’ve really had is a lot of guided conversation, without actual information that shows whether the decision is good, bad, or simply the best fit with the options available. Regardless of political stripe, this information would at the least allow more sensible conversation.

In essence, we’re asking for the government not just for the right answer, but to show it’s working. And that means not only do we have to ask the right questions – journalists and, failing them, otherwise – and we have to have access to the answers to those questions.