Kevon “Showtime” Woodley scored six goals as T&T kicked off its quest for a first ever FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup appearance with a  come-from win 8-4 defeat of Guadeloupe in their Group B Concacaf Beach Soccer Championship in San Salvador, El Salvador yesterday.

Kevin Clairon put Guadeloupe ahead as early as the second minute, when he latched onto a flick on by a team-mate following a long throw out by goalkeeper Paul Zirco, held on a T&T defender and poked the ball past the T&T goalkeeper Zane Coker.

However,  Woodley struck twice for T&T to lead, within seven minutes, first beating goalkeeper Paul Zircon with a diving header from a corner, and seven minutes guiding in a right footer from another corner for a 2-1 T&T lead.

Sebastien Hell then responded for Guadeloupe in the 22nd as he capitalised on a fumble by Coker off a Clairon long range shot to even the match at 2-2.

But Guadeloupe’s joy was short-lived as Woodley of Club Sando and  one of two new faces in the T&T squad put his team back ahead at 3-2 in the 25th, when he collected a pass from Chad Appoo after a quick throw out by Coker, and after juggling the ball on his thigh for a few paces, blasted a left footer past Zircon on his near post.

Three minutes, Guadeloupe replied again this time with Clairon chesting down a thrown in for Marvin Bourgeois to hit home a left footer past Coker for a 3-3 scoreline.

Once again, it was left to Woodley to restore his team’s lead at 4-3, and he did so in style, collecting a long pass with his back to goal, before swining on his right foot and blasting into the roof of the net from an acute angle.

To the disbelief of T&T coach Benyam Astorga, a former USA Beach Soccer World Cup player, Richardson Petit drew Guadeloupe back level at 4-4 within seconds as he cut inside his defender from the restart and unleashed a right footer which took a wicked bounce over the dive of Coker and into the net. 

Woodley was not done yet and after he was on spot to volley home a rebound to put his team back ahead at 5-4 in the 32nd after Chad Appoo’s initial attempt was blocked by a defender.

Former Soca Warriors defender Makan Hislop then provided T&T with a two-goal cushion as he turned in an attempt by a team-mate which was going wide of the mark from close range before Woodley got a sixth item and Kerwin Stafford his first to seal an 8-4 victory.

Last night, T&T faced Turks & Caicos in its second match.

Results:

Saturday:
Pool A:
Jamaica 7 vs Puerto Rico 3 
El Salvador 17 vs Beliz 2 
Pool B:
T&T 8 vs Guadeloupe 4 
Mexico 8 vs Turks & Caicos 3 

Fixtures:

Remaining round-robin fixtures:
Today: 
Guatemala vs US Virgin Islands, 4pm 
Bahamas vs Antigua & Barbuda, 5.15pm
Puerto Rico vs Belize, 6.30pm
Costa Rica vs Panama, 7.45pm
USA vs Barbados, 9pm
El Salvador vs Jamaica, 10.15pm
Tomorrow: 
Panama vs US Virgin Islands, 4pm
Barbados vs Antigua & Barbuda, 5.15pm
Guadeloupe vs Turks & Caicos, 6.30pm
Costa Rica vs Guatemala, 7.45pm
USA vs Bahamas, 9pm
Mexico vs T&T, 10.15pm

Legendary West Indies fast bowler Curtly Ambrose, fresh from the ICC World Cup, will deliver the key note address ‘Think Big, Start Small’, at this year’s Secondary Schools Leadership symposium, which starts today at the Ballroom of the Cascadia Hotel and Conference Centre, St Ann’s, at 9.15 am.

The event will be officially opened by Minister of Sport, Brent Sancho, and more than 300 students from secondary schools throughout the country will be exposed to messages, motivational speeches and dialogue with the region’s sporting heroes and icons.

The event, which is in its 16th year, is being hosted by The Sports Desk, and has received support from a number of organisations, including the Sports Company.

Three-time Sportswoman of the year, Cleopatra Borell, is among six women who will take the platform over the four days. The students will also hear from West Indies women’s cricket captain Merisa Aguilliera and national women’s hockey captain Patricia Alexis, as well as Dr Tonya Welch, Miss World 1986 Giselle West and inspirational speaker Patricia Gajadhar.

Former West Indian opener Philo Wallace, and former national cricket captain Daren Ganga will also be among the speakers, as will motivational speaker Don La Foucade.

Among the companies associated with the symposium are: NGC, the Neal and Massy Foundation, Scotiabank, Toyota, TsTT, The Fan Club, McAl, Civil Aviation, Stephenson’s, Coca Cola, First Citizens, Flavorite and the PTSC.

About The Sports Desk & Symposium

The Sports Desk is a non-profit organisation. It is the brainchild of Valentino Singh who is the Sport Editor at The Trinidad Guardian. He felt he could improve the lives of young people and journalists through his association with those in the field of sport. The symposium started with about 40 journalists, sport administrators and students in a room at the Trinidad Guardian office at St Vincent Street around 2004. Today, it has grown into one of the most eagerly anticipated events among secondary school students. Its latest achievement is the formation of The Sports Desk Youth Committee which is already making its mark through charitable projects.

The yearly secondary schools leadership symposium takes place for four days at The Cascadia Hotel, St Ann’s where close to 400 students get to interact, listen, seek autographs and most importantly, learn life lessons from some of the top icons in sport and other leading personalities in our country. Each year, more than 500 students register but only about 400 are accepted.

Also, at least 50 students from remote areas such as Cedros, Palo Seco, Rio Claro, Sangre Grande, Manzanilla and Vessigny and Tobago are handpicked by their school principals to represent their schools. These students have the opportunity to spend the four days at the hotel where they develop their leadership skills and build their self-confidence. Many of them also get a first time MovieTowne experience and visit places around the city of Port-of-Spain.

Among the speakers who have been involved in our programme over the years are:   

• Former WI and international cricket legend Courtney Walsh

• Olympic World track medalist Ato Boldon

• Cricket legend Brian Charles Lara

• ESPN analyst and World Cup football star 

   Shaka Hislop

• Olympic swimming icon George Bovell III

• National ambassador and former cricket captain Daren Ganga

• Miss World 1986 Giselle La Ronde West

• Miss Universe 1998 Wendy Fitzwilliam

• Boxing champion Ria Ramnarine

• Attorney Veera Bhajan

Like us on Facebook: @TheSportsDeskTT

Follow us on Twitter: @TheSportsDeskTT

E-mail us: thesportsdesktt@gmail.com

Call us: 868-773-3773 or 868-794-4200

Bob Dylan, in his drawling, haunting way, released a song-story called Isis in 1976 which was hailed as a lyrical masterpiece about a flawed hero in a spaghetti western-type dreamscape.

“I married Isis on the fifth day of May/

But I could not hold on to her very long/

So I cut off my hair and I rode straight away/

For the wild unknown country where I could not go wrong.”

The Secrets of Isis was a popular television show in the 70s in which an ordinary schoolteacher transforms into the Egyptian goddess to save the world. She was my Saturday morning superhero before Wonder Woman barged in. I knew her magic invocation by heart: “Oh zephyr winds that blow on high, lift me now so I can fly.”

Nowadays, the name Isis can get you fired, profiled, rubbed down, thrown off flights and shunned by all wrong-thinking bullies and paranoiacs out there. Grammar teachers might even be afraid to tell students that “isis’’ is a double copula, meaning the word is appears twice in succession in a sentence.

Isis is the name of the Egyptian goddess of womanly strengths, a feminine icon, adored as a perfect mother and protector. She is the goddess of nature. The name used to mean something powerfully beautiful—now it means a bomb strapped to the chest of a suicide drone.

A New York Home Depot employee says he was fired recently because he has “Isis,” the name of his ex-girlfriend, tattooed on the inside of his lip. 

Kirk Soccorso who got the tattoo four years ago, and must have been living in a cave with no wi-fi, said he had no idea “until just recently” that the acronym stood for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the extremist terrorist group. 

When Soccorso overheard a co-worker using the word he decided to show off his old tattoo. (It’s always a bad idea, by the way, to tattoo names of flames on any body part.) He was then told to go home and not return. His employers say it was not only the tattoo that got him fired.

In Australia, Frank and Sheridan Leskien of Sydney are distraught because their daughter Isis is being tormented at school because of her name. The family wants people to stop referring to the terror group which, monstrously,  has taken responsibility for video-taped beheadings, as ISIS so their daughter and others with the name can live a normal life. Frank Leskien told the Daily Mail that people used to say “What a beautiful name!’’ Now, they just look at him funny and scowl.

In the United States, a woman named Isis Martinez last year started an online petition to reclaim the name.

She is asking people to show support to “save’’ the name, begging the media to “stop calling the terrorists by our name.” The petition has attracted over 46,000 signatures.

Actually, lots of nice famous non-terrorist people are named Isis. Miss Cuba 1954 was Isis Margarita Finlay who participated in the third Miss Universe pageant in California, USA.

Isis Gonsalves, a scholarship-winning attorney, is the eldest daughter of Ralph and Eloise Gonzalves, the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines and his wife. Her sister is Soleil and her brother is Storm—so they better watch out, because one day some fool might decide to construct a bad-mind group called Soldiers of the League of Extremely Insane Loyalists and Storm could be the code name for an armageddon strike in the eyes of some over-enthusiastic Homeland Security agent at Miami airport.

So because some ugly people are bent on destroying the world, should all girls and women named Isis re-brand themselves? As Martinez said, if she changes her name, the terrorists win.

Dear politicians and media people, just drop the acronym. Type a few more letters, use a few more syllables in the newscasts and speeches and refer to the group by its full destructive name—the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Don’t make it all cute and soundbite-ish.

Terrorists should sound like terrorists. Take a cue from the movies and comic books—all the bad guys have bad guy names like Cobra and El Diablo and Mr Freeze. Don’t soften the face of terror. 

Isis signifies love and beauty, not advanced creepology. Isis is a beautiful, strong, intelligent woman who protects and heals. Isis is just too pretty a name to squander and cheapen on death, destruction and evil.

• Send me your thoughts but no suspicious brown paper packages tied up with string at wrenchelsa@hotmail.com

Ringing a bell, talking in tongues, lighting a candle or even sprinkling water to release blessings are still considered “simi dimi” or obeah by followers of other religions. This according to one baptist leader who believes that even after 203 years, the faith still has not gained the full respect it deserves. 

Speaking with the T&T Guardian, the leader who holds the title of Bishop and is a member of the National Evangelical Spiritual Baptist Faith Archdiocese Incorporated, said that although the faith had gained some respect because of the national holiday, there is still a lot of discrimination and stigmatisation. 

The bishop who has served in the faith for over two decades did not want to be identified, but added that the negative belief that Spiritual Baptists dabble in necromancy, has to some degree, hindered the growth of the Spiritual Baptist religion in T&T. 

“You still find that even today, other religions or denominations don’t want to associate with us because of that stigma,” he said.

“Sometimes people are even afraid to say that they are Baptist when they fill out forms for jobs or otherwise, for a fear that they might be viewed negatively or discriminated against.”

The Baptist elder defended the rituals of lighting candles, burning incense or sprinkling water by saying if people read the Bible carefully, they would find passages which speak about these rituals being performed and they were not considered to be evil.

“The funny thing is. These same other religions that speak against us, often times members of their church come to us for help and then return to their own. We do not discriminate. 

“The only difference between the Baptist and other religions is the way in which we administer our praise. But at the end of it all, our whole concept is in Christ.”

Baptists are not backward

The bishop who heads a church of more than 106 members in east Trinidad also dismissed the notion that the Baptist religion was backward. 

He said the churches are quite modern in their architectural style and the faith is made up of some of the best and the brightest.

“We have members who are engineers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, mayors etc. It is not a bunch of inadequate people from demographically-challenged areas as is often thought to be,” he noted.

He said in every religion there will be good, bad and indifferent people. 

But the thing that must remain foremost in the mind is keeping Jesus Christ at the centre of their lives.

“Religion is just an attraction to the life of Christ, but the relationship (with Christ) is what brings salvation.”

The Bishop also said the faith plays a vital role in society through outreach programmes, which involve prayer meetings, counselling and mentorship programmes.

“Many people’s lives have been transformed through this faith. I have see many thieves and gunmen change their lives around and now they are ministering to the younger ones. We are not about hypocrisy.”

Great strides made

While the Bishop comments focused on the discrimination of the baptist faith, secretary of the Council of Elders of the Spiritual Shouter Baptists, Junior Barrack, said over the past 20 years the Spiritual Shouter Baptist faith in T&T has made significant strides. He said the steady progress was to credited to  former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday who recognised the faith with a holiday, fulfilling a lifelong dream of the patriarch Archbishop Elton George Griffith who fought for the repeal of the shouter prohibition ordinance which criminalised shouter baptists.

“Since then the faith has made steady progress with the advent of the holiday and now the religion is also taught in school for the first time,” said Barrack.

Additionally, the Spiritual Shouter Baptists also received their own primary school and Early Childhood Care Centre. Barrack believes this has placed intellectual and academic development in the hands of the Shouter Baptists. 

Another great achievement was the revision of the table of precedence by the current government to include the faith.

“The so-called stigma is diminishing. They has been significant movement. We are no longer where we were 20 years ago.

“For those who laboured in the vineyards, there will be some gnashing of teeth at times and joy at other times. But there is progress and that is important and it brings joy to the hearts of the Shouter Baptists who remained steadfast in the faith, to see the seeds that were sown have indeed harvested,” said Barrack.

On the morning of March 27, while on my way to work, my vehicle got into some technical difficulties. This occurred on the north-bound lane of the Uriah Butler Highway in the vicinity of the Radio 730 station. I would like to sincerely thank the following individuals for assisting me during my time of need. 

1. The hardworking TTPS officers who assisted me that morning. These officers were all on motor cycle patrol and during the incident around four or five of them showed up. Two of the officers waited with me until the wrecker came and towed my vehicle.     
2. The gentlemen in the two trucks who stopped and assisted me. I believe one of the trucks was owned by SM Jaleel and the guys seemed to be on their way to work as well. These gentlemen assisted me during the morning rush hour traffic when everyone else in the slow moving traffic passed straight and seemed unconcerned with my obvious dilemma.  
3. The wrecker driver who towed the vehicle to the garage. Your swift response, professional manner and kind demeanor aided in keeping me calm that morning.
4. The wonderful lady I met in the waiting room at the garage, Ms S Singh. Your words of encouragement and prayer will go a long way in assisting me to get through this difficult time. You showed me how to always be thankful to the Almighty despite the adverse circumstances.  

Words cannot express how grateful I am for the assistance rendered to me that morning and it’s a pity I did not get the names of all these good Samaritans. From the bottom of my heart I thank you all, may the Almighty bless you and keep you and yours safe. I assure you that your kind deeds and words will be passed on to aid in making this world a better place. You are indeed shining examples of the type of people that the world needs more of.

Vernon Debi

T&T will host the final of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) at the Queen's Park Oval, Port-of Spain on July 26.

The 33-match CPL schedule, which was released today, will see games taking place in Barbados, St Lucia, St Kitts, Jamaica and Guyana. 29 of the 33 are night games.

Champion Barbados Tridents will face runners-up Guyana Amazon Warriors in the contest opener at the Kensington Oval, Barbados on June 20.

All six teams—Tridents, Warriors, the Jamaica Tallawahs, the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots, the St Lucia Zouks and the T&T Red Steel—play 10 games in the regular season, with two semi-finals and a final to decide who will be crowned 2015 champions.

The CPL prize money helped attract some a crop of players that includes Shahid Afridi, Jacques Kallis, Kevin Pietersen, Shoaib Malik, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Daniel Vettori, Lasith Malinga and Martin Guptill, according to a CPL release issued today.

"West Indian superstars Chris Gayle, Darren Sammy, Dwayne Bravo, Darren Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine, Denesh Ramdin, Marlon Samuels, Andre Russelland Jason Holder are also all involved in CPL15, with last year's global audience of 65 million expected to be surpassed," the release said

"I am thrilled that so many quality players from within the Caribbean and around the world have been attracted to play in the CPL this season," the release quotes CPL CEO Damien O'Donohoe as saying.

More schedule and ticketing information is available at the official CPL website www.cplt20.com.

While he was supposed to be celebrating his birthday, David Williams was lying dead in a pool of his own blood.

Instead of enjoying his 30th birthday celebration, Williams was being chased by two unknown assailants along Easy Street, Fyzabad, minutes away from his home.

While trying to escape, he ran into a nearby yard, where he was cornered and gunned down, around 5.30 pm yesterday.

Hearing the gunshots, occupants of the house came outside to find Williams, who is not known to them, lying face down on an old living room chair.

When the Guardian visited Williams' grandparents home in Winston Campbell Street, Fyzabad earlier today, his relatives were too distraught to speak. 

Fyzabad police are continuing investigations.

ABUJA, Nigeria – President Goodluck Jonathan has lost the 2015 presidential elections to leading opposition candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, Ventures reported.

 He therefore becomes Nigeria’s first sitting president to be voted out of office.

The elections, which took place over the weekend, was Nigeria’s most keenly contested since the country’s return to democracy in 1999. Jonathan is also the first president elected president to serve a single tenure in office.

Nigeria's opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) declared an election victory today for former military ruler Buhari and said Africa's most populous nation was witnessing history with its first democratic transfer of power.

The count showed Buhari steamrolling to a landslide against President Goodluck Jonathan, whose People's Democratic Party (PDP) has made no comment since the scale of the political earthquake in Nigeria has become apparent.

With just one of 36 states left to declare, Buhari's APC had 15.1 million votes versus 11.7 for Jonathan and the PDP, according to a Reuters tally.

An APC spokesman told Reuters that there was no reason to doubt Jonathan would concede, in line with a "peace accord" he signed with Buhari before this weekend's vote to allay fears of violence.

Around 800 people were killed in three days of bloodletting in the mainly Muslim north after a Buhari defeat to Jonathan in 2011.

The incoming president, General Muhammadu Buhari, is thought of as a disciplinarian. His short-lived reign as a military head-of-state, after overthrowing the democratic government of Shehu Shagari, was smeared by issues relating to media stifling and excessive use of fear to drive socio-economic policies. 

Corruption chronicled
President Jonathan was in office for six years, having acted for two years in place of deposed President Umaru Musa Yar’ auda.  His tenure had been marred with issues of corruption, the most prominent being the alleged $20 billion unremmitted revenue by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) into the country’s coffers.

He also failed to act quickly to curtail the Boko Haram menace that plagued the North East during a greater part of his administration, grounding economic activities in the states of Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe.

He however made some significant strides on the economic front. Under his administration, the country’s GDP was rebased to $510 billion, displacing South Africa as the continent’s biggest economy. South Africa holds Africa’s most developed economy. His agricultural strategy has also been lauded globally, as Nigeria is on its way to becoming self sufficient in rice, cassava and a number of agri-commodities. He also supervised the privatization process of the power industry, which was labelled one of the most transparent privatization procedures in the world. But most of these haven’t necessarily improved the life of the average Nigerian. 

Sources: Ventures, Reuters

Three men are dead after two fatal road traffic accidents yesterday.

Ronald Ramtahal and Michael Titus, both of Papourie Road, Barrackpore, died when the car they were in crashed into a wall at Sookhan Trace, Barrackpore shortly before 5pm yesterday. The car, gold Mazda 929, was driving his car east along Rochard Douglas Road, when it crashed into the wall of a shed, which collapsed onto it. Police said Ramtahal was trying to overtake a line of traffic when he lost control of the car.

In a separate incident, Basil Raphael, 34, a fire officer, was involved in a fatal crash around 9.10 pm last night, as he was heading north along Uriah Buttler Highway, near the John Peter walkover in Charlieville.  Raphael, of St Cyr Street, Mission Road, Freeport, reportedly lost control and crashed into the median. He was thrown from his vehicle and died on the spot.

David Wilson, 54, was shot dead in Cocorite around midday today.

Police said Wilson, a Cepep worker, was at Nile Street around 11.30 am, when a masked man dressed "like a muslim" approached and shot him, killing him on the spot.

Residents described Wilson as a reformed drug addict and a known drug dealer.

Police believe his murder was drug-related.

The Vindra Naipaul-Coolman murder trial resumed yesterday with a verbal battle between lead prosecutor Israel Khan, SC, and the state’s main witness Keon Gloster. 

Since Gloster decided to recant his evidence at the start of testimony last month, Khan has spent a considerable amount of time quizzing him on a series of statements he allegedly gave police in 2007 which implicated the 12 accused men on trial. 

Yesterday was no different, as Khan again focused on Gloster’s claim that he was threatened by police and forced to sign the statements. 

Khan: Did you sign the statement?

Gloster: The police force me. I was young and don’t know how to read. My uncle tell me not to sign anything. 

Khan: Did they put a gun to your head or a pen in your hand?

Gloster: No sir, a pen, but they still force me. 

Khan: What the police force you to say?

Gloster: To swear I see them (the accused) with the woman. 

Khan: Did you tell police you saw Vindra Naipaul-Coolman?

Gloster: I don’t know Vindra Naipaul-Coolman. Why are you asking me these questions?

As Khan pressed Gloster further using specific quotes from the statements, Gloster refused to answer and kept repeating his allegations. “I would have never said anything about them men,” Gloster said, as he pointed to the accused men who were seated in the prisoner enclosure of the Port-of-Spain Second Criminal Court. Although he said he could not remember the police officers, when Khan invited Insp Suzette Martin, the homicide detective who recorded his statements, into the court, Gloster identified her as one who had threatened him.   

In the light of Gloster’s claims against Martin and her colleagues, presiding Judge Malcolm Holdip has deemed him a hostile witness and has agreed to allow prosecutors to tender one of his statements into evidence. 

The statement in which Gloster claimed to be present when Naipaul-Coolman was killed and dismembered in a house in Upper La Puerta, Diego Martin, and her body parts buried in a desolate area of the hillside community was read to the 12-member jury, yesterday. Khan is currently attempting to have the rest of Gloster’s alleged statements entered into evidence. 

Naipaul-Coolman was abducted from her Lange Park, Chaguanas, home, on December 19, 2006. Prosecutors are contending that she was held captive in a house shared by three of the accused men before she was eventually killed. 

Her body has never been recovered by police.

Gloster’s testimony will resume this morning. 

MORE INFO

Who’s in court

The 12 men before the jury and Justice Malcolm Holdip are Allan “Scanny” Martin, twin brothers Shervon and Devon Peters and their older brother Anthony Dwayne Gloster, siblings Keida and Jamille Garcia, brothers Marlon and Earl Trimmingham, Ronald Armstrong, Antonio Charles, Joel Fraser and Lyndon James. A 13th man, Raphael Williams, was charged with the crime but died in prison in 2011 of complications arising from sickle cell anaemia.

Legal team

Their legal team includes Ulric Skerritt, Joseph Pantor, Selwyn Mohammed, Lennox Sankersingh, Ian Brooks, Wayne Sturge, Mario Merritt, Richard Valere, Kwesi Bekoe, Colin Selvon, Vince Charles, Christian Chandler, Delicia Helwig and Alexia Romero. The prosecution team includes Senior Counsel Israel Khan and Gilbert Peterson who are being assisted by senior state prosecutors Joy Balkaran and Kelly Thompson. ​

Government Senator attorney Larry Lalla says the police must stop twiddling their thumbs and release the Emailgate report to the public.

Lalla was speaking during his contribution to the debate on the Bail Amendment Bill in the Senate yesterday.

He said he wished that his former classmate PNM Senator Fitzgerald Hinds, rather than engaging in old talk, would ask the police to produce the report on the Emailgate scandal.

Purported e-mails read out by Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley in Parliament in May last year sought implicated Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and other high-ranking government officials in a plot.

The e-mails appeared after the Opposition claimed the Government, through the Section 34 fiasco, attempted to change legislation that would free jailed UNC financiers.

Google has said the e-mails are fake. They were also passed on to the police for investigation but, to date, no report has been produced.

Yesterday, Lalla joined the chorus of voices calling for the report to be released.

Noting the whole country wanted to know, he demanded: “We want it now. Do it now.”

He said Rowley used the Office of the Opposition Leader to make boldfaced, scandalous accusations, including murder, against government officials.

“Was there an abuse of the Office of the Opposition Leader?” he asked.

Lalla was responding to Hinds who he said had the audacity to say institutions in the country broke down under the People’s Partnership Government.

“For 40 years the PNM ruled but there were no broken institutions,” Lalla said.

“But come May 2010, all institutions broke down.”

He said Terrence Farrell, former deputy Central Bank governor, was held up as an exemplar of sound institutional management by the Opposition. Lalla asked where was Farrell when people were making off with hundreds of thousands of depositors’ money at Clico.

There were people who put up a façade of independence but shot politically from the shadows, Lalla informed the Upper House.

“I wonder about Terrence Farrell. If the Central Bank Governor (Jwala Rambarran) sneezes too hard he complains in the newspapers.

“The question has to be asked whether Terrence Farrell is a political sniper.”

Lalla said it appeared all was hunky dory under the PNM but governments changed and, suddenly, all institutions had broken down.

“Do you know why? Because it’s PNM country,” he said.

He asked what Farrell had to say about the Police Complaints Authority.

“A very senior lawyer allows himself to be nominated (to head the PCA) but does not see it fit to tell the President he’s a witness for the Opposition Leader in a matter brought against him by the attorney general.”

Lalla said he was heartened that Hinds, after all the old talk, was wholeheartedly supporting the bill, since it was the legislature’s right to make laws.

The role of the court was to interpret the law, he said. See Page A14