Everybody loves cake, this delightful sweet treat has spawned multi-million dollar industries worldwide, both in the bakery business and packaged cake mixes. But there is something to be said for a homemade cake. 

The experience begins with the baker who literally sees relatively mundane ingredients, (flour, butter, sugar, eggs) being transformed into sweet, thick, foamy or creamy mixtures, which are further transformed with the application of heat, into delectable, light, sweet and rich cakes as we know them.

Cakes need precision measuring, methodical mixing, accurate oven temperatures and attention to detail. But when all of those prerequisites are met, the outcome is nothing short of glorious. 

Fruits and spices further excite the flavour profile and frostings make the experience so very dreamy. Happy baking!

BANANA PINEAPPLE CAKE

1 cup brown sugar

4 eggs

2/3 cup vegetable oil

3 cups cake flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 bananas, mashed

Juice of one orange

1 8oz tin crushed pineapple, well drained

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp orange zest

1 cup chopped walnuts

METHOD

Preheat oven to 350F.

Grease or butter and flour two, 8-inch layer cake pans.

With an electric mixer:

Beat eggs until fluffy, add sugar and beat until thick and creamy, add oil slowly beat for about two minutes more.

Sift together flour, spices, baking powder and soda.

Mash the bananas and combine with orange juice, pineapple, vanilla and zest.

Fold in flour alternately with banana mixture, adding flour in three and banana mix in two.

Fold in walnuts. Spoon into pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes until risen and firm to the touch.

Remove from oven after five minutes remove from tins and cool on racks frost with cream cheese frosting.

Frosting:

Cream two 8-oz packages of cream cheese, add about three cups sifted icing sugar, cream

Spread frosting onto first cake, place second cake on top and then frost again. 

CHOCOLATE CAKE

1 cup butter

2 cups granulated sugar

21/4 cup all purpose flour

1 cup powdered cocoa

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp vanilla essence

4 eggs

1 cup milk

METHOD

Preheat oven to 350F.

Grease sides and base and line two nine-inch cake tins with waxed paper.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy and doubled in volume.

Sift flour three times add baking powder and baking soda  sift cocoa and combine with flour.

Add eggs one at a time to creamed butter mixture, making sure to beat well between additions, batter must be fluffy. Add vanilla to milk. Add flour to batter alternately with milk in three additions. Beginning and ending with the flour/cocoa mixture. Spoon batter evenly into prepared tins, bake for 35-40 minutes until done and cake pulls away from the sides of the tin. 

Makes two nine inch cakes

“Hurry up with those appetisers, you can’t let them get cold!” 

“That customer is allergic, he can’t drink the pina colada.” 

“We have unexpected guests at the door, and not enough seating for them!…But our priorities must be to our ticket-paying guests.” 

Comments flew as a stream of student chefs, servers and trainee managers whisked past us, some smoothly balancing three plates of food in their arms as others whizzed by with drinks orders, not a drop spilt. 

It was the final exam night for 13 students pursuing associate degrees at the T&T Hospitality and Tourism Institute (TTHI). And all eyes (and tastebuds) were focused on the students’ performance, as teams of kitchen and service staff demonstrated the art and science of cooking and smooth customer service. And just as if it were a real restaurant work situation, the students had to be prepared for the unexpected—whether the stress of back-end preparation, or the unpredictability of customers. 

The T&T Guardian went behind the scenes at the event on May 15, to find out about the programme, the skills the students have learned, and the challenges of the final exam cooking event. 

Passport to Puerto Cuba! 

We saw evidence of some excellent teamwork—critical for success of such an event, where about 100 paying customers had each come to be wined and dined in style with a five-course dinner. 

The theme for this night was Passport to Puerto Cuba!—featuring a fusion of cuisine from Puerto Rico and Cuba. Appetisers were a choice of either a morsel of ropa vieja (tender shredded beef), or crab and fish cakes with a roasted corn, chile and mango salsa. Next up were the soups—either traditional black bean or creamy shrimp soup. Fire-roasted pineapple vinaigrette added flavourful notes to the tropical salad of avocado, watercress and pineapple. 

And for the main course, there was a choice of pork, chicken or fish. Savoury “lechon asado”—Cuban-style roasted pork—was served over “mofongo”—an Afro-Puerto Rican mashed plantain dish traditionally made with broth, garlic, olive oil, pork cracklings and seasonings (mofongo has roots in west African fufu). This came flavoured with a mojo and red wine shallot sauce. 

The second entree option, the chicken, was marinated in citrus, and grilled, served with rice and plump pigeon peas. The fish entree option was pan-seared mahi-mahi (common dolphinfish or dorado, not the mammalian dolphin!), served with tomato-olive sauce over cheesy stuffed green bananas and yam. For those with space still left in their stomachs, dessert was truly decadent: a layered combination of chocolate cake, vanilla flan, coffee mousse and a “dulce de leche” (sweet milk gelee), all with mauby ice cream on top of a Cuban sugar cookie filled with guava. A fitting end to what sounded like a delicious dinner. 

Kitchen challenges 

The challenge for the students was multifaceted. They first had to research the cuisine of the regions, and then create a menu where the different tastes harmonised. Experiments earlier in the term helped them discard some dishes, and refine others, to come up with the final menu, said Cheryl-Ann Shortt-Charles, who is the Practical Programme Head for the Culinary Department. 

Malika Andrews was taking her final exam in Culinary Management that night. Malika is a jovial, businesslike young woman from Point Fortin, who first heard about the TTHI programmes at an open day at the Trinidad Hilton. She soon relocated to Port-of-Spain to be nearer to the TTHI. She has spent the past two and a half years pursuing the associate degree on a part-time basis, at the same time holding down a regular job—not always an easy task. 

Her studies involved learning professional cooking techniques, baking, nouvelle cuisine, and business management courses in accounting, as well as learning about kitchen management, facilities layout, and doing some cross-training courses in food and beverage management. “So the range of courses helps us manage a whole business for ourselves,” she explained. 

She said she especially enjoyed the variety of her meats class. “Before you go to a culinary school, you never know there are so many dishes that exist!…There’s a whole range of seafood—scallops, mussels, lobster, crab...We get to try, and do, a lot of different things.” And it’s a delicious way to learn, because after every class, you get to eat what you cook. 

Did she have a favourite dish? She replied:“There are too many! But it’s more the techniques that you learn here that are so valuable. Because you could take the simplest of ingredients, and do a lot of things with them.” Braising, for instance—the technique of searing meat, then simmering it slowly in liquid (broth, stock, wine or juice) in a covered pot over low heat—is very versatile and can produce many tasty but very different dishes, she said. 

At last Friday’s dinner exam night, Malika was responsible for coordinating all back-of-the-house culinary operations, including food preparation, kitchen and storeroom areas—it is a lot of responsibility. 

“We started prepping from 8 am yesterday, and I was here until 11 pm last night,” she shared. She had to purchase the food items beforehand, help plan the menu and ensure that she controlled her costs. And of course, she ensured her kitchen staff of ten cooked to standard, and kept a spotless kitchen. 

Meanwhile, in the bar 

We also spoke to Nichole Chase, originally from Diego Martin, who, like Malika, was taking her final exam after two and a half years of simultaneous part-time study and working at a job. Nichole is studying for an associate degree in Food and Beverage Management,  that means that she had to oversee the efficient operations and profitability of the bar and all beverage-related orders, as well as oversee the front-of-house staff, and even, ultimately, the back-of house staff: all aspects, from business operations to napkin folds. 

“I have to manage 15 servers and four bartenders tonight,” she said in an interview earlier that afternoon. She seemed calm, organised, and eager to get on with it. 

Nichole is a secondary school teacher of Food & Nutrition who embarked on a mid-career change to pursue a profession she loves. Her interest was sparked a few years ago when she took some students for a field trip to the Tobago Hospitality and Tourism Institute (THTI). She was drawn to Food and Beverage Management, and enrolled at the TTHI (run separately from THTI) to give herself some new challenges. 

“I learned a lot and met some really good people coming here, so it was a good move… A highlight for me was the bartending. I entered the Iron Chef competition here, and though that, got invited to enter other bartending competitions. The first one, I placed in the top ten, the second one, in the top five, and last month I won the school’s Iron Chef contest.” 

Her winning drinks were a rum-based cocktail she called Recess, and a vodka-based cocktail she named Dark Side of the Moon—served in a hollow ball of ice; the drink was a deep purple, with blueberries, passion fruit puree and grenadine syrup. 

Diverse skills 

Cheryl-Ann Shortt-Charles helps assess students in the back-of-house operations, and also ensures the students have the tools they need to be capable performers in the industry. 

“They cover everything, from baking basics to accounts. This final function in international cuisine is when they take everything that they’ve learned, and apply it. They have to design a good menu; show plating skills; show managerial skills in getting team members to work together; demonstrate good timing; and of course, taste. We had eight teams in all, doing dishes drawn from 14 countries, including Spain, China, Hawaii and New Orleans. 

“It is a lot of hard work. Some students quickly learn it may not be for them—you sometimes have to spend eight hours on your feet,” she said. But for those with a passion for food and drink, like Malika and Nichole, it’s a personally fulfilling way of life, and totally worth it.

The John O’Brien-trained Enzo returned to form with a vengeance when taking the feature event,  the 1,600 metres turf for three-year-old and over horses rated 80-50 at Santa Rosa Park, yesterday. Confidently ridden by Brian Boodramsing, the favourite stalked the early pace before coming with a well-timed run in the straight to score from Golden Enchantment which was a neck ahead of Kodo at the line.

At the far turn, Kodo seized the inititaive with Golden Enchantment following but at the corner Kodo drifted off a trye line and the Enzo fairly bolted home by 3 3/4 lengths. The winner registered the time of 1:37.1 for the trip. Training honours for the day were shared between Rohit Dube and John O’Brien who both saddled two winners.

Ronald Ali had a spectacular return to form with a beaver-trick of victories. Racing continues next week.

ARC DAY 17 RESULTS

R1: NOON - NATIVE BRED 3 YO MAIDENS - 1,500M (TURF) - $44,000
1    (5)    Bulletproof    W Galviz    54.5    
2    (11)    Electrify    R Ali    55.5    
3    (1)    Way To Go    P Badrie    54.5    
4    (13)    Mikeisback    N Patrick    57    
5    (6)    Don Pedro    B Boodramsing    55    
TIME: 1:33.0    DISTANCES: 1/2, 4, 1 1/2, 1 1/4.
$1PARI: (5) $4.10; $1.25 (11) $1.50 (1) $1.45
$1EXACTA: $15.60
TRIFECTA: $36.10
HI-5: $919.70
WINNER: 3 y.o. B colt – Maraahel/Lough Currane (Eagle Eyed)
OWNER: Shivam Maharaj TRAINER: H Gobin
BREEDER: Mrs. Eudora Chay
ALSO RAN: 6. Sweetmaninsouth R Angnoo 55; 7. Eatmydust J Stephen 57; 8. San Antonio J Boodramsing 52; 9. The Candidate D Khelawan 57; 10. Carlos L Keizer 57; 11. Eze Breezy D Boodram 57.
NON-RUNNERS:  Treasure Queen, Luminary.

R2: 12.40 PM - 3 YO & OVER HORSES RATED 20-0 OPTIONAL CLAIMING $6,000 - $4,000 - 1,150M - $25,000
1    (6)    Music Show    P Badrie    53    
2    (2)    On My Own    N Flavenney    57    
3    (7)    Third Time Lucky    J Stephen    53    
4    (4)    Eyes Of The Wolf    R Jadoo    53    
TIME: 1:14.1  DISTANCES: 1 1/4, 4 1/4, 5 3/4, Neck.
$1PARI: (6) $4.40; $1.40; (2)$1.05
$1EXACTA: $7.50
TRIFECTA: $29.50
SUPERFECTA: $78.00
WINNER: 6 y.o.CH mare – A Great Team/Angel Of Music  (Freshly Squeezed)
OWNER: Rohit A Dube  TRAINER: R A Dube
BREEDER: Neil Poon Tip & Wendell Kangaloo
ALSO RAN: 5. Stroke Of Love L Keizer 52; 6. Western Wish R Hernandez 52.5.
NON-RUNNER: Dazzling Diamond.

R3: 1.20 PM - 3 YO & OVER HORSES RATED 40-0 OPTIONAL CLAIMING $15,000 - $13,000 - 1,300M - $33,000
1    (15)    Lady Sage    L A Seecharan    53    
2    (11)    Al Kahina    R Angnoo    54    
3    (13)    Pearl Secret    N Flavenney    55    
4    (10)    Peppermint    J Boodramsing    53.5    
5    (5)    Fleet Admiral    P Badrie    55.5    
TIME: 1:21.3  DISTANCES: 1 1/4, 1/2, Nose, 3/4.
$1PARI: (15) $45.55; $5.80 (11) $2.15 (13) $3.10
$1EXACTA: $349.00
TRIFECTA: $9,734.99
HI-5: $24,854.40
WINNER: 9 y.o. CH mare – Wiseman's Ferry/Urn (Always A Rainbow)
OWNER: Jason Ali   TRAINER: A Gonzalez
BREEDER: Harry L. Landry & Irish Hill Century Farm (New York U.S.A)
ALSO RAN: 6. King Stand R Hernandez 52.5; 7. Ice'D'Gold L C Seecharan 52; 8. Little Otis B Boodramsing 57; 9. Bears And Bulls D Khelawan 54.5; 10. Uncle Max D Blackman 54; 11. Ready And Alert L Keizer 50.5; 12. Gold Bead N Patrick 57; 13 Super Easy J Stephen 53.5; 14. Cordell Walker W Galviz 56.5.
NON-RUNNER: My Giselle.

R4: 2 PM - WI BRED 4 YO & OVER MAIDENS - 1,200M - $32,000
1    (1)    Magnolia Lane    R Ali    50.5    
2    (7)    Poppy Love    R Angnoo    48    
3    (6)    Champagne Affair    P Badrie    54    
4    (4)    Dig Deep    L C Seecharan    45.5    
TIME: 1:15.3  DISTANCES: 2 1/2, 2, 4, 6 3/4.
$1PARI: (1) $9.75; $3.35 (7) $2.80
$1EXACTA: $68.90
TRIFECTA: $276.60
SUPERFECTA: $228.40
WINNER: 4 y.o. CH filly - Charismatic Cat/Latonia (Footloose)
OWNER: Caribbean Connection Stables   TRAINER: A Nunes
BREEDER: Elias Haloute
ALSO RAN: 5. Let It Ride R Jadoo 54; 6. Speedile L A Seecharan 46.5; 7. Half Price R Hernandez 54.

R5: 2.40 PM - 3 YO & OVER HORSES RATED 55-40 OPTIONAL CLAIMING $24,000 - $22,000 - 1,150M - $37,400
1    (13)    Desert Gold    R Ali    54.5    
2    (15)    Just Honest    L A Seecharan    51.5    
3    (1)    Afterthebooks    D Khelawan    53.5    
4    (10)    Naughty N Nice    N Patrick    53.5    
5    (12)    Be My Lover    N Flavenney    56.5    
TIME: 1:23.4  DISTANCES: Nose, 2, 1, Neck.
$1PARI: (13) $3.30; $2.35 (15) $11.55 (1) $4.50
$1EXACTA: $285.80
TRIFECTA: $8,659.70
HI-5: $53,281.20
WINNER: 4 y.o. B gelding – Gold Market/Alyce Glen (Gulf Storm)
OWNER: Errol Stables  TRAINER: G Mendez
BREEDER: Joseph Hadeed
ALSO RAN: 6. Drogbar N Samaroo 57; 7. Pacman L C Seecharan 50; 8. Loan Shark W Galviz 55.5; 9. Mike's Sugar J Boodramsing 54; 10. Director Dream N Mohammed 54.5; 11. Red Cloud D Blackman 53.5; 12. Glorify P Badrie 53; 13. It Is Alleged R Angnoo 53.5; 14. Farad J Stephen 54.5; 15. D'Sportsman R Hernandez 52.5; 16. Mambo Cat K Jadoo 53.5.
NON-RUNNERS: Potiphar's Wife.

R6: 3.20 PM - 3 YO & OVER HORSES RATED 45-0 OPTIONAL CLAIMING $30,000 - $27,000 - 1,150M - $33,000
1    (3)    Spectacular Return    R Ali    51.5    
2    (1)    Aztec Gold    R Angnoo    55    
3    (9)    Unguarded Moment    W Galviz    54.5    
4    (4)    Red River    J Boodramsing    53    
TIME: 1:32.3  DISTANCES: 3 3/4, Neck, 1 1/4, 2 3/4.
$1PARI: (3) $9.35; $2.25; (1)$1.80; (9) $2.00
$1EXACTA: $21.30
TRIFECTA: $184.00
SUPERFECTA: $346.90
WINNER: 6 y.o. CH horse– Sweet Return/Sammy Fox (Captain Bodgit)
OWNER: Ryan Lalla-Maharajh TRAINER: R A Dube
BREEDER: Gary Pierre
ALSO RAN: 5. Gold Coin B Boodramsing 51.5; 6. Surya D Khelawan 57; 7. Danzig's Day P Badrie 50.5; 8. Intangibility N Mohammed 52.5; 9. Lion's Portion N Flavenney 53.

R7: 4 PM - 3 YO & OVER HORSES RATED 60-45 OPTIONAL CLAIMING $30,000 - $27,000 - 1,700M - $41,000
1    (7)    Royal Empire    R Ali    56.5    
2    (12)    Wing Commander    N Abrego    56    
3    (10)    Big Man    P Badrie    57    
4    (9)    Blue Oracle    B Boodramsing    56.5    
5    (1)    Undulation    J Stephen    55.5    
TIME: 1:51.4  DISTANCES: 3/4, 1 13/4, Head, 1/2.
$1PARI: (7) $11.05 ;$2.05; (12) $2.05; (10) $2.30
EXACTA: $55.20
TRIFECTA: $910.80
HI-5: $83,977.80
WINNER: 4 y.o B gelding – Charismatic Cat/Spanish Fiesta (Siphon)
OWNER: Errol Stables   TRAINER: M Carew Jnr
BREEDER: Poon Tip Stud Farm Limited
ALSO RAN: 6. Cramers Rule R Hernandez 54; 7. Frankenstein R Angnoo 51.5; 8. Quick City D Blackman 54; 9. Red Howler N Flavenney 55; 10. Allied N Samaroo 57; 11. Convoy N Mohammed 57; 12. Jacob's Dream J Boodramsing 54.

R8: 4.40 PM - 3 YO & OVER HORSES RATED 80-50 - 1,600M (TURF) - $48,500
1    (4)    Enzo    B Boodramsing    54    
2    (7)    Golden Enchantment    D Khelawan    53    
3    (1)    Kodo    W Galviz    55.5    
4    (5)    Wild Shuffle    J Boodramsing    54    
5    (2)    Absolutely Chrome    R Angnoo    49.5    
TIME: 1:37.1  DISTANCES: 3 3/4, Neck, 1/2, 2 2 3/4.
$1PARI: (4) $3.10; $1.65; (7) $2.15
EXACTA: $15.80
TRIFECTA: $37.30
SUPERFECTA: $819.10
WINNER: 4 y.o CH gelding - Dunkirk/Hulamore (Livermore)
OWNER: Michael Scott TRAINER: J O'Brien
BREEDER: Gaines-Gentry Thoroughbreds (Kentucky U.S.A)
ALSO RAN: 6. Away Johannesburg R Hernandez 52.5; 7. Uncle Norman N Samaroo 55.5.

R9: 5.20 PM - IMPORTED 3 YO & OVER WI BRED 3 YO & OVER HORSES RATED 75-50 - 1,350M - $49,500
1    (6)    Masterpiece    B Boodramsing    53.5    
2    (9)    Soca Rhapsody    R Angnoo    55    
3    (7)    Big Five 0    N Abrego    56.5    
4    (4)    Thays    R Hernandez    53    
5    (1)    A Great Moment    L A Seecharan    49    
TIME: 1:22.4  DISTANCES: 1 1/4, 4 1/4, 4 3/4, 2 3/4.
$1PARI: (6) $2.80; $1.25; (9) $1.65 (7) $1.60
EXACTA: $8.50
TRIFECTA: $26.50
HI-5: $7,263.50
WINNER: 4 y.o B colt - Maraahel/Igotaspellonu (Grand Slam)
OWNER: Chevan Maharaj   TRAINER: J O'Brien
BREEDER: Ruthven R. Smith
ALSO RAN: 6. King Of Siberia J Boodramsing 51.5; 7. Precise Moment N Flavenney 55; 8. Diamond Flirt P Badrie 55.5; 9. Guilty As Sin K Jadoo 53.5.

Spin bowler Sunil Narine made an immediate impact on his return to Queen’s Park Cricket Club, grabbing 4/25 to put the Parkites in command against Merry Boys after day one in round eight of the Shanghai Construction Group National League at the Diego Martin Recreational Ground, yesterday.

Narine, who recently returned to T&T after representing the Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League, helped dismiss Merry Boys for 113 batting first. Barbadian Javon Searles playing against his former club snatched 3/33, while Khary Pierre took 2/21. Samuel Felix and Aaron Alfred were the best batsmen for Merry Boys scoring 32 and 30 respectively. Top batsmen Jeetendra Sookdeo, Amir Jangoo and Ryan Hinds all fell for duck.

In reply, a 52-run unbroken partnership between national players Daron Cruickshank and Yannic Cariah took Queen’s Park to 138/3 at stumps. Both batsmen were patient at the crease, as Cruickshank faced 64 balls for his unbeaten 26, while Cariah was 21 not out off 75 deliveries.

Earlier in the innings, Jeremy Solozano (36), Petrock Nicholas (25) and Akeal Hosein (18) all failed to convert their starts into big scores. Aneil Kanhai was the pick of the bowlers for Merry Boys taking 2/52. With a win and enough bonus points Queen’s Park can clinch the league title at the end of the round.

At Inshan Ali Park, national opener Evin Lewis slammed another century to put Jenexcon Tableland in control over Preysal. Lewis struck six sixes and 11 fours in his knock of 140 off 121 balls to guide Tableland to 249 in the first innings. Preysal closed the day on 77/8 with national fast bowler Daniel St Clair snatching 3/21. In the last round Lewis slammed 139 against Queen’s Park.

At Enterprise, Esmeralda forfeited its match against Powergen Penal due to unavailability of players. The 50-over Sunday League match will not be played between the two teams today. Manager of Esmeralda Rafi Ali apologised for the inconvenience caused. The same fixtures will take place today in round eight of the Sunday League, before round eight of the National League concludes next weekend. Queen’s Park can seal the Sunday League title with a win over Merry Boys.

SCORES
At Diego Martin Recreational: Merry Boys 113 (Samuel Felix 32, Aaron Alfred 30, Sunil Narine 4/25, Javon Searles 3/33, Khary Pierre 2/21) vs Queen’s Park 138/3 (Jeremy Solozano 36, Daron Cruickshank 26 not out, Aneil Kanhai 2/52)

At Wilson Road: Jailal Enterprise Victoria 228 (Lincoln Roberts 95, Garey Mathurin 38 not out, Derone Davis 3/44, Samuel Roopnarine 2/33, Kjorn Ottley 2/27) vs F.C Clarke Road

At Inshan Ali: Jenexcon Tableland 249 (Evin Lewis 140, William Perkins 46, Amit Maraj 5/30, Philton Williams 4/62) vs Preysal 77/8 (Daniel St Clair 3/21, Negus Carthy 3/22, Andre Brown 2/9)

At Gilbert Park: Alescon Comets 230 (Adrian Ali 89, Kissoondath Magram 43, Allen Laurent 4/60) vs Caldrac 55/2

At Enterprise: Powergen Penal vs Esmeralda - No play

COLOMBO—Sri Lanka Women beat West Indies Women by five runs under the Duckworth/Lewis method in the opening Twenty20 International of the three-match series at the R Premadasa Stadium yesterday.

Batting first the West Indies women struggled and made only 109 for six off thier 20 overs. Opener Stephanie Taylor and skipper Merissa Aguilliera were the only batters to show resistance against the Sri Lankans. Taylor, the Jamaican scored 40, while Aguilliera from T&T, scored 28 not out. They came together at 45 for four, at the fall of Stacy King’s wicket and took the total to 90 before Taylor fell. 

Bowling for Sri Lankan L Weerakkody took 2/13, while all the others were very disciplined with their lines and lengths. 

Set a revised target off 84 off 15.2 overs because of a rain interupption, Sri Lanka reached 88 for six off the very last ball of the innings. D Srurangika made 28, while S Siriwardene who brought home the victory with a boundary made 17 not out. Trinidadians King and Anisa Mohammed bowled very well but could not seal the win in the end. Mohammed had figures off 2/15 off 3.2 overs, while King took 2/16 off three overs.

Scoreboard

WEST INDIES
Kycia A Knight  b Weerakkody    4
S Taylor c Kaushalya b Kumari     40
D Dottin c Hansika 
       b Weerakkody    4
B Cooper c Mendis 
       b Prabodhani    17
S King lbw b Kaushalya    1
*+M Aguilleira not out    28
C Henry c Mendis b Siriwardene    11
Extras   (lb1, w3)    4
TOTAL (6 wkts, 20 overs)    109
Did not bat: S Munroe, A Mohammed, T Smartt, A Fletcher
Fall of wickets: 1-4 (Kycia Knight), 2-8 (Dottin), 3-40 (Cooper), 4-45 (King), 5-90 (Taylor), 6-109 (Henry)
Bowling: Weerakkody 3-0-13-2, Prabodhani 4-0-19-1, Samuddika 4-0-24-0 (w1), Kaushalya 2-0-11-1 (w1), Kumari 3-0-21-1 (w1), Siriwardene 4-0-20-1.
SRI LANKA (target: 84 off 15.2 overs)
C Jayangani c & b Mohammed    17
Y Mendis run out    0
+D Surangika lbw b Fletcher    28
N Hansika b King    0
S Siriwardene not out    17
H Perera c & b King    0
E Kaushalya c Henry
        b Mohammed    16
S Weerakkody  not out    3
Extras   (b1, w5, nb1)    7
TOTAL (6 wkts, 15.2 overs)    88
Did not bat: U Prabodhani, S Kumari, M Samuddika.
Fall of wickets: 1-6 (Mendis), 2-52 (Jayangani), 3-52 (Surangika), 4-60 (Hansika), 5-60 (Perera), 6-81 (Kaushalya)
Bowling: Smartt 3-0-15-0 (nb1), Taylor 3-0-15-0, Munroe 1-0-12-0, Mohammed 3.2-0-15-2, Fletcher 2-0-14-1, King 3-0-16-2.
Result: Sri Lanka Women won by five runs (D/L method)

Series: Sri Lanka Women lead the three-match series 1-0.
Toss: Sri Lanka Women.
Umpires: P Udawatta, R Wimalasiri.

The Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting was held on Saturday May 2, 2015, in Omaha, Nebraska. Here is a first-hand account by one of our avid Business Guardian readers.

“Slow down! Stop running!” shouts the security guard. 

Slow down? Are you mad? I’d been in the line outside since 4.00am when the doors burst open at seven. I’m in the middle of a pack of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders sprinting through the corridors of the Century Link Centre in Omaha. I feel like Hemingway running with the bulls in Pamplona. 

There are more than 40,000 attendees for 18,000 seats in the main auditorium, I haven’t come thousands of miles to watch the Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger Show on a remote screen in one of the overflow rooms. 

As I accelerate going into one of the entrance tunnels to the main arena a fat man on my left trips on the polished floor and goes down, the crowd surges past him and suddenly we emerge onto the floor of the convention centre. I rush for a seat, sticking a self adhesive “reserved” label with my name on it that I made in Trinidad. Obsessive? Sure—this has been a long time coming. No time to dawdle however. Having secured my seat, I head back out to the main exhibition hall (where Berkshire’s 70-plus companies have set up their exhibits) for the annual newspaper tossing competition between Mr Buffett and all comers, including as usual, his good friend and Berkshire board member, Bill Gates.

Thursday: 

I landed in Omaha two days ago, flying in with thousands of other pilgrims from all over the world to the “Woodstock for capitalists”—the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting. Like other religious festivals, there are certain stations of the cross the true believer must undergo: At one, Gorat’s, Warren’s favourite steak house, I will be eating a 22 oz T-bone, just like he does, within ½ hour of landing. My dinner reservations were made months ago by my AirBnB host (hotels having been booked up long before that) and for dessert, another Warren favourite—a root beer float, whatever that is. Outside, after dinner, I pose for photos in front of the famous Gorat’s sign and immediately I am asked to take photos for other “Berkers” from China and Dubai. One world, under Buffett, amen.

Friday morning: 

I continue on the pilgrimage trail with my host family; good solid Midwesterners, the backbone of America. 

We swing by Warren’s home, a nice but fairly modest house that he bought in the 1950s and has lived in ever since. No gate, no fences, a multibillionaire with less burglarproofing than me! Omaha is that kind of town. We then drive by his office in Kiewit Plaza—25 workers at the headquarters of a $350 billion company. Is it any wonder I have a significant portion of my net worth invested in this man? This is the bromance of my life, I love Warren Buffett.

Friday noon:

The Exhibition Hall down at the Century Link Centre opens. All the constituent companies that make up the Berkshire Hathaway family have their wares on sale. I eat a Dilly bar from Dairy Queen (another pilgrim station) and then get in the winding check-out line at Fruit of the Loom to buy Berkshire 50th anniversary boxer shorts; 12 cash registers working full time and it still takes ½ hour to pay for my swag. We’re surely going to break last year’s record for goods sold at the meeting. 

Then into other payment lines at the Bookworm (Berkshire biographies); See’s Candies (50th anniversary boxes of chocolates); Brooks shoes (Berkshire 50th running shoes); Oriental Trading (Warren & Charlie rubber ducks); Fechheimer’s (Buffett T shirts) and Coca Cola (Berkshire Coke bottles). Imagine my lemming-like voracity and multiply it by over 40,000 times; that’s the magnitude of the organism we’re dealing with (Berkshire actually now has over one million shareholders). I stagger back to my room with my holy relics and hit my bed early. I have to be up at 3.00 am to prepare for tomorrow’s marathon (with a 100 metre sprint in the middle of it).

Saturday: 

the 3:30 am streets of Omaha are still dark between the pools of orange light thrown on the pavement by the streetlights. 

Other figures wrapped up against the morning’s chill are also walking in scurry-bursts towards ground zero: the locked main doors of the Century Link Centre. I find my place in line; I’m a coiled spring, already planning my dash past the earlier birds in front, who have had the gall to get between me and my goal. The doors open at seven.

The line has an international flavour with China, India and Europe (especially Germany) particularly well represented. The crowd is overwhelmingly Midwestern, polite and well behaved. 

There is no queue jumping. At dawn, two cowboys from Justin Boots (a Berkshire subsidiary) come riding by on Texas Longhorns followed by a Wells Fargo stagecoach with six horses (Berkshire has a US$28 billion stake in this bank). It is now coming up to seven: gentlemen start your engines, the doors open and we’re off.

Saturday 8:30 am

I’ve returned from the newspaper throwing contest back to the arena floor. In front of me the gorgeous Becky Quick of CNBC is talking to Warren; Charlie Rose is in conversation with Bill Gates. I am now in the room. No video or audio has ever been permitted of this scene. If you don’t come in person you can’t pull it up on YouTube later. 

We all have our pens and paper to capture the wise and humorous words that will issue from the greatest double act in business history: Buffett and Munger. Warren, 84, the warm, amusing, avuncular Democrat and Charlie, 91, the acerbic, witty Republican. Both business geniuses. 

In fact, both in the next seven hours bring the crowd to uproarious laughter and applause with their quick wit and funny asides, Warren often setting it up for Charlie’s dry zingers. They’ve been doing this for 50 years! 

How much longer can they go on? I’m like a Stones fan who just wants to see them in concert once more before Keith finally snuffs it.

The annual Berkshire movie follows with Warren “The Berkshire Bomber” getting in the ring against Floyd “Money” Mayweather for the title with cameos by Jack Nicholson and other Hollywood A listers. 

Mayweather actually fights Paquiao tonight in Vegas for the richest purse in boxing history. Then the curtains part and the two starboys come unto the stage and the real show begins. They will answer approximately 50 unrehearsed questions from the audience and several Wall Street journalists. 

Nothing is off limits except what investments Berkshire is thinking of making. It is a world famous annual tour de force. 

Here are some highlights:

Q: Should Berkshire have used leverage?

Charlie Munger: If we had used leverage we would have been much bigger but we would have sweated at night and it’s crazy to sweat at night.

Warren Buffett: Over financial things (laughter)

Q: How do you network without having gone to a prominent business school?

WB: (dumfounded)

CM: Let me answer this one. You do the best you can (laughter). I didn’t go to business school, why should you? You were lucky to avoid what you avoided (more laughter).

WB: Charlie’s very Old Testament. He didn’t get past Genesis (even more laughter)

Q: Any thoughts on the new Asia Investment Bank?

WB: No idea. (laughter) That’s a subject I know nothing about.

CM: I know less on that than you (laughter).

Q: What about the general level of the stock market?

CM: We don’t make macroeconomic projections or try to predict where the stock market is heading. We just swim and let the tide take care of itself. The problem with making these economic pronouncements is that eventually people think that they know what they are talking about (laughter). It’s much easier to say I’m ignorant.

WB: You can be sure that over the next 10 years you will see things that you didn’t think were possible and we will occasionally see things that are good for Berkshire Hathaway both financially and psychologically.

Q: What about China?

CM: I’m a big fan of China’s progress. They’ve actually shot a couple of people and that gets people’s attention (laughter).

WB: Now we’re getting some practical advice (more laughter).

Q: What accounts for your success?

WB: We stay within the circle of our competence.

CB: Much of our success has not been from being brilliant but simply by avoiding being idiots. (laughter). If people weren’t so often wrong, we wouldn’t be so rich (more laughter)

Q: Berkshire is big on Coca Cola. Is all that sugar good for you?

WB: 25 per cent of my daily calories come from Coca Cola. I’ve looked at the stats, six-year-olds have the best life expectancy so I copy their diet (laughter). If I was to eat broccoli, I’d be miserable, I wouldn’t have lived this long. I much prefer Coke to some drink on sale down at Whole Foods. They don’t smile a lot down at Whole Foods (laughter)

CM: Sugar is an enormously useful substance; it prevents premature softening of the arteries (more laugher).

Q: What is your biggest failure?

WB: Dexter Shoes. In 1993 I paid US$400 million for an enterprise that soon dwindled to zero. Nobody misled me, I simply misjudged. It’s even worse than that because I brought it with Berkshire stock which is now worth US$6-7 billion. In fact, I like it when our stock goes down, it makes the stupidity seen smaller. (laughter).

Q: Eurozone currency. Is the Euro a good thing or bad?

CM: It’s a noble motivation but a flawed system to put countries that are so different together. The big strains are Greece and Portugal. You can’t make a strong partnership with your shiftless, drunken brother in law (laughter) 

(To Warren) Have I offended enough people?

WB: I think there are still some more up in the balconies (more laughter)

Q: What are your thoughts on activist shareholders?

WB: The best defence against activism is performance.

CM: I’m trying to think of any activist I’d like to see marry into the family (laughter)

Q: What about economic forecasts?

WB: We think that any company that has an economist has at least one employee too many (laughter). Charlie, can you think of anything more offensive that I’ve forgotten?

CM: It would be hard to top that one.

Q: What matters to you the most?

CM: Your main duty is to become as rational as you can possibly be. Rationality is a moral duty. Berkshire Hathaway is a temple of rationality. If you have easily removable ignorance and keep it that’s dishonourable; to stay stupider than you have to be. I have never considered it enough of a life just to be shrewder than others and accumulate money. You must use it to help society, to help others.

Q: How do you get a lot of friends and have people get to like you?

CM: The only way I got people to like me was to get very rich and very generous.

WB: People will see a lot of virtues when you write a cheque. Look at other people and see why you admire them, and become the qualities that you like.

Q: How do you pick a spouse?

CM: Look for someone with low expectations. (laughter) So when you disappoint each other in some way, which is inevitable, then it won’t be so bad. And remember, instead of trying to change your partner, change yourself. It’s much easier.

Q: Berkshire now is so big, how long can it continue to grow?

WB: Size is its own anchor. The past rate of increase of Berkshire cannot continue indefinitely, it must inevitably come down.

CM: There are worse things than Berkshire increasing at a slower rate.

WB: Name one

CM: Warren, I have one not too far away 

The final grace note from a 91-year-old man contemplating the coming end of a useful and admired life. The crowd, was silent at first and then, slowly a warm applause came which continued to a crescendo. My eyes were already wet from laughing; I don’t think anybody noticed.

ANSA Merchant Bank Ltd (AMBL) is a major subsidiary of the ANSA McAl Group, which is involved in multiple industries and directly owns 82.48 per cent of the company. AMBL together with its TATIL subsidiaries provide many banking and insurance services to the AMCL group as well as to the wider public.

Although not as robust as in 2013, AMBL’s results in 2014 were still quite strong but were adversely influenced by domestic equity declines.

We will now review AMBL’s performance for its fiscal period ended December 31, 2014.

Changes in financial position

Total assets rose from the 2013 level of $6.09 billion to $6.62 billion last December; this increase reflected an advance of 8.7 per cent.

The principal driver of this improvement was the 30.5 per cent increase in the values of investment securities, which rose from $2.63 billion to $3.43 billion. 

The latter figure accounted for 51.8 per cent of total assets. Both equities and corporate bonds exhibited strong increases; the former advanced to $1.05 billion from $643 million while the latter rose from $586.5 million to $804 million.

Accounting for 15.3 per cent of assets, leased assets and instalment loans registered at $1.01 billion last December; this was 10.1 per cent greater than the previous year’s $917.5 million. On a percentage basis, gross finance leases increased by 13.7 per cent to $308.1 million from $271.2 million. 

Although comprising a larger share of the total, gross hire purchases rose by 8 per cent to $915.7 million from the previous year’s $847.6 million.

On a net basis, the personal sector exhibited strong growth of 32 per cent, moving to $380 million from the previous balance of $287.7 million. Leases and advances to the commercial sector registered a marginal increase moving to $635.1 million from $633.9 million.

Other debtors and prepayments fell to $17.5 million from the previous year’s $279.5 million. In the main, this reflected the elimination of $261.7 million in proceeds from investments, which was the most prominent component of the 2013 figure.

Also declining was cash and short-term funds, which closed 2014 at $745.6 million from the previous year’s $1.05 billion. Both cash balances and central bank reserves were little changed; the former valued at $464 million while the latter was $71 million. In contrast, short-term deposits with other banks contracted to $210.6 million from $512.8 million.

Total liabilities rose by 9.1 per cent, moving up to $4.76 billion from $4.36 billion as at December 2013.

Accounting for 48.6 per cent of this total, customers’ deposits and other funding instruments rose by 10.7 per cent to $2.31 billion from the 2013 level of $2.09 billion. At $966.2 million, the largest component (41.8 per cent) was sourced from private companies, estates and financial institutions.

Insurance contract liabilities closed 2014 at $1.21 billion; this represented a 6.6 per cent increase over the previous year’s $1.13 billion. Life insurance contracts rose to $924.8 million from $867.8 million, or by 6.6 per cent. General insurance contracts increased by 6.7 per cent to $282.8 million from $265.1 million in 2013.

Debt securities in issue increased to $759 million from the previous year’s $672 million. The net increase of $87 million included a new medium-term note, which was issued in November 2014 for $250 million at an interest rate of 3.35 per cent; this note matures on November 22, 2022. A US$25 million (TT$157.5 million) debt tranche matured in 2014, thus helping to reduce the net year-on-year increase. A $350 million debt at 6.5 per cent interest matures on June 4, 2015.

Equity improvements

Total equity advanced to $1.86 billion from the previous level of $1.73 billion. The bulk of this figure relates to stockholders’ equity as only $464k comprises minority interest; this sum represents a former director’s 0.7 per cent stake in TATIL Life Assurance Ltd.

The retained earnings balance rose by a net of $111.4 million to close 2014 at $991.5 million. The major movements showed that profit for the year contributed $208.1 million while dividends to shareholders consumed $85.6 million.

Having 85,605,263 shares outstanding, each share has a book value of $21.76 (2013: $20.24). This figure was $17.88 as at December 2012.

Income and Profits

Total operating income declined by 11.7 per cent to $703.4 million from the previous year’s $797 million.

The most significant contraction was noted under investment income, which fell to $161.6 million from 2013’s $269.2 million. Interest and dividends from other financial assets declined to $85 million from $96 million previously. More significantly, unrealised results from investments, characterised as fair value through income statement, moved from a positive $67.2 million in 2013 to a negative $29.7 million last year. Given that all three local stock market indices declined in 2014, this huge swing of $96.9 million was not surprising. Increases were noted under the category interest and dividends through income statement, where income rose to $63.9 million from $43.8 million in 2013.

Net insurance revenue fell marginally to $291.8 million from $293.5 million. Gross premiums did improve to $474.2 million from $450.7 million or by 5.2 per cent. However, the amounts ceded to reinsurers rose by 19.4 per cent to $180.4 million from $151.2 million. This disproportionate increase, along with other adjustments, explains the modest decline.

Other income rose to $90.4 million from $79.90 million. Here, we note that administrative fees and commissions improved to $33.1 million from $29.1 million. In addition, the “other” category jumped from $7 million in 2013 to almost $19 million last year; we recall that on December 4, 2014, the AMBL subsidiary, TATIL Life Assurance Ltd, sold its 500,000 shares in The Home Mortgage Bank, realising an estimated non-taxable profit of $15.36 million. This sale gave AMBL a useful profit fillip.

Net insurance benefits and claims rose by 2.8 per cent to $204.7 million from $199 million previously. Meanwhile, interest expenses fell by $5 million to $67.4 million. In addition, provision from impairment of investments swung by a healthy $21.6 million, moving from $19 million in 2013 to a write back of $2.6 million last year.

Along with a slightly higher provision for loan losses, these changes saw net operating income register at $430.2 million (2013: $504.6 million).

Selling and administrative expenses consumed $168 million versus $165.7 million in 2013.

Pre-tax profit came in at $262.2 million compared with $338.9 million in the previous year. After allowing for taxation of $54.1 million (2013: $72.5 million), the after-tax figure was $208.1 million versus $266.4 million.

Profit attributable to shareholders also registered at $208.1 million (2013: $266.4 million).

These results translated into 2014 EPS of $2.43 versus $3.11 for 2013.

Segment performance

Despite a small decline in operating income the banking services division managed to generate higher pre-tax profit.

A 61 per cent decline in operating income at the mutual funds segment eventually translated into a significant loss.

Both life and general insurance segments experienced lower income and higher expenses, thus precipitating significantly lower profits at both divisions. The life segment was the hardest hit as its profits contracted by almost 74 per cent; it was in this segment that the greatest reductions in equity values were sustained.

Dividends and share price

Dividends for both fiscal 2013 and 2014 were unchanged at $1.00. At a recent ex-dividend price of $38.92, this share gives investors a yield of 2.57 per cent. That price also represents a P/E multiple of 16.

Last Wednesday, there were outstanding offers to sell at $40.00, at which price investors would still enjoy a reasonable yield of 2.50 per cent; as noted later, there appears to be some justification for a higher price.

Q1 performance

The results for the first quarter showed a 100 per cent increase in EPS to $0.50 from $0.25 in the 2014 comparative period.

The general insurance segment was the star performer, increasing profits by 47 per cent. The banking segment delivered $1.5 million in higher profits.

Operating income at the mutual funds segment improved by 375 per cent, thus helping to restore profitability to that unit.

Although still showing a loss, the life insurance segment exhibited a significant reduction in that position.

Future prospects

As reported in the Barbados Advocate newspaper on March 30, 2015, AMBL’s acquisition of Consolidated Finance Company Ltd, based in Barbados, is expected to be consummated in the not-too-distant future.

There is a renewed emphasis on increasing production and improving investment returns at the TATIL Life subsidiary; this augurs well for a stronger result as the year develops.

On a note of caution, the recent downgrades for both the country and some state institutions will have some impact on the valuations of securities issued by those parties.

As a new insurance act makes its way through the legislative process, there is an opportunity for AMBL/TATIL group to participate in the rationalising and inevitable consolidation of the insurance sector, even excluding any Clico-related entity that would eventually form part of that process.

With its high penetration, heavy consumption and hefty fees, the Caribbean provides Internet service providers with some of their best-paying customers. The region’s rate of ARPUs (Average Revenue Per User) is among the world’s highest.

But, if you live in the Caribbean, the greatest obstacle standing between you and the next big evolution of the Internet could be that telco you’re paying so handsomely.

The next generation of the Web is already here, and it’s called Internet Protocol version 6, or IPv6. Internet Protocol addresses are the unique numeric addresses assigned to any device that sends or receives information over the Internet. 

The current protocol, IPv4, does not have the amount of address space necessary to deal with the rapidly increasing number of connected devices—smartphones, watches, tablets, laptops—communicating online.

As the stock of available IPv4 addresses approaches depletion, IPv6 deployment is being encouraged by regional Internet groups such as CaribNOG. Still, Caribbean Internet Service Providers have been relatively slow to adopt the new technology. Studies on Internet traffic show a global average IPv6 adoption rate of around five per cent, while the region lags at less than one per cent.

Competition spurs innovation

So why is the region so slow to deploy IPv6?

Carlos Martinez, chief technology officer of the Latin America and Caribbean Network Information Centre (LACNIC), says the Caribbean’s slow adoption of the new technology reveals regional carriers’ attitude toward innovation in general.

He explained that companies holding monopolies based on incumbent technologies have less incentive to innovate than potential rivals. But incumbents can be overtaken by newcomers who are ready to take the risks associated with adopting emerging technologies. When the radical innovations of the emerging technologies eventually become the new technological paradigm, those newcomers leapfrog ahead of former leading firms.

“There are exceptions,” Martinez told the T&T Guardian, “but the markets which are more competitive usually move forward faster than the ones that are not.”

And the regional landscape is dominated by a few operators, who have demonstrated relatively limited interest in innovation, Martinez said.

“There are only a few large operators in the Caribbean, and it would only take one of them to adopt IPv6 for everyone else to follow suit.”

But the more dominant the player in any given market, the smaller their incentive to innovate.

“If you have a profitable business, and there is little or no influence that your customers can exert to change your operation, then there’s ultimately little incentive to make changes,” Martinez said.

For him, the region’s slow rate of IPv6 adoption is just the symptom. The latent malaise is the region’s low levels of innovation across its telecommunications industry.

“It’s a tell-tale sign of something deeper,” he said.

Pushing IPv6 adoption

Martinez was interviewed during Lacnic’s annual gathering of Internet stakeholders, held in Lima, Peru last week. Hundreds of delegates from Latin America and the Caribbean gathered in the coastal South American nation for LACNIC 23, to discuss IPv6 adoption and other issues affecting the expansion and development of the Internet in the region.

As one of the world’s five Regional Internet Registries, Lacnic plays a leading role in encouraging the deployment of IPv6 across the region. In March, it successfully completed a hands-on workshop in T&T on core IPv6 concepts, held in partnership with an ongoing IPv6 transition project spearheaded by the Telecommunications Authority (TATT). 

In April, Lacnic’s Training Centre successfully completed its first introductory course on IPv6, conducted as a free, self-paced massively open online course (MOOC).

And there are already plans for further outreach this year in Suriname, Belize and St Maarten, in collaboration with the Internet Society.

“The intention is to see how best we can encourage different actors to raise awareness of T&T’s IPv6 deployment, and to link that work with its implication for the continued expansion and growth of the open, stable and secure Internet,” said Kevon Swift, LACNIC’s External Relations Officer for the Caribbean.

If the slow adoption to date is anything to go by, Internet organisations like LACNIC, CaribNOG and the Internet Society have got some work cut out for them over the coming months.

You’ve made the decision. Either you are getting married and you decide you need to buy a home, or you’re single and you decide you need to move out of your parents’ place. Or, to stop renting. Whatever the reason, you’ve decided that you are about to put your toes in and test the real estate waters. So you drive around looking at houses in the neighbourhoods you want to live in. But then the question arises. How do I know if I can afford it.

A pre-qualification may help.

“Pre-qualifying is giving you an idea of how much loan you can afford based on certain criteria,” said Wendy Huggins, the assistant manager, mortgage orientation at Trinidad and Tobago Mortgage Finance Company Limited.

“These would be your age, your income and your existing debt. When we do the pre-qualification, we give you an idea of what your monthly installment would be, what term of loan you can get based on your age and your income and your employment details and an idea of the cost attached to obtaining the loan.”

Most banks have calculators on their websites that enable you to work out either how much mortgage you potentially qualify for, or how much your monthly installment is likely to be. However, the TTMF offers the option of actually coming in to their offices, or sitting down over the phone to find out how much you qualify for and what your monthly payment would be.

The Sunday BG took advantage of the opportunity. A monthly salary, level of debt and birthdate were the information needed. Within seconds, a mortgage loan amount was provided, along with a monthly installment.

So, how did they come up with these numbers and why is it important?

Qualifying ratios

Wayne Harewood, formerly an independent mortgage broker and currently the managing director of WealthCare Consulting Ltd, told the Sunday BG that banks and finance houses are primarily looking at two or at the most three ratios to calculate how much money you are pre-qualified for.

Huggins of the TTMF explained further.

“One is that your mortgage installment, cannot exceed 1/3 of your gross monthly income. Also, your mortgage installment and your additional debt, for example, a bank loan or a credit union loan, hire purchase payment, credit card payment (in other words, your total debt service ratio), cannot exceed 40 per cent of your gross income.”

Another, said Harewood, is that banks and finance houses are unlikely to provide more than 90 per cent financing for a home. 

Beyond the TTMF’s 2 per cent and 5 per cent mortgage programme for first-time homeowners, most institutions in fact meet only between 80 and 95 per cent of financing needs. 

This is why it is important to find out what you are pre-qualified for and know what type of house your can afford, said Harewood. He said many people hang their proverbial hat much higher than where the finance house is willing to go with them.

“What is unfortunate, though, is that in my years of operating as a mortgage broker, I have seen people go and take a downpayment on a property, thinking that they can get 90 per cent funding.When they finally came to me and I did the screening, they find out they don’t qualify. I have seen people lose down payments because they did not pre-qualify. I have seen people go ahead and draw up plans only to have to do them over because they did not qualify for the quantum that they need to build that house.”

Harewood said a pre-qualification will also give you the ability to make adjustments if the finance house turns you down.

“The critical thing most times is the debt service ratio,” he said.

Regular Sunday BG readers would recall that the issue of calculating and improving your debt service ratio has been discussed in previous weeks.

“If your ratios are out of whack, then you would have to revisit what loans you have, whatever credit cards you have and look at consolidating those things and probably stretching them over a longer period, in that way affecting your ratio,” said Harewood

Pre-qualification is not pre-approval 

We asked Huggins of the TTMF to explain the difference between being pre-qualified for a mortgage and being pre-approved for a mortgage.

“The pre-approval, really, is where you have located a property and you provide us with your documentation. Or, even if you haven’t located the property, you provided us with documentation where you can verify certain things. 

“In the pre qualification, you are bringing just the evidence of your income and some form of ID, if you are coming into the office. Or, if we do it over the phone, we just take the information that you present. 

“It is really based on the information the prospective customer gives to us. It is not based on our verification of any of the information.”

Huggins said while the TTMF would like those accessing their pre-qualification service to choose them as their eventual mortgage provider, they are not obligated to do so.

She said that people should note that their figures may not apply at another institution.

That’s because pre-qualification at one institution, doesn’t mean that that is the same amount you will qualify for at another institution.

For those who choose the TTMF, Huggins said a pre-qualification definitely makes them more attractive clients.

“It does. As the lender, we know what you qualify for, so in terms of the properties you are going to come with, we anticipate that you are going to come with a property within that range.”

Real estate agents have about one more year to enjoy serious profits in their sector before they see a decline. 

This was the bold statement made by UWI lecturer and economist Dr Roger Hosein an Association of Real Estate Agents Trinidad and Tobago seminar last Wednesday. 

Speaking on the topic of ‘The Economy 2015 and the Impact on Real Estate’, Hosein told the gathered realtors that the economy was entering what he termed a “new normal”, where consumption could not continue as it had before, largely because of declining energy prices and the necessary resulting adjustments to government spending. 

Calling the real estate sector, a “spill over” industry, dependent on a large extent on government fiscal injections, Hosein said that government spending had essentially accustomed the public to consumption patterns that were unsustainable. This included purchases in the real estate sector. 

He called on real estate agents to adjust their expectations on what they could hope to earn downwards, possibly from as early as next December. He said that they should begin accomodating those looking for homes in the middle and lower income brackets. 

However, he did not think the declines were going to be as sharp at this stage. 

The UWI lecturer and economist said that it appeared the demand for real estate in this country was tied to other things beside interest rates. 

Asked to explain his statement later, he said, 

“What I meant was that there is an inverse relationship between the real estate mortgage loan rate and the amount of real estate mortgage loans made. 

At this time given the plateauing of the level of economic activity for the last 6 years, the demand for real estate at present would be linked to perhaps a misconception that the economy may be doing better than it is and also there is a degree of irrational exuberance in pricing.” 

Irrational exuberance or something else? 

One realtor in the audience, however, sought to challenge Dr. Hosein’s conclusions. During an question and answer session, the realtor suggested that the real estate sector was unlikely to be affected even by a serious downturn in the economy. When questioned afterwards, this was the response that they gave. 

“My comment is based on the fact that Trinidad is a narco economy and the relative bodies do not address that tentative issue, because of fear…We are one of the only places that is a double entry point and exit point for both coke and marijuana, not just to North America but to Europe and a lot of our monies come into that. 

“So the person (Dr Hosein) was making a reference, I think he was trying to tell real estate agents, to make their prices more equitable. But if there is a supply of cash, you could have a $100,000 property and if 5 people are bidding $1,000,000, eventually it will sell for a $1,000,000. 

“This is because you have an injection of funds towards low cost items. This will cause the items to have mass inflation because of the injection in funds. That is just general, but because no one wants to step on toes or anything else, nobody says anything about it.”

In Monday’s newspapers, there was a full-page advertisement announcing  that an entity named Stallion Property Trust (SPT) would make an initial public offering of common and fixed income units starting on May 18. 

The promoters of the SPT IPO propose to raise $382.39 million by selling the following units to the public:

• Some 5,072,957 common units at  $20 each = $101.45 million

• Some 100,000 three-year, three per cent fixed income units @$1,000 = $100 million

• Some 180,945 seven-year, 4.5 per cent  fixed income units @ $1,000 = $180.94 million

The prospectus indicates that SPT is looking to raise the $382.39 million from the public in order to pay off debt of $361 million, which was used to acquire nine properties. 

The underlying asset of the Trust is a 100 per cent ownership of a company called Endeavour Holdings Limited, which owns a diversified portfolio of nine commercial real estate properties. 

Those nine properties are four outlets of the local pharmacy chain SuperPharm at Valsayn, Chaguanas, Westmoorings and Gulf View. Also included are Price Plaza North, Price Plaza South, Brian Place in St Clair, Tumpuna Park warehousing and industrial compound and a building leased to the Ministry of National Security in Aranjuez. 

The four directors of SPT are John Tang Nian, a retired banker, Amalia Maharaj, an attorney at Pollonais, Blanc, de la Bastide and Jacelon, John Aboud, business executive, and Joseph Rahael, property developer. 

Rahael is part of the privately owned, Rahael-family owned Amera Corporation, which has been one of the most active commercial property developers in T&T in the last decade.

Rahael-owned companies are responsible for Briar Place in St Clair, and the new building on Queen’s Park West, a stone’s throw away from the US Embassy building. Rahael-owned companies were also involved in the controversial Milsherv development in Tobago, and the financially troubled, billion-dollar Renaissance project in Shorelands.

On Friday night, Rahael responded to some questions that had been sent to him earlier in the week. 

The questions were sent after Rahael invited the Business Guardian to conduct an interview with him in which he would give details of the IPO.

Among the questions asked were:

Q: Why is SPT attempting to raise money from the public based on an audit for Endeavour Holdings Ltd, which represents the financial position of EHL as at April 30, 2014? 

Shouldn’t the audit be more up to date? 

A: The audited accounts for FY15 will commence shortly as our fiscal year end is April 30, 2015, however given the nature of the investment, which is rental income, the 2015 position will not be materially different and therefore rather than further delaying the IPO, a decision was made and accepted by the SEC, that the audited accounts for FY14 was sufficient. 

(Author’s note: Given the sharp decline in T&T’s export earnings as a result of lower oil and gas prices, can it really be argued that “the 2015 position will not be materially different” to 2014?)

Q: The prospectus states that EHL’s investment portfolio comprises nine properties that have a market value of $831.6 million. Who conducted the valuations on these properties and how recently were the valuations done? 

A:  The property valuations were conducted by Brent Augustus & Associates with the exception of Briar Place which was valued by Terra Caribbean. These valuations were conducted in January, April and October of 2014, and reviewed and accepted by PWC as part of their audit and their report.

Q: My understanding is that SPT is raising $382.39 million in order to pay off debt of $361 million, used to acquire the nine properties. What happens to the property acquisitions if the IPO is not successful? 

A:  These properties have been either built or purchased by EHL for many years now. It is an existing portfolio of already built and acquired properties with a history of proven cash flow and solid tenants with no construction or acquistion risk. 

Nothing untowards happens to the portfolio in the unlikely event the IPO is undersubscribed.  Any funds raised over and above the debt stays in the company as working capital /reserve.

Q: Why not opt to refinance the debt with the banks? 

A:  We are refinancing bank debt by going to the public. As you would be aware investors are still earning currently very low returns and the banks are still earning a spread in excess of five per cent. Therefore we are capitalising on that opportunity to give the general public an opportunity to earn higher returns whilst at the same time reducing our cost. (Author’s note: The Central Bank increased the repo rate on four occasions between September 2014 and March 2015 in order to increase the returns on local, especially fixed income assets.)

Q: Why is there no mention of the Renaissance development in the prospectus and the unresolved issues involving nearly $1 billion owed to the two Canadian banks? 

A: Not applicable. Although there is some common ownership, these are two separate entities with different ownership and no crossover issues.

Q: Will any of the money raised in the IPO go to pay off the Renaissance debts? 

A:  No. EHL debt only.

Mr Rahael also submitted additional information, which had not been asked for: “The shareholders are selling only 15 per cent of the equity and have placed a voluntary three-year sales restriction on their remaining 85 per cent thereby negating the issue of shareholders raising money for themselves and demonstrating their own long-term confidence in the company.

An analysis by the brokerage house WISE, released on Friday, estimated that a price/earnings (P/E) multiple of 14.61X based on the offer price of $20 per common unit. 

A five-year projection provided by the issuer in the SPT prospectus estimated revenue of $54.3 million and profit of $46.3 million in the 2015 financial year. 

For the 2016, the issuers project that revenue will decline by 28 per cent from $54.3 million in the 2015 financial year to $38.3 million in 2016. The issuers project that net profit will decline by 44 per cent from $46.3 million in the 2015 financial year to $26 million in 2016.

Despite the decline in net profits, SPT projects that it would be able to distribute $10.14 million in dividends to common shareholders. 

The semi-annual cash distributions to common unitholders by the Trust is at the discretion of the directors of the trustee.  It is projected that a minimum of 90 per cent of the Trust’s available cash shall be distributed. 

Mumbai Indians completed one of the most remarkable turnarounds in the eight-year history of the Indian Premier League by transforming a terrible start to the tournament—they were at the bottom of the table for the first two weeks—into a title win, as they whipped Chennai Super Kings by 41 runs yesterday at Eden Gardens, Kolkata.

The final, a repeat of their 2013 success at the same ground against the same opposition, turned out to be one of the easier outings after an unbridled early onslaught by Rohit Sharma and Lendl Simmons, both of whom hit half-centuries, stunned Chennai Super Kings  into submission. Super Kings were not even given a sniff.

MS Dhoni’s choice of bowling first on a patchy Eden Gardens pitch was interesting, not because he might have over-compensated for the presence of dew later on but because it was a departure from a strategy that had worked for Super Kings during their two previous title wins—bat first, score big, then apply the squeeze.

The start was perfect; Faf du Plessis ran out Parthiv Patel brilliantly and Ashish Nehra ensured only one came off the first over. But that was it, because once Rohit tore into the second over, picking 16 off Mohit Sharma, Super Kings were always chasing the ball.

R Ashwin was introduced in the fourth over, overstepped once and paid the price with a 12-run over. Jadeja was also bowled inside the Powerplay but Simmons smashed him for 14 runs to make it 61 runs off the first six. After seeing Rohit kick-start the innings with a flurry of boundaries in the first three overs, Simmons had played all but one ball in the next three and had overtaken Rohit.

The spreading of field was not going to have an effect on the tiny outfield. Simmons continued hogging majority of strike and continued finding boundaries to reach his sixth half-century of the season in the 10th over.

The run-rate showed no signs of stemming but Dhoni continued to hold back Dwayne Bravo, the leading wicket-taker of the tournament. 

As fate had it, it was Bravo who broke the dangerous stand in his first over—the 12th of the innings—by which time Rohit, too, had reached his half-century, of just 24 balls, and the run-rate was hovering around 10.

An animated speech by Dhoni in the team huddle at Rohit’s dismissal had a brief effect: Dwayne Smith sent Simmons back with his first ball of the tournament and 30 runs came off four overs. But on 150 after 16 overs with Kieron Pollard and Ambati Rayudu warmed up, Mumbai Indians were waiting to explode.

Nehra bore the brunt—he was hit for three sixes and a four in the 17th by Pollard—and Mumbai Indians finished for only the second ever 200-plus total in an IPL final.

Super Kings’ chase needed early thrust but it never came. Smith, as had happened throughout the season, struggled to time the ball. He did reach a half-century—his second this season—but Super Kings needed more from him than a strike rate of 118. 

Harbhajan Singh dismissed Smith an over after he had removed Raina, Malinga struck too and Mitchell McClenaghan collected three. Super Kings’ wait for their third title entered its fifth year.

Scorecard

Mumbai Indians vs Chennai Super Kings  

Mumbai Indians inns

LMP Simmons b Smith     68

PA Patel run out    0

RG Sharma c Jadeja b Bravo     50

KA Pollard c Raina b Sharma     36

AT Rayudu  not out     36

HH Pandya  c Raina b Bravo    0

Harbhajan Singh  not out    6

Extras:  (b 1, lb 4, nb 1)    6

Total:  (5 wickets; 20 overs)     202

Fall of wickets: 1-1 (Patel, 0.5 ov), 2-120 (Sharma, 11.6 ov), 3-120 (Simmons, 12.1 ov), 4-191 (Pollard, 18.5 ov), 5-191 (Pandya, 19.2 ov)

Bowling: Nehra  4 -0 -41 -0,  Sharma 4 -0 -38-1, Ashwin 2-0     -21 -0, Jadeja  2 -0 -26 -0, Negi  2-0-18 -0,  Bravo  4-0-36-2,  Smith 2 -0 -17 -1

Chennai Super Kings inns

DR Smith  lbw b Harbhajan Singh    57

MEK Hussey  c Suchith b McClenaghan     4

SK Raina st Patel b Harbhajan Singh    28

MS Dhoni b Malinga    18

DJ Bravo  c Simmons b McClenaghan    9

P Negi  c Pandya b Malinga     3

F du Plessis  c Sharma b Vinay Kumar     1

RA Jadeja  not out    11

R Ashwin  c Suchith b McClenaghan     2

MM Sharma  not out     21

Extras: (lb 2, w 3, nb 2)    7 

Total: (8 wickets; 20 overs)     161 

Fall of wickets: 1-22 (Hussey, 4.4 ov), 2-88 (Smith, 11.5 ov), 3-99 (Raina, 13.3 ov), 4-108 (Bravo, 14.3 ov), 5-124 (Dhoni, 15.5 ov), 6-125 (du Plessis, 16.2 ov), 7-134 (Negi, 17.3 ov), 8-137 (Ashwin, 18.2 ov)

Bowling: Malinga 4-0 -25 -2 McClenaghan  4 -0 -25 -3, Vinay Kumar  4 -0 -39 -1, Pandya 4 -0 -36 -0, Harbhajan 4-0 -34 -2

National players Akeal Hosein and Sunil Narine led Queen’s Park Cricket Club to the Sunday League 50-over title after defeating North rivals Merry Boys by 104 runs in the penultimate round at the Diego Martin Recreational Ground, yesterday.

The victory kept the Parkites unbeaten after eight rounds, as it moved to 24 points, six ahead of Powergen Penal with only one round remaining.

Batting first Queen’s Park posted a competitive 265/7 as left-handed Hosein scored 69 from 80 balls. Hosein, who struck three fours and one six, was ably supported by Barbadian Javon Searles who slammed a quick 34 off 33 balls at the end of the innings.

Earlier in the innings, left-handed opener Jeremy Solozano contributed 34 from 50 balls. Aneil Kanhai (2/31) and Ryan Hinds (2/34) were the top bowlers for Merry Boys both snatching two wickets.  

In reply, Merry Boys failed to push on after getting a positive start. 

After the third wicket fell with the score on 91, the Diego Martin team slumped to 161 all out in 43.3 overs to hand Queen’s Park a comfortable win. 

Mario Belcon top scored for the hosts with 46 off 36 balls, which included ten fours. Hinds was the only other batsman to offer some resistance, finishing on an unbeaten 23.

Narine was again among the wickets taking 4/26 in 9.3 overs, while Hosein made it difficult to score grabbing 3/18 in ten overs. 

On Saturday Narine picked up 4/25 against Merry Boys in the Shanghai Construction Group National League.

At Inshan Ali Park, Preysal won its first match of the competition with a narrow ten-run win over Jenexcon Tableland. 

At Enterprise, Powergen Penal grabbed three points after Esmeralda forfeited the match due to unavailable players.

SCORES 

At Diego Martin Recreational: Queen’s Park 265/7 (Akeal Hosein 69, Javon Searles 34 not out, Jeremy Solozano 34, Aneil Kanhai 2/31, Ryan Hinds 2/34) vs Merry Boys 161 (43.3 overs) (Mario Belcon 46, Hinds 23 not out, Sunil Narine 4/26, Hosein 3/18) Queen’s Park won by 104 runs.

At Wilson Road: FC Clarke Road 162 (42.2 overs) (Antonio Greenidge 51, Kjorn Ottley 35, Fareel Jugmohan 3/39,  Garey Mathurin 2/14, Rajindra Dhanraj 2/17) vs Jailal Enterprise Victoria 118 (39.2 overs) (Romario Sheppard 43, Marcelle Jones 28, Mukesh Persad 5/17, Jyd Goolie 2/9) Clarke Road won by 44 runs.

At Inshan Ali Park: Preysal 158 (48 overs) (Amit Maraj 46, Videsh Sookhai 42, Daniel St Clair 3/21, Negus Carthy 2/27) vs Jenexcon Tableland 148 (31 overs) (Chanderpaul Hemraj 49, Philton Williams 4/52, Yohan Boxhil 4/62) Preysal won by ten runs.

At Gilbert Park: Alescon Comets 185 (Adrian Ali 95, Danza Hyatt 31, Jon Russ Jagessar 4/20) vs Caldrac 93 (N. McDavid 23, Anthony Simmons 5/32) Comets won by 92 runs.

At Enterprise: Esmeralda forfeited match against Powergen Penal.

Yarrow, one of eight ‘decs’ for the Maiden Fillies’ Stakes over twelve furlongs of ‘good to firm’ Leicester today, represents the best chance of a winner, from four mounts, for ex-champion jockey Ryan Moore.

Significantly this thrice-raced Sir Michael Stoute-trained Sea The Stars three-year-old achieved her best time-handicap mark when upped to this trip at Salisbury three weeks ago, an excellent seasonal debut; if able to achieve similar or better Yarrow will surely be too strong for forecast-favourite Stubbins.

Moore has every chance of winning the newly-formatted jockeys’ championship because he’s prepared to travel and make the supreme effort; never forget ‘the harder you work, the luckier you become’ and his continued visits to winners’ enclosures, all over the world are testimony to dedication and preparation.

Consistency should gain reward and end a vexing sequence of four consecutive seconds for Fast Dancer in the Maiden Stakes over five furlongs at Windsor which is also forecast to ride ‘good to firm’ for another seven-race programme.

Clear ‘best-in’ and strongly-fancied Fast Dancer is the mount of James Doyle, one of our best jockeys whose rapid rise through the ranks has been impressive.

Our daily patent also includes Sharqeyih in the Maiden Fillies’ Stakes over an extended nine furlongs of Carlisle, trained by William Haggas.

It’s so important to obtain ‘winning brackets’ for well-bred fillies and absolutely imperative this Hamdan Al Maktoum-owned three-year-olds ‘does the  biz’ under dual-champion, Paul Hanagan, who knows the Northern circuit so well.

Haggas combs the entry book fastidiously for opportunities and is prepared to journey thoroughbreds far and wide to take advantage of them; a trainer to follow, without doubt.

President of the T&T Football Association (TTFA) Raymond Tim Kee was convinced that the organisation’s tainted past, under the brand T&T Football Federation (TTFF), is behind it.

Speaking at Thursday’s TTFA Awards (FA and Super League) held at the VIP Lounge at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Woodbrook, he said despite recent rumblings between his association and the Ministry of Sport over outstanding audited financial statements, the local governing body for football was on a new path.

Earlier this month Sport Minister Brent Sancho told the nation his ministry had discontinued releasing tax-payers funds to the TTFA, until the outfit was able to produce audited financial statements for 2008-2014.

Last week TTFA's management and the accounting firm KPMG explained the issues which caused the delay in the finalisation of the audited financial statements from 2008 to 2014. Minister Sancho was then presented with a copy of the draft audited financial statement for 2008-2009.  

Seemingly satisfied with the progress the TTFA had made so far, Sancho made it clear that the Tim Kee administration must submit audited financials for years which have not been accounted. Even so, the TTFA president was confident that under his leadership the new executive for football had been able to restore credibility to the sport.

“When I took that very bold and brave step to get back into football, I expected that there would have been some challenges and just some challenges, until I started to walk the road and then I recognised there were a lot of splinters and shape instruments that I had to walk through in order to get from point “A” to point “B”. We had taken on more than $36 million dollars in debt; (had a) skeletal staff–badly paid staff; (and) a very vexed and annoyed population. We lost our brand, a brand that took many years (to build) that climaxed in 2006. 

Those of you who were in Germany would recognise what football has done for our country. 

People who remained home and assembled by the various sports bars can tell you one the experience. That was a motivator,” he said.

The key point hammered home by Simon Morton of UK Sport for the hosting of the London 2012 Summer Olympics was a clearly defined and workable strategic plan aimed at returns on investment. Morton was speaking on the opening day of the Shannon Airport Sport Tourism European Summit at Thomond Park, Limerick, Ireland May 14-15, 2015.  

His presentation was entitled “Hosting Major Sporting Events for Major Sporting Benefits.” He indicated that UK Sport became operational in the 1997 after miserable performances by Great Britain in the Atlanta 1996 Olympics where they placed 37th on the medals table. Although UK Sport is responsible to government, it is not a department of government. In other words, UK Sport which received a budget of 550 million pounds over a four–year period is free from government interference and therefore operates first and foremost like a business with clear targets and strategic plans. 

Strategically UK Sport was charged with the responsibility of developing a 10-year plan and working with national sporting associations. The focus is on High Performance Sport and hosting Major Events. 

For UK Sport funding from the government is viewed not as a grant but as an investment that will yield returns in many quarters–medals, infrastructure development, economic improvements of local communities, tourism and marketability of the city and country to the world. 

Morton indicated that UK Sport is very strategic when it comes to selecting events to hosts. He indicated that there a number of events from which to choose from:

• Short form Games–3 on 3 basketball, T20 cricket, beach volleyball

• Extreme Sports–extreme biking, free running, skate boarding etc

• Masters Events

• Youth–Youth Olympics

• Women Sports

• Disability games

Selection of any of these events must be based on knowledge and a return on investment. He warned that although an event may be attractive, it is only after careful cost benefit analysis is a decision made as to proposing bids to host events. 

The Investment and Scorecard Principles are used to guide the decision making process. In terms of Investment the following were identified as critical:

• How will the International events impact on the host status?

• Prioritise where the return on investments will be the highest

• Identify the long-term investment to host major events

• Ensure that there is a robust business plan and budget

The Scorecard Principles in terms of benefits for hosting were based on:

• Legacy 20 per cent 

• Performance 35 per cent 

• Engagement 35 per cent 

• Economic 10 per cent  

The sporting benefits in terms of Performance Investment was built upon:

• Medal returns (65 in 2012 which was above the target of 48 set by UK Sport)

• Talent outline–identification of the country’s talent

In terms of sport engagement, research on direct participation, spectator engagement and television viewers revealed that 60 per cent said the Summer Olympics was inspiring. There was a 28 per cent  per cent increase in participation especially in events where the Great Britain were domineering such as in cycling through the performances of Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins.

In recognising that inspiration in itself does not automatically lead to increase and sustained participation in sport, UK Sport has been working with Sport England through a Sport Engagement Fund of 2M pounds to stimulate participation across the country. 

The aforementioned points provide a broad framework for all stakeholders who are responsible for identifying and managing international sporting events in T&T.  A clear vision has to be identified and it must be incorporated in the overall development plan for sport. We have to start walking the talk in a strategic manner to reap desired rewards!

Asha Ramsundar is on her way to the Fifa Women’s Wold Cup Football 2015 semifinal scheduled to take place on June 30 at the Montreal Olympic Stadium, Montreal Canada.

She emerged the winner of the Kia Women’s World Cup grand prize draw held at the automotive dealership’s Phillip Street, Port-of-Spain, headquarters, last Thursday.

As the Kia promotion winner Ramsundar, a secretary at G&R Dealers Contracting, received an all-expense paid trip—inclusive of airfare and accommodation to the host country.

Ramsundar, a mother of two and grandmother of three from Fyzabad said her love of the sport guided her decision to take part in the contest and with the hope of accompanying the national senior female footballer to the championship in North America.   

But the women footballers went down to Ecuador 1-0 back in December at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Woodbrook, ending their Fifa World Cup campaign.

Declaring her unswerving support for the female footballers and knowing that they should have qualified for the World Cup, Ramsundar said witnessing the semi-final play-off had not diminished in value.

Shiraz Ahamad, Kia brand director, said the automobile brand’s commitment to sport world-wide was evident by its participation in many international sporting events.

He added, “Southern Sales and Service is proud of its association with football in T&T and more so with the promotion of women’s football and this promotion is evidence of same.”

It is amazing the things you can get away with. Sure, it is illegal to bribe police officers, murder, rob or plunder your neighbour’s buried gold but there are also myriad offensive acts a clever citizen can execute without getting so much as a frown and a ticket. 

People just don’t know their rights, that’s the problem. They think lots of everyday acts are illegal and so waste valuable energy avoiding temptation where there is no risk of them being dragged away in handcuffs. 

For example, you have been tricked by those cute Serta mattress sheep on television into thinking you cannot rip the tag off mattresses without being prosecuted. After all the tag says “THIS TAG MAY NOT BE REMOVED UNDER PENALTY OF LAW.’’ But that’s before the product is sold to prevent the innocent consumer from unwittingly buying a used and possibly very stinky mattress and it does not apply to you, my dear Sleeping Beauty, who bought the mattress and sprawls on it in T&T and not the United States. So start ripping off those tags to your heart’s content. It’s great therapy because you can imagine you are ripping the ears off your evil boss, or somebody. 

Another weird thing that you might think is illegal but is not is the Duggar Family—the stars of the 19 Kids and Counting reality television series. No doubt you have been unnecessarily hiding the TV remote from yourselves because you believed there was something inherently creepy about people with 80s perms and names like Jim Bob and Jinger wearing matching T-shirts and cloning themselves. 

Nope, the Duggars are not illegal but molesting little children is: which is what Josh, the eldest son, admitted to last week after resigning from the Christian lobby group the Family Research Council. When he was a teenager he “inappropriately touched’’ five minors, the first incident occurring when he was 14. 

So just make sure you understand the difference—procreating on television, not illegal. Being a child-molesting creepozoid, definitely punishable by imprisonment and burning in hell. 

Then, all those cops-and-robbers movies make people think they have to answer police officers who stop and ask them their names, addresses and where they are coming from. Actually, you don’t have to say a word. Police are entitled to ask but you don’t have to answer. On the other hand, co-operation can go a long way. You can stand on your rights as a citizen to remain silent and, possibly get roughed up in a very illegal way, or you can politely show your identification (no sudden moves, please) and ask how you can help support your friendly, neighbourhood constables. 

You cannot own a firearm without a licence but you can have an air rifle. You can ask passers-by outside groceries and mall for contributions towards an unnamed charity which never seems to find daylight but it is illegal to gather or beg for alms in the public street, lest you be sent to prison for one month or be fined a maximum of $200. 

Meanwhile, there are a bunch of things that are not illegal but should be, including political parties commandeering colours so that innocent citizens are deprived of their constitutional right of freedom of expression which includes the right to choose their wardrobe free of dirty looks from neighbours who think they are campaigning for the wrong political party; green verbs in official documents; and photos of diseased body parts in “health and wellness’’ newspaper articles. We get the point—toenail fungus is icky, don’t need a picture of the yellowing, crumbling extremity under our noses over our morning cornflakes. 

But if I had to choose one naughty act that is not illegal but should be it would be this—servers in fast-food outlets and coffee shops slathering onions over my order no matter how many times I shout, “No onions, please,’’ and then when their indiscretion is revealed (and the order is late too) no one so much as apologises. That sort of customer service crime should not become a ritual in anyone’s day.

• Confess your crimes to Elsa at wrenchelsa@hotmail.com

One in every three women you meet is traumatised by violence. This is evident from a frightening World Health Organisation (WHO) statistic: more than a third of all women worldwide (35 per cent) have been attacked violently by their intimate partners, or have experienced sexual violence from a non-partner. Globally, the WHO tells us, intimate partners commit as many as 38 per cent of womens’ murders.

Far from being a private matter, domestic violence is a major public health problem affecting whole families and societies over time, say experts. And although men are said to commit a lot of the violence, women can be guilty too, and victims can include children, old people, and anyone living in the home of an abuser. Feelings of shame and secrecy within families and communities often mask the problem until it’s too late.

In the Caribbean, of those women who have been attacked by partners, 28 to 64 per cent of them do not even seek help or speak to anyone about the attacks. This is according to a 2013 report by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) cited in a March 2014 research note by The Ministry of the People and Social Development. 

In T&T, between 2009 and 2012, almost 12,000 domestic violence applications were made in the Magistrate’s Court, according to a report by a group called the NGO Caribbean Development Foundation (NCDF), which recently completed a five-year Violence Against Women campaign. 

The campaign involved consulting a wide range of NGOs from Jamaica, T&T, Suriname and other Caribbean countries, and resulted in a report called The Cascadia Protocol, submitted to regional governments. A main recommendation was the need for trained Domestic Violence Units in the police service. 

The NCDF reports that NGOs want governments to listen to their advice, and make better use of their skills. Such groups have been working directly with domestic violence victims for a long time, and have the experience, commitment and flexibility to be more effective than well-intentioned but often inflexible and limited government departments, says the NCDF. 

Groping in the dark: The need for data 

“I can’t speak for anyone, but for myself, I feel we’re all just groping in the dark. Every now and then, we become outraged when we hear about a particular case in the media; there’s a lot of furore; and then it dies down. There is no systematic way of collecting data. The data is fragmented: you might get some from the magistrates court, from social workers, but nothing is pooled and analysed,” said accountant and social justice activist Carol Daniel in a Guardian interview at the NCDF’s office in Tunapuna. 

Carol Daniel founded the NCDF in 2007 to help develop capacity of a range of NGOs in the region. And she’s passionate about the Cascadia Protocol recommendations, especially the need to take domestic violence seriously enough to measure it properly. 

“We need to collect data in a systematic way, from different sectors—health, police, judiciary, from across the board; and have one body collate that data and analyse it. Then we’d have a better understanding of what we’re dealing with,” she said. 

Bring a Domestic Violence Unit 

“The most important recommendation for me is the one that relates to the police: the creation of a Domestic Violence Unit,” said Daniel. 

“This is not a new idea...There have been experiments, but I would like to see it fully implemented. More manpower needs to be put towards the issue of domestic violence.” 

“Also important for me is the ability to charge a suspect without direct input from the victim,” said Daniel, “so that the police can go ahead and build a case and not have to rely exclusively on the victim to testify. Because often the victim is intimidated, her livelihood may be affected. 

“I would like to see them be able to charge a suspect without relying 100 per cent on the victim to testify....The police may stand a better chance of going through the system and completely prosecuting someone and having that person pay for the crime. If it is totally dependent on the victim, there’s a strong chance that the victim will not testify when that time comes—and the case falls apart.” 

Don’t reinvent the wheel, ask those in the field already 

Daniel echoes the calls of other regional NGOs for governments to harness the NGO sector better. 

“I see an attempt by some government departments to do the work of the NGO sector. But I think the NGO sector is best placed to work with victims. NGOs do it because they are very committed to it. It’s not just an avenue to earn a living. Many of us don’t earn a living from this work. We do it because we are convinced it needs to be done. We make sacrifices in order to do it.” 

“A system needs to be set up where governments funnel money to the sector and treat the sector like an equal partner in working on social issues, rather than embarking on it themselves,” said Daniel. 

She said victims need sensitivity and support, and “they need someone to be there for them at three in the morning; government departments can’t do that. For them to attempt to do that is to waste the taxpayer’s money.” 

“So the sector needs to be resourced. It will work out as an economic advantage for governments to resource the sector and just let them go ahead and do it.” 

Deal with violence in the family and in men 

A key part of dealing with domestic violence is taking a look at our home behaviour. This includes acknowledging the violence, anger management problems, and culture of entitlement of many West Indian men, who often have prejudiced attitudes about the role of women. It also involves dealing with the destructive effect of violence on children, which can be deep and lasting. 

Daniel believes violence in the home impacts national crime figures: “I think if young people grow up in a home that is violent, they are desensitised, and they are more likely to commit crime in the long term.” She argues for an approach to crime-fighting which addresses violence in the family. 

To address violence by men towards their family, the NCDF held a workshop last December, A Call to Men, led by UK psychologist Jonathan Fowler. The workshop trained participants in how to rehabilitate men with a history of violence within the family, using an approach that has been successful in the US and elsewhere. The NCDF hopes to bring Fowler back to the Caribbean for more “one-on-one” training with individual NGOs. 

“I think here in T&T, we have come to the point where women are dying. And it didn’t suddenly happen overnight where a spouse wakes up and decides: ‘Today I’m going to kill you.’ It’s a pattern of abuse that ends in death,” says Daniel. 

“I don’t think violence against women is a woman’s issue or a man’s issue. It’s a social and national issue. It’s a pattern of family life and quality of life that impacts the level of crime in the country.” 

• TOMORROW: Summary of the Cascadia Protocol

Who is Carol Daniel?

Carol Daniel was born in the UK to West Indian students (her mother is Bajan, her father is from T&T). The family grew up in T&T, in Mount Lambert. 

Daniel studied sociology and history for her first degree, and says she got into the financial world by accident: her uncle owned his own business in Barbados, of which Price Waterhouse were his auditors, and one evening he told her: “Price Waterhouse needs audit trainees. You start on Monday.” 

She went on to become a financial accountant, working at Deloitte and PwC (Price Waterhouse) in Barbados. While there, she joined a small Amnesty International group which piqued her interest in social justice issues. 

She left Barbados in 1997 and moved to London, to gain international experience in her profession. After a year of audit work, she specialised in England’s well developed, respected NGO sector, doing financial consulting and project management work for NGOs there, and doing some more work with Amnesty International. 

On her return to the Caribbean in 2007, Daniel quickly became involved with NGOs here, combining her financial training with her social justice interests. She founded the NGO Caribbean Development Foundation (NCDF) in 2007, to help small charities and non-governmental groups to develop. 

Many of these groups suffer from scarce resources, skills, labour, and low support from regional governments. The NCDF works mainly to help such groups become stronger, through helping them to create work plans, campaign strategies and implement regional campaigns. 

The NCDF currently works with human rights groups (including Amnesty International in Jamaica, Bahamas and Barbados) and many groups fighting against domestic violence in the region (including Families in Action and the Rape Crisis centre in Trinidad, and many women’s shelters in Trinidad, Jamaica and elsewhere). 

The NCDF board consists of: president and founder—Carol Daniel; vice president—Witek Hebanowski; corporate secretary—Sr Mary Claire Zitman; and legal director—Alice Daniel. 

• MORE INFO: The NCDF is based at 42 Balthazar Street, Tunapuna. Tel: 792-2089. Email: contact@ngocaribbean.org. Website: www.ngocaribbean.org

The question of what happens after we squeeze the last drop of oil from the last oil rig lurks always at the back of the minds of not just oil producers, but anyone who has thought about what powers their cell phones, cars, and homes.

High hopes are pinned on solar energy, but while this technology evolves, others, less well-publicised, are also evolving. And at the forefront of petroleum substitution technology is Prof Suresh Narine, the Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellence joint laureate in Science & Technology for 2015.

Prof Narine, a jovial, gregarious man, as willing to talk about cricket and politics as alternative energy, was born in Guyana, in the small rural village of Herstelling. After attending Queens College in Georgetown, he went to school in Canada, where he studied physics and chemistry.

He realised early on that his love for science had to be balanced with a need to make a living, so he was always attracted to the practical uses of science. His PhD was in food science and material physics at the University of Guelph. His great departure from orthodoxy there was that  “I convinced by PhD supervisors to let me take a materials physics approach to understanding foods, in particular lipids”. This paid off in 21 publications in peer-reviewed journals by the time he had concluded his PhD, in just two-and-a-half years.

Such achievements ensured he was offered a job with M&M Mars, the global food company, even before graduation. “At Mars, I learned that when the world of science is wedded to the world of commerce, amazing things can happen and have pivotal impacts on people’s lives,” he says. “I think I ceased to be a purely fundamental scientist from this time onwards.”

He thereafter was recruited to the University of Alberta, Canada, where he continued his career as a Professor from the age of 27. By this time, his prowess as a researcher had grown, and he was a sought-after scientist, researcher and commercial agent who had formed rare links between academe and industry. He was working on commercially viable research in the areas of zero-trans fat/lowered saturated fat shortenings, margarines and confections; polyurethane foams, elastomers and plastics from canola oil, and lubricants from vegetable oils.

 But like many Caribbean people, in the midst of his success, his heart yearned for home, and that yearning changed his life in 2005. “I returned to Guyana to assist after there had been a series of devastating floods,” he says. “And I was challenged by (then) President Bharat Jagdeo. He said ‘what have you done for your country which has prepared you for the success you now enjoy?’.”

In response, Prof Narine took over the Institute of Applied Science (IAST) which had fallen into dilapidation. By sheer will power and persistence, he managed to outfit the laboratory, recruit staff, and engage in research with commercial potential. And he has succeeded. The IAST and sections of the Guyana government now uses biodiesel made by an IAST programme to power government vehicles. The institute has projects for using waste biomass from the milling of rice and sugar-cane, to create brickets to burn as fuel which preserves forests. And the IAST is working on projects which will find a substitute for toxic mercury in the gold extraction process, as well as producing food products like breakfast cereals from local produce and construction materials from agriculture and forestry fibres and plastics. In fact, the IAST is currently building a factory to commercially produce breakfast cereal and nutrition bars, with funding from the Government of Guyana.

One of his main areas of research of special relevance to the Caribbean is in “lipid derived biomaterials”. These are materials that have traditionally been made by petroleum by-products, like plastics and polymers. His approach sounds simple enough: “Five to 700 million years ago, photosynthetic materials from plants were buried in the earth’s crust. Now, millions of years later, we are harvesting that material as petroleum. But why wait 700 million years? Let us take biomaterials and figure out the chemistry and physics and turn it into those materials today. And we have seen a remarkable amount of success in this approach.”

This technology does have the potential to change the world, and in addition to the plant being constructed in Guyana, others are being constructed in the United States and Indonesia, with others planned for Malaysia, Canada and Israel. However, despite his success as a scientist, Prof Narine believes that there are limits to science. “Science without the arts would lead to tremendously barren and desolate lives…for scientists, a lack of appreciation of the arts would create a life without joy...I believe great scientists and artists are made not born. So mentorship is central to fully developing our young people….and first of all, young people need mentors who believe in them…I am a great believer in the Pygmalion effect.”

This need for nurturing human potential is of special concern to him. His acceptance speech at the Caribbean Awards for Excellence Ceremony in 2015 contained an impassioned plea for Caribbean unity not as an emotional necessity, but as a pragmatic necessity. The islands are small, and by themselves cannot generate the critical mass necessary for success. The only way to survive is by cohesion, and the region needs to exploit the vast resources of land and fresh water available in Guyana, Suriname and Belize if it is to address the serious issue of food scarcity and security in the Caribbean.

“In my own efforts in Guyana,” says Prof Narine, “I have seen first firsthand how important a tool science and technology can be in leap-frogging the developmental process. I firmly believe that our region’s science and technology portfolio should be heavily focused on technology transfer and the harnessing of S&T for development and wellbeing of our people. Much more needs to be done in integrating the UWI, the University of Guyana, Anton de Kom University, University of Technology in Jamaica, and UTT.”

Notwithstanding his success in the Caribbean, Prof Narine’s accomplishments go much further. He is also responsible for a number of international research-to-application initiatives in India, Malaysia, Brazil and Israel. He is presently director of the centre for biomaterials research at Trent University, Senior NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Lipid Derived Biomaterials, and Ontario Research Chair in Green Chemistry and Engineering.