Ob­ser­va­tions post-Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress cel­e­bra­tion ral­ly and af­ter lis­ten­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter’s speech and gath­er­ing the re­spons­es from those present on the ground; fol­low­ers re­main hope­ful. Their be­lief is in the lead­er­ship of the PM; she has dis­tin­guished her­self as com­pas­sion­ate, car­ing and com­mit­ted to im­prov­ing the lives of all the peo­ple. She has strate­gi­cal­ly ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that to get it done, she needs more time. It may be dif­fi­cult for those whose strug­gle for ten years and now one year, to­tal­ly 11 years.

Here is the thing: this is not a Gov­ern­ment of ONE. As such, MPs have a du­ty to show up, be present, pro­vide the re­as­sur­ance, be­cause where help or re­solve is de­layed—lis­ten­ing and pres­ence is in­valu­able com­pen­sa­tion but tem­po­rary in lieu of the de­lay.

I am re­mind­ed of a quote from for­mer NAR deputy speak­er and San Fer­nan­do West MP Dr Anselm St George: “You will not be able to help every­body, you may not have the re­sources, but that doesn’t mean I can­not lis­ten, most times my con­stituents sim­ply want to be heard.”

There are de­f­i­n­i­tions for prime min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, in­di­vid­ual min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and col­lec­tive min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty; the rea­sons are ob­vi­ous. I still see a Prime Min­is­ter, sup­port­ed by a few, car­ry­ing the weight and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the whole Gov­ern­ment. Bet­ter days are com­ing—no doubt, but the bridge to those bet­ter days must be up­held by col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Here’s what the pre­vi­ous year looked like.

Prime Min­is­ter

• Dif­fer­ent ap­proach from 2010-2015. More to­wards macro man­ag­ing then mi­cro man­ag­ing, save and ex­cept for lega­cy projects which fo­cus on en­er­gy, se­cu­ri­ty, eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment and for­eign pol­i­cy.

• Out­stand­ing in her re­solve and re­silience

• Re­mains true to her­self, con­sis­tent in her in­ten­tions; al­so un­der­stand­ing that gov­er­nance is not lin­ear and her lan­guage demon­strates such. Ex­am­ple: her words as per com­mit­ment to the UWI Debe Cam­pus by a spe­cif­ic date etc. and her ad­vice to Min­is­ter TEST.

• She is re­spon­sive to the me­dia, whether via tele­phone or in per­son. She has not spo­ken down to me­dia per­son­nel, re­spond­ed to rel­e­vant ques­tions and has not dis­missed the me­dia in a dis­parag­ing man­ner.

• The Prime Min­is­ter un­der­stands the glob­al volatil­i­ty in which we ex­ist. She has the po­lit­i­cal train­ing, ex­pe­ri­ence and knowl­edge; she is ex­hibit­ing strong adap­tive lead­er­ship qual­i­ties which are re­quired in cur­rent do­mes­tic, re­gion­al and glob­al cir­cum­stances. Her re­silience as Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar the in­di­vid­ual and KPB the Prime Min­is­ter, is tran­scend­ing in­to the vi­sion for T&T.

• She has con­sis­tent­ly ex­pressed her com­mit­ment to the peace, se­cu­ri­ty and pros­per­i­ty of the peo­ple of T&T, al­so ad­mit­ting that it will take some time.

• Prime Min­is­ter re­mains high­ly favourable and pop­u­lar amongst the peo­ple. She has de­vel­oped and built a re­la­tion­ship where she can re­late to the con­cerns of the so­ci­ety—peo­ple be­lieve that she can solve prob­lems, re­new hope and ex­pec­ta­tions across the so­ci­ety.

• Min­is­ters seem not to ful­ly un­der­stand this—this is a prob­lem. The Ho­n­ourable PM weath­ered Op­po­si­tion, she gave per­sons a chance to serve then and she car­ried all of her MPs and min­is­ters in­to Gov­ern­ment—min­is­ters need to step up to the chance and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty the Prime Min­is­ter en­trust­ed them with be­cause she is still car­ry­ing the weight of weak and un­der­per­form­ing min­is­ters.

• At this stage, min­is­ters must un­der­stand that they must de­liv­er, car­ry them­selves and their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and lift that bur­den off the PM. She has a coun­try to run, re­align, redi­rect, re-en­er­gise, and re­turn to prof­itabil­i­ty.

• There ap­pears to be a dis­con­nect or lack of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the con­nec­tions the Prime Min­is­ter has made with fol­low­ers over the years. Min­is­ters are mis­guid­ed by the no­tion that their loy­al­ty equates to own­er­ship of the Prime Min­is­ter and re­spons­es from the ground have shown that fol­low­ers have be­come alien­at­ed by min­is­te­r­i­al be­hav­iours and their “own­er­ship” of the Prime Min­is­ter. This is, of course, not a flaw of the PM. This is an aris­ing is­sue/cir­cum­stance.

The PM was scored us­ing sev­en cri­te­ria

1. Ad­just­ment to of­fice

2. Un­der­stand­ing of ex­ist­ing con­di­tions (do­mes­tic and for­eign)

3. Lead­er­ship ap­proach­es, styles and tech­niques

4. Ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to cit­i­zens and me­dia

5. Man­age­ment of the Cab­i­net

6. Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of T&T

7. Ful­fill­ing of man­date

Her over­all score was 80 per cent, align­ing with her gen­er­al na­tion­al favoura­bil­i­ty.

Min­is­ters of Gov­ern­ment

There are 26 Cab­i­net Min­is­ters ex­clu­sive of the Prime Min­is­ter.

• Min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and du­ty to the coun­try can­not re­sem­ble or re­mind the pop­u­la­tion of the qual­i­ties they vot­ed against in 2025. This has emerged as a se­ri­ous un­der­ly­ing prob­lem.

• Sev­er­al min­is­ters have set­tled in­to of­fice and hit the ground run­ning, de­liv­er­ing eq­ui­tably and en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly to the pop­u­la­tion; oth­ers are not.

• Some min­is­ters are still in need of com­mu­ni­ca­tion train­ing, whilst oth­ers have im­proved and adapt­ed dras­ti­cal­ly.

• Oth­ers are strug­gling to find their foot­ing in their roles and have be­come for­get­table.

• There’s a no­table im­bal­ance amongst min­is­ters, those who an­swer their phones, re­spond to mes­sages, pro­vide as­sis­tance and are ac­ces­si­ble, as op­posed to those who make promis­es by lip ser­vice and those who just don’t an­swer, re­spond, as­sist or prac­tice any sense of em­pa­thy to the pop­u­la­tion.

• Gov­er­nance can­not be by mal­ice or bad mind, nor can it be by on­ly friend and fa­mil­ial ties—yes these are im­por­tant but it is not the be all and end all. Ac­tivists and sup­port­ers must feel re­ward­ed; it is an ex­pec­ta­tion in the Lead­er­ship-Fol­low­er (LMX) The­o­ry.

• Ac­tivists feel alien­at­ed by min­is­ters and are afraid to speak out be­cause they be­lieve they will be ex­clud­ed. This has to change, since this is ex­act­ly what the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ex­hib­it­ed and was ac­cused of.

• These is­sues are not re­strict­ed to min­is­ters on­ly but al­so ex­tend to chair­men and mem­bers of boards who seem un­sure of their re­mit as it per­tains to pro­vid­ing help to the so­ci­ety.

• It is un­clear whether these is­sues have been ven­ti­lat­ed to the Prime Min­is­ter as Chief Ex­ec­u­tive and it would be un­fair to blame the Prime Min­is­ter for mat­ters she is not aware of. Af­ter all, she en­trust­ed min­is­ters with the wel­fare of the pop­u­la­tion, in­clud­ing fol­low­ers.

• The UNC has ac­cess to a wide cross-sec­tion of tal­ent across its mem­ber­ship and across the coun­try. Ap­point­ments and op­por­tu­ni­ties should feel iden­ti­fi­able in a bal­anced man­ner.

• The Prime Min­is­ter and Gov­ern­ment re­quire more ac­tion­ers than ac­tors in or­der to achieve the full man­date as set out by the Prime Min­is­ter, and in or­der to achieve the sus­tain­able suc­cess through­out the term. This will re­sult in not on­ly at­tain­ing pow­er but sus­tain­ing pow­er.

Min­is­ters were scored us­ing five cri­te­ria

1. Ad­just­ment to of­fice (Be­hav­iour­al)

2. Un­der­stand­ing of port­fo­lio (Op­er­a­tional)

3. Ac­cess to cit­i­zens

4. De­liv­ery of promis­es (help pro­vid­ed)

5. De­liv­ery of ser­vices (project/man­date de­liv­er­ables)

The re­sults show that the Gov­ern­ment is car­ried by eight of the 26 Cab­i­net Min­is­ters, which equates to 30.7 per cent.

Elect­ed Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment (MPs)

The im­bal­ance be­tween min­is­ters al­so ex­tends to Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment. There are some MPs who have re­mained out­stand­ing and con­sis­tent in their meet­ings and avail­abil­i­ty to their con­stituents be­yond just hav­ing events. There are al­so ab­sen­tee MPs, who ought to use their re­sources in­no­v­a­tive­ly to en­sure that con­stituents feel the “ef­fects” of hav­ing a par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive as part of the Gov­ern­ment.

On of­fice days, why are some MPs func­tion­ing ear­li­er and longer than oth­ers, es­pe­cial­ly when com­pared to roles in Gov­ern­ment.

There is a need to bal­ance Gov­ern­ment com­mit­ments to the needs of the con­stituents. Be­gin of­fice days ear­li­er, cre­ate an ef­fec­tive ap­point­ment sys­tem or first come first serve sys­tem and bar­ring gov­ern­ment re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, of­fice days should not end be­fore 4 pm and ought to ex­tend to com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings and walk­a­bouts etc.

Gov­ern­ment per­for­mance over­all

• Strong com­mit­ment to ad­dress­ing is­sues and al­le­vi­at­ing prob­lems across sec­tors

• Ex­cep­tion­al leg­isla­tive agen­da

• Out­stand­ing strat­e­gy for min­istries and min­is­ters to op­er­ate in clus­ters

• Great im­prove­ment in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus and mech­a­nisms and tech­niques to re­duce crime, as ev­i­denced by sta­tis­tics.

• Strong sup­port for Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Po­lice Ser­vice in ad­dress­ing cor­rup­tion and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al ef­fi­cien­cy.

• Out­stand­ing strides and emer­gence in the en­er­gy sec­tors and glob­al po­si­tion­ing of T&T

• Ex­ten­sive sup­port for the im­prove­ment of in­fra­struc­tur­al works and re­align­ment of in­sti­tu­tions

• Ex­cel­lent work re­gard­ing set­tling of wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, with ex­pec­ta­tions for fur­ther ne­go­ti­a­tions to be com­plet­ed and achieved across unions

• Ex­cep­tion­al work bridg­ing T&T by virtue of Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and THA re­la­tions.

• Ex­cel­lent work in AI de­vel­op­ment and ad­vanc­ing the sec­tor

• Need for greater thrust to­wards di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, in­clud­ing the ac­ti­va­tion of the use­ful and crit­i­cal en­ti­ties such as the Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment Ad­vi­so­ry Board and re­lat­ed agen­cies, led by ex­per­tise, pas­sion and tenac­i­ty to ful­fil gov­ern­ment man­date.

• Need to ac­cel­er­ate the work of the Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion to reg­u­late prices, price goug­ing, and pro­vide the pop­u­la­tion with val­ue for mon­ey

• Need to ac­cel­er­ate the cre­ation of a new or­gan­i­sa­tion and sys­tem to re­place the for­mer CEPEP and URP pro­grammes;, the de­lay is rais­ing con­cerns

• The Gov­ern­ment is plagued from in­cep­tion by con­sis­tent leaks from the Cab­i­net on de­ci­sions; there is a NEED for greater Cab­i­net con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.

• There is need for a for­mal and ef­fec­tive frame­work for Gov­ern­ment com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

The Gov­ern­ment was scored against the fol­low­ing cri­te­ria

1. Gov­ern­ment ef­fec­tive­ness and trans­for­ma­tion

2. Eco­nom­ic man­age­ment and sus­tain­abil­i­ty

3. Project and ser­vice de­liv­ery,

4. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and con­nec­tiv­i­ty

5. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (Re­spon­sive­ness, pre­ven­tion and sur­veil­lance)

6. Trou­bleshoot­ing and Gov­ern­ment in­no­va­tion (Geopol­i­tics, geo-eco­nom­ics, in­her­it­ed projects, out­stand­ing labour is­sues, in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sues)

The over­all score of the Gov­ern­ment af­ter one year in of­fice: 66.25 per cent.