From the per­spec­tive of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, we can now con­clude, based on her own pub­lic ut­ter­ances, that the last year has been one of highs and lows.

Rat­ed among her highs in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ first year in of­fice, af­ter tak­ing over the reins of Gov­ern­ment from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment on April 28, 2025, has been the cre­ation of 15,000 jobs, even though she is yet to weigh the scales with those jobs which have been lost.

An­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant high has been in terms of her Gov­ern­ment’s de­ter­mined na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty strat­e­gy, even though much greater ef­fort needs to go in­to curb­ing crime and cre­at­ing an at­mos­phere of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty in T&T.

Ad­dress­ing scores of par­ty sup­port­ers in Cou­va on Sat­ur­day and de­liv­er­ing her Re­port to the Na­tion as the UNC’s first-year an­niver­sary ap­proached, the Prime Min­is­ter ze­roed in on the vexed is­sue of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, which has been con­cern num­ber one for cit­i­zens be­sieged by crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, re­in­forc­ing the va­lid­i­ty of her Gov­ern­ment’s main an­ti-crime tool, that be­ing the im­ple­men­ta­tion and ex­ten­sions of states of emer­gency.

“I will take an SoE any day, every day, as it will keep our cit­i­zens safe,” she told par­ty sup­port­ers.

There is there­fore no need to sec­ond-guess the Prime Min­is­ter on her Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to curb­ing crime. What she is yet to give, how­ev­er, is any in­di­ca­tion of planned crime-fight­ing projects of a more fun­da­men­tal and in­sti­tu­tion­al na­ture to counter the crim­i­nal up­surge, even as she con­tin­ues to use the 42 per cent re­duc­tion in mur­ders of the re­cent past as ev­i­dence of the ef­fec­tive util­i­ty of the SoE.

Crime-fight­ing apart, most no­table among the past year’s lows are the Prime Min­is­ter’s claims that there has been sidelin­ing of UNC sup­port­ers who she con­tend­ed “were abused and kicked by some of the oth­er side.

“I want those peo­ple who op­pressed my UNC faith­ful to un­der­stand that I am a dif­fer­ent hu­man be­ing,” she said.

And while she com­mit­ted to al­low­ing every­one a fair chance, she said: “I will not ad­van­tage any­one, but I will square the ac­count be­cause the bad treat­ment of UNC sup­port­ers can­not go unan­swered.”

She fur­ther warned “that I have noth­ing to lose, and those who want peace will get peace; and those who want war will get po­lit­i­cal war.”

It’s an in­di­ca­tion that the po­lit­i­cal par­ty lines which have been ex­is­tence since 1956 re­main in place.

De­liv­er­ing her re­port, the Prime Min­is­ter al­so high­light­ed Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion to cre­ate a 500-acre ex­pan­sion of the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate and its $3.4 bil­lion Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion project, the lat­ter be­ing un­der re­view by the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion.

How­ev­er, she stayed clear of ma­jor eco­nom­ic projects in the ex­port en­er­gy in­dus­try, and her state­ment made no men­tion of plans for eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and so­cial re­vival.

Of note, there was no word on Drag­on gas and oth­er en­er­gy projects from which T&T will gain for­eign ex­change through the pro­cess­ing and ex­port of Venezue­lan gas.

We there­fore look for­ward as a coun­try to a far more sol­id ba­sis for her mak­ing the boast like ca­lyp­son­ian Black Stal­in: “Bet­ter days are com­ing.”