May 30, 1845 to May 30 2026, marks a sig­nif­i­cant part in the de­vel­op­ment of East In­di­ans here in this part of the world. There is no doubt that this pe­ri­od of 181 years re­quired sev­er­al at­trib­ut­es to im­prove the pres­ence of East In­di­ans in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Re­duc­ing crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go is one of the coun­try’s most se­ri­ous na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties. It is char­ac­terised by high homi­cide rates, gang vi­o­lence, traf­fick­ing in nar­cotics and il­le­gal firearms and is in­flu­enced by so­cioe­co­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty. The sit­u­a­tion has wors­ened over the years, and in­tro­duc­ing leg­is­la­tion alone can­not solve it overnight. Re­duc­ing crime re­quires a mul­ti­fac­eted ap­proach and a pro­longed ef­fort. More im­por­tant­ly, the sit­u­a­tion re­quires con­sid­ered, cal­i­brat­ed and co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion, not more laws. En­force­ment, not talk. If this is not done, busi­ness op­er­at­ing costs will con­tin­ue to rise, con­fi­dence in civ­il in­sti­tu­tions will de­cline and so­cial frag­men­ta­tion could re­sult.

For decades, Trinidad and To­ba­go has proud­ly de­scribed it­self as the cul­tur­al heart­beat of the Caribbean. Yet, while the coun­try cel­e­brates its mu­sic and cre­ativ­i­ty every Car­ni­val sea­son, many lo­cal artistes still face enor­mous chal­lenges in gain­ing con­sis­tent in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion and sup­port.

Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion bat­tles in Par­lia­ment on is­sues in these fi­nal three weeks of the First Ses­sion of this Par­lia­ment’s term have been the biggest—set­ting the stage for con­tin­u­ing de­vel­op­ments when the Sec­ond Ses­sion be­gins soon.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing’s killing of three peo­ple in Bel­mont - in­clud­ing a 23-month-old ba­by boy who was be­ing tak­en to day­care by his fa­ther and moth­er - shocked and sick­ened many peo­ple in this coun­try, who un­for­tu­nate­ly have grown ac­cus­tomed to the al­most dai­ly re­ports of mur­ders.

“Pen­ny for your thoughts,” dear Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Pen­ne­lope Beck­les. When con­front­ed by re­porters in re­la­tion to the mat­ter of ap­point­ed Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates, Beck­les un­der­stand­ably not­ed that she had just re­turned from aboard and need­ed time to avail her­self of all that was in­volved in the mat­ter.

I don’t think the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance should treat the mid-year re­view as just a re­al­lo­ca­tion ex­er­cise for this fis­cal year. He has to do that, of course, but I think the Gov­ern­ment as a whole should be think­ing about get­ting through this 2026 fis­cal year with­out cri­sis. They should al­so be think­ing hard of fis­cal 2027 and 2028 be­cause, as our Gov­ern­ment, they need to pre­pare the ground to op­ti­mise the wind­fall in nat­ur­al gas an­tic­i­pat­ed in 2028.

Sev­er­al years ago, a re­spect­ed Caribbean in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert told me in pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion that the no­tion of “na­tion­al sov­er­eign­ty” was be­com­ing an out­dat­ed con­cept.

Af­ter all ef­forts to keep na­tion­al foot­ball hero Dwight Yorke in charge of the se­nior men's na­tion­al foot­ball team were ex­haust­ed, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) has turned to one of his as­sis­tants in Derek King.

Cit­i­zens of this coun­try need not on­ly pro­tec­tion from re­lent­less vi­o­lent crime but con­fi­dence in how that pro­tec­tion is de­liv­ered. That is why it is im­por­tant to do a care­ful ex­am­i­na­tion of the record of po­lice-in­volved killings.

Whether in the Sen­ate or House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, which each met yes­ter­day—with heavy ver­bal bat­tle in the House and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) un­der siege in the Sen­ate—Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion faced each oth­er with a new, hard­er at­ti­tude.

Crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go is no longer just a mat­ter of sta­tis­tics, polic­ing strate­gies or po­lit­i­cal de­bate. Its most dev­as­tat­ing ef­fect is the ero­sion of our chil­dren’s safe­ty and well-be­ing. They em­body the cost of this re­lent­less vi­o­lence, ab­sorb­ing trau­ma and fear that will de­ter­mine not just their fu­tures, but the fu­ture of our na­tion.