Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says US en­er­gy gi­ant, Exxon­Mo­bil, could spend be­tween US$16.4 bil­lion and US$21.7 bil­lion on de­vel­op­ment costs in the ul­tra deep­wa­ter blocks in T&T’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters, 190 miles off Trinidad’s east coast, if the com­pa­ny’s ini­tial seis­mic and oth­er tech­ni­cal stud­ies are suc­cess­ful.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi claims Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) con­trac­tors were hired for nine years with­out Cab­i­net ap­proval.

Pan Trin­ba­go Pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore is urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to fo­cus on re­fur­bish­ing pa­n­yards rather than con­struct­ing com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres, as pa­n­yards guide young peo­ple to­ward pos­i­tive paths.

For­mer prime min­is­ter and en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young has chal­lenged claims made by the Gov­ern­ment dur­ing yes­ter­day’s sign­ing of the Pro­duc­tion Shar­ing Con­tract (PSC) with Exxon­Mo­bil for Block TTUD-1.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­it­er­at­ed her stern warn­ing to mem­bers of her Gov­ern­ment to steer clear of ques­tion­able al­liances, just a day af­ter pub­licly threat­en­ing to “buss their heads” and fire min­is­ters caught “ca­vort­ing” with fig­ures linked to cor­rup­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s blunt warn­ing to Cab­i­net mem­bers that she will “buss their heads” and take de­ci­sive ac­tion if they are found ca­vort­ing with Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) mem­bers, crooked con­trac­tors, or “fake elites,” has drawn strong sup­port from po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts, who say this tone re­flects the kind of de­ci­sive lead­er­ship the coun­try needs.

For­mer trade and in­dus­try min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz says Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s read­ing of the ri­ot act to her min­is­ters and Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment (MPs) is on­ly to ap­peal to her UNC sup­port­ers.

The Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO) of the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) is be­ing ac­cused of de­lib­er­ate­ly leav­ing out a key para­graph from the dis­put­ed 2017 Cab­i­net note in a let­ter to the com­pa­ny’s new chair­man. In the let­ter, he cau­tioned that the board does not have the au­thor­i­ty to uni­lat­er­al­ly re­new mul­ti­ple con­tracts with­out gov­ern­ment ap­proval.

Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris says the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly is spend­ing mil­lions on over­seas trips while lo­cal busi­ness­es, work­ers, and even Gov­ern­ment of­fices can’t get paid or sup­plied with ba­sics like toi­let pa­per.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her Gov­ern­ment’s sus­pen­sion of the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) and re­view of the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) has trig­gered push­back from what she de­scribed as the “deep state” and “the bel­ly of the un­der­world.

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith is ful­ly en­dors­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro for what Grif­fith says is his in-your-face ap­proach to crim­i­nals.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says a third au­top­sy may have to be con­duct­ed to de­ter­mine the cause of death of six-year-old Jash­er Fran­cois.