2023 in Trinidad and To­ba­go was noth­ing short of an event­ful year with a va­ri­ety of talk­ing points from the in­au­gu­ra­tion of this coun­try’s sec­ond fe­male Pres­i­dent to the in­stal­la­tion of the first fe­male Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. In al­most every as­pect of news, T&T did not dis­ap­point whether it was crime, court, elec­tions, busi­ness, or ed­u­ca­tion - the news cy­cle kept churn­ing over.

Crime

Lead­ing the re­cap was the unan­i­mous elec­tion of Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher as the coun­try’s first-ever fe­male Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice on Feb­ru­ary 4.

In her first mes­sage to the coun­try, she as­sured there would be no po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in car­ry­ing out her du­ties.

But Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s reign at the helm of the TTPS (Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice) would be no easy ride with her be­ing forced to or­der at least 10 in­ves­ti­ga­tions for is­sues re­gard­ing her charges—po­lice of­fi­cers. There was al­so the is­sue of home in­va­sions which reared its ug­ly head, not to men­tion the per­sis­tent and peren­ni­al prob­lem of mur­ders.

Among the killings was the as­sas­si­na­tion of four mem­bers of the Pe­terkin fam­i­ly in Gua­napo, Ari­ma—Faith Pe­terkin, 10, Ar­i­an­na Pe­terkin, 14, Shain Pe­terkin, 17 and Tiffany Pe­terkin, 19, were fa­tal­ly shot when gun­men in­vad­ed their home.

Kylie Mel­oney, 6, suf­fered the same fate when gun­men stormed the Blake Av­enue, San­gre Grande, home of a rel­a­tive where she was asleep on the morn­ing of Jan­u­ary 8.

As of De­cem­ber 26, the mur­der tal­ly stood at 555, with mur­ders tak­ing a nose dive for the com­par­a­tive pe­ri­od for 2022.

While not a mur­der, the TTPS was kept busy search­ing for this coun­try’s first con­vict­ed hu­man traf­fick­er An­tho­ny Smith who some­how man­aged to re­move the an­kle bracelet used to mon­i­tor his move­ments and has been on the run ever since.

Con­tro­ver­sial moves

Stay­ing with­in the jus­tice sys­tem, a con­tro­ver­sy al­so brewed in 2023 be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) over the use, or lack there­of, of the new pro­posed of­fice on Park Street.

When it was all said and done and the lease end­ed in Sep­tem­ber, the DPP was ac­cused by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, of al­low­ing $55 mil­lion to be wast­ed on rent­ing a build­ing he re­fused to use cit­ing se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.

But that wasn’t the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s on­ly pub­lic con­tro­ver­sy to be ad­dressed in 2023, as the emer­gence of the Brent Thomas “kid­nap­ping” scan­dal dom­i­nat­ed the head­lines in May.

In a rul­ing Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad stat­ed that Thomas, who was at the cen­tre of po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions in mid-2022, was “un­law­ful­ly ab­duct­ed” in Oc­to­ber 2022, when T&T po­lice of­fi­cers, with as­sis­tance from Bar­ba­dos po­lice of­fi­cer, de­tained Thomas while he tran­sit­ed through Bar­ba­dos en route to Mi­a­mi.

This prompt­ed sev­er­al in­ves­ti­ga­tions to be launched both lo­cal­ly and in Bar­ba­dos.

His­to­ry made and po­lit­i­cal re­unions

In the sphere of pol­i­tics, both the Gov­ern­ment, Op­po­si­tion and oth­er small­er par­ties con­tributed to many highs and lows.

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions held in Au­gust could once again not sep­a­rate the UNC (Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress) and PNM (Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) as the re­sults emerged in a 7-7 tie for the sec­ond time.

But some of the ma­jor talk­ing points in the lead-up to the polls were UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ‘light them up’ cam­paign against home in­vaders, her re­unit­ing with Jack Warn­er as well as Gary Grif­fith’s NTA (Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance) team­ing up with the UNC af­ter years of po­lit­i­cal fric­tion.

With fric­tion still be­ing the or­der of the day for the UNC, the elec­tion of this coun­try’s sec­ond fe­male pres­i­dent was much of the same.

In Jan­u­ary, for­mer Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo re­ceived 48 votes while the op­pos­ing can­di­date, put for­ward by the UNC, Is­rael Ra­jah Khan, SC re­ceived 22 when the Elec­toral Col­lege con­vened in Par­lia­ment.

There were three spoiled bal­lots.

The jour­ney would con­tin­ue to be a rocky one for Her Ex­cel­len­cy as she re­moved four In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors on the heels of the open­ing of the Fourth Ses­sion of the 12th Par­lia­ment in Sep­tem­ber.

The out­go­ing sen­a­tors, Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh, Am­ri­ta De­onar­ine, Char­rise Seep­er­sad and Evans Welch all said they were first in­vit­ed to at­tend then this was sub­se­quent­ly re­voked days be­fore the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny.

Her Ex­cel­len­cy’s hus­band, Ker­wyn Gar­cia, SC, al­so took up a fair share of the lime­light and head­lines with him first be­ing award­ed Silk mere months af­ter she took of­fice then lat­er in the year it was re­vealed that he had ben­e­fit­ed from over $14 mil­lion in State briefs be­tween 2015 and 2023.

The Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) al­so tried to link Gar­cia’s work to the non-re­new­al of the con­tract of the for­mer pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix, who was al­so re­port­ed­ly in­formed of her de­par­ture from of­fice by Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo via tele­phone two days be­fore her con­tract was about to ex­pire.

Cy­ber­shake up and a miss­ing file

An­oth­er ex­pi­ra­tion of note in 2023 was the tenure of Lisa Agard as the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO) of the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) fol­low­ing the cy­ber­at­tack on the com­pa­ny in Oc­to­ber and the sub­se­quent han­dling of the is­sue in the pub­lic do­main.

How­ev­er, the cy­ber­at­tacks did not af­fect TSTT alone as sev­er­al oth­er en­ti­ties were im­pact­ed, among them the Ju­di­cia­ry, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs, sev­er­al Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties, Courts Trinidad Lim­it­ed and Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed.

While the Ju­di­cia­ry was among those to be tar­get­ed by the cy­ber­at­tacks, the work in­side the court sys­tem con­tin­ued.

Key among the ma­jor de­vel­op­ments was the award of 20 mil­lion dol­lars to the nine men ac­cused and sub­se­quent­ly freed of mur­der­ing busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man in 2007.

The mat­ter did not pass with­out con­tro­ver­sy as a file, sur­round­ing the civ­il mat­ter for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion, “dis­ap­peared” af­ter a day af­ter it was sub­mit­ted to the of­fice of the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al for as­sign­ment.

Mean­while, af­ter spend­ing al­most two decades be­fore the courts, for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, his wife Oma, for­mer Cab­i­net min­is­ter Car­los John and busi­ness­man Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh were freed of one of four cor­rup­tion charges re­lat­ed to the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Al­so in 2023 six po­lice of­fi­cers were ac­quit­ted of mur­der­ing three friends from Moru­ga in 2011 and for­mer Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar scored a ma­jor vic­to­ry against Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie af­ter the Court of Ap­peal ruled that she was “co­erced and forced out of of­fice” by the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC) and that her res­ig­na­tion was il­le­gal­ly ob­tained and should be ex­punged from the Pres­i­dent’s records.

While not di­rect­ly a mat­ter with­in the law courts, the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Paria Div­ing Tragedy sat, heard emo­tion­al and at times testy ev­i­dence and was com­plet­ed. The re­port was was sub­mit­ted to Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo at the end of No­vem­ber, af­ter sev­er­al de­lays, and then to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who as­sured that the find­ings would be made pub­lic.

Al­so this year, a bud­get by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert con­tained the an­nounce­ment of an in­crease in the min­i­mum wage from $17.50 to $20.50 per hour from Jan­u­ary 2024 and a promise of back­pay by Christ­mas to pub­lic ser­vants whose rep­re­sent­ing unions ac­cept­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s four per cent salary in­crease of­fer.

Be­sides the PSA (Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion) sev­er­al of the coun­try’s ma­jor trade unions agreed to the of­fer.

Tapes and record­ings in To­ba­go

Over in To­ba­go, there were many talk­ing points in 2023, chief among them the ‘au­dio-gate’ scan­dal which in­volved Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and Sec­re­tary for Ed­u­ca­tion Zor­isha Hack­ett al­leged­ly caught on tape plan­ning pro­pa­gan­da strate­gies.

Au­gus­tine was al­so at the cen­tre of an­oth­er au­dio-re­lat­ed scan­dal when he played a record­ing in the As­sem­bly Cham­ber of a man lat­er iden­ti­fied as Ak­il Ab­dul­lah mak­ing al­le­ga­tions against Prime Min­is­ter Dr Row­ley and oth­er high-rank­ing gov­ern­ment and po­lice of­fi­cials.

The Prime Min­is­ter has since filed a law­suit against Ab­dul­lah.

Stay­ing in To­ba­go, the ex­ec­u­tive of the THA, af­ter of­fi­cial­ly cut­ting ties with the Wat­son Duke led-PDP (Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots) formed a new par­ty called the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP).

In the area of en­ter­tain­ment, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val re­turned in full force af­ter a two-year hia­tus due to COVID-19 and To­ba­go held its sec­ond stand-alone Car­ni­val in Oc­to­ber.

Farewell to those we lost

The coun­try al­so lost sev­er­al icons such as Ca­lyp­son­ian The Black Stal­in, who died in De­cem­ber 2022 but was laid to rest in Jan­u­ary; for­mer Ca­lyp­son­ian turned Gospel artiste, Denise Plumber, Chut­ney So­ca stars Anil Bheem and Ren­nie Ram­nar­ine.

There were al­so some oth­er no­table loss­es for the coun­try with the pass­ing of busi­ness­woman He­len Bhag­wans­ingh, lo­cal au­thor Michael An­tho­ny, news­pa­per colum­nist BC Pires, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment stal­wart Ter­ry Ron­don and for­mer min­is­ter and Port-of-Spain South MP Mar­lene Mc Don­ald.

Re­gion­al ten­sions

On the re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al front, there was a lot to re­port, rang­ing from the Russ­ian in­va­sion of Ukraine con­tin­ued, there was the start of the Is­rael/Pales­tine war, which saw sev­en lo­cals be­ing evac­u­at­ed to safe­ty, but the ex­ter­nal de­vel­op­ment clos­est to home was the land dis­pute be­tween Venezuela and Guyana over the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion.

Trinidad and To­ba­go was caught in the mid­dle some­what as Guyana is a fel­low mem­ber of Cari­com, while this coun­try was pur­su­ing a ma­jor Drag­on Gas deal with Venezuela.

In the end, af­ter all the strong pub­lic po­lit­i­cal state­ments and threats be­tween Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali and Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro and a ref­er­en­dum in that coun­try, it was a meet­ing bro­kered by Cari­com that brought the two men to the same ta­ble to dis­cuss the mat­ter in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

In the end, an agreed doc­u­ment called the “The Joint De­c­la­ra­tion of Ar­gyle for Di­a­logue and Peace Be­tween Guyana and Venezuela” was signed and pub­lished.

Among the key points in that doc­u­ment is a com­mit­ment that “Guyana and Venezuela, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, will not threat­en or use force against one an­oth­er in any cir­cum­stances.”

The meet­ing was at­tend­ed by sev­er­al Cari­com heads, in­clud­ing T&T’s Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.