The re­turn of the prop­er­ty tax, lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form, the Drag­on Gas deal, the state of the lo­cal econ­o­my, or res­ur­rect­ing cam­paign promis­es. There is much spec­u­la­tion about what Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley will say in his un­prece­dent­ed two-day ad­dress to the na­tion. The speech, ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, will be car­ried live to­day at 7.30 pm on CNC3 and con­tin­ue on Mon­day at 8 pm.

There is lit­tle in­for­ma­tion as to what he plans to speak on, but po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Win­ford James spec­u­lat­ed that a res­ur­rec­tion of the prop­er­ty tax and grant­i­ng the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) greater au­ton­o­my would be chief among the PM's talk­ing points.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, James said that the Prime Min­is­ter's New Year mes­sage was "de­void of con­tent" which in­di­cates that he was "leav­ing the big an­nounce­ments" for to­day and to­mor­row.

"If you go back to his New Year' Day ad­dress, there wasn't much ma­te­r­i­al in it," James said.

James said while the coun­try used the PM's New Year's speech to "set the tone" for the rest of the year, it may be his speech to­day that does it.

"I be­lieve that the New Year's speech was de­lib­er­ate­ly slim in con­tent be­cause he knew that he had this two-part speech to make. He de­lib­er­ate­ly held back and there­fore he is go­ing to load this speech with the kinds of di­rec­tions that the peo­ple need to hear," he said.

James said with the elec­tion cam­paign­ing set to start this year, Row­ley might res­ur­rect some of the cam­paign promis­es that were not kept.

"The ques­tion of the re­mod­el­ling and re­struc­tur­ing of Petrotrin, the ef­fects it is hav­ing on the com­mu­ni­ty and how to en­liv­en that place eco­nom­i­cal­ly. I think some new ideas along those lines," he said.

James al­so said that he ex­pect­ed Row­ley's speech to car­ry more prepa­ra­tion for the 2020 elec­tion.

"So he may al­so res­ur­rect lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form. When he start­ed out that was high in his agen­da but the voic­es in re­la­tion to that went silent," he said.

"The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) to give To­ba­go greater au­ton­o­my is prob­a­bly an is­sue that he might ad­dress as well. There are so many things."

James said that the Drag­on Gas deal the Gov­ern­ment signed with Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro might al­so be a part of the PM's ad­dress. He said that con­sid­er­ing the wors­en­ing eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela, that gas deal might be on shaky ground.

"That deal is pre­car­i­ous, maybe he might say some­thing about that," he said.

Deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Dr Roodal Mooni­lal al­so weighed in on what the Prime Min­is­ter might say lat­er to­day and to­mor­row.

"I trust that he will ad­dress the is­sues of ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty and stop hid­ing be­hind (Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice) Gary Grif­fith, ad­dress job­less­ness, pover­ty, eco­nom­ic de­cline, and the re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­volv­ing Venezuela and Rus­sia," Mooni­lal said.

Mooni­lal said in an ide­al democ­ra­cy, the "Row­ley Gov­ern­ment would have thrown in the tow­el and called an elec­tion".

"But as to what I ex­pect? I ex­pect that he will blame the UNC or (Op­po­si­tion leader) Kam­la (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) for his in­com­pe­tence," Mooni­lal said.

"I ex­pect he will blame the Part­ner­ship min­is­ters for his gov­ern­ment's fail­ure. I don't ex­pect that he would fire (Min­is­ter of Trans­port) Ro­han Sinanan over the con­tin­u­ing de­ba­cle of the sea bridge or the li­cens­ing in­spec­tion mess, I al­so don't ex­pect that Row­ley would give an ac­count for the cor­rup­tion un­der his watch in the 'fake oil', Galleons Pas­sage or Ude­cott se­cret loans," he said.

"Dr Row­ley should re­port to the Par­lia­ment not by an ad­dress to the na­tion. The na­tion can­not talk back. In Par­lia­ment, we can ac­cept his re­port and de­bate on it."