As the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ad­min­is­tra­tion ap­proach­es its first 100 days in of­fice, it is re­ceiv­ing praise for its col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach with cit­i­zens on key is­sues and its ef­forts to re­vive the econ­o­my. How­ev­er, its ap­proach to crime is fac­ing crit­i­cism.

To­day marks 96 days since the par­ty’s sweep­ing vic­to­ry at the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. The UNC as­sumed of­fice on a plat­form of pub­lic safe­ty, eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty, high­er wages for pub­lic ser­vants and a more peo­ple-cen­tred ap­proach to gov­er­nance.

Po­lit­i­cal Sci­en­tist, Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, told Guardian Me­dia that the UNC Gov­ern­ment did not out­line a 100-day plan, mak­ing it hard to as­sess their ear­ly per­for­mance against spe­cif­ic goals.

But while ma­jor is­sues like crime and for­eign ex­change re­main un­re­solved, Ra­goonath said the Gov­ern­ment has main­tained strong pub­lic en­gage­ment through con­sul­ta­tions and fo­rums.

“I mean, I see they’re deal­ing with the stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion in con­sul­ta­tions and so on. In a way, they are com­ing back to the cit­i­zen­ry and ask­ing the cit­i­zen­ry for ‘your opin­ion as to how we move for­ward’, which is prob­a­bly a good thing in a way. And it shows that they are will­ing to still have that con­nec­tion be­tween gov­ern­ment and the peo­ple,” Ra­goonath said.

He said this is in sharp con­trast to the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment, which had a top-down ap­proach to gov­er­nance.

Ra­goonath said, though, he is al­so await­ing mean­ing­ful Gov­ern­ment ac­tion on the 10 per cent wage in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants. While Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as­sured the promise will be kept, no spe­cif­ic time­line was giv­en, and Ra­goonath sug­gest­ed the is­sue be ad­dressed dur­ing this year’s bud­get.

“I think it is crit­i­cal for the Gov­ern­ment to prob­a­bly come up with some strat­e­gy in the bud­get to give the pub­lic ser­vants some de­gree of an in­crease or at least set aside funds to some de­gree of an in­crease in salary so that they can’t com­plain that they’re still work­ing un­der 2014 or 2013 salaries.”

Crime

On the is­sue of crime, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment may be re­ly­ing too heav­i­ly on stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion as its pri­ma­ry so­lu­tion.

“The ques­tion, there­fore, aris­es in my mind, are you propos­ing stand­ing your ground as a so­lu­tion to home in­va­sions in light of the fact that the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus has failed to pro­tect pub­lic safe­ty, has failed to en­sure pub­lic safe­ty, and you’re now putting the bur­den of our safe­ty up­on our­selves,” he posit­ed.

Figueira said if that is the sig­nal the Gov­ern­ment is send­ing to the pop­u­la­tion, then it is the wrong one.

“Be­cause it is the role of the Gov­ern­ment to fix the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus and make sure that it is fit for pur­pose.”

The crim­i­nol­o­gist ques­tioned whether the Gov­ern­ment is tun­nel-vi­sioned, po­ten­tial­ly over­look­ing oth­er per­va­sive fac­tors such as transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime and cy­ber-se­cu­ri­ty at­tacks.

With re­spect to the per­for­mance of both the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and De­fence Min­is­ters, Figueira said, “Well, what has been hap­pen­ing is that we have had a lot of talk so far. Tons of talk. And the fact of the mat­ter is, the ques­tion aris­es, will the State of Emer­gency solve that prob­lem when it is an or­ga­ni­za­tion­al prob­lem where the prison ser­vice needs in-depth, fo­cused re­form? And the ju­di­cial sys­tem has to be lib­er­at­ed from its con­sti­pa­tion be­cause they are sit­ting down in the re­mand yard too long.”

Econ­o­my

Econ­o­mist Dr Vaalmi­ki Ar­joon said UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion in­her­it­ed a chal­leng­ing macro­eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment.

“Marked by a nine-year eco­nom­ic de­cline of 16.8% and a fis­cal deficit of $71 bil­lion in that pe­ri­od, and a $46.5 bil­lion over­draft in the con­sol­i­dat­ed fund in 2024. The cor­ner­stone of the econ­o­my, oil and gas pro­duc­tion, fell by 31% and 33% re­spec­tive­ly from March 2016 to March 2025, se­vere­ly im­pact­ing forex re­serves, which stood at USD 4.9 bil­lion by June 2025, large­ly ar­ti­fi­cial­ly propped-up through ex­ter­nal bor­row­ing and with­drawals from the HSF by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment.”

But Ar­joon said while this “harsh eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment” will take time to turn around, the new ad­min­is­tra­tion ap­pears to be work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to curb ex­cess ex­pen­di­ture, pro­mote greater fis­cal ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly in State en­ti­ties and gov­ern­ment spend­ing, while ag­gres­sive­ly pur­su­ing im­prove­ments in oil and gas pro­duc­tion to strength­en the coun­try’s en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty.”

He al­so ex­pressed the view that there seems to be a clear shift from “past rhetoric” with cur­rent mes­sag­ing fo­cus­ing more on find­ing so­lu­tions to eco­nom­ic chal­lenges rather than calls to “tight­en your belt.”

“This ap­proach is vi­tal for reignit­ing pri­vate-sec­tor con­fi­dence,” Ar­joon added.

Con­cern­ing rev­enue from the en­er­gy sec­tor, Ar­joon said what is quite sig­nif­i­cant is the com­mence­ment of ne­go­ti­a­tions with Exxon to take up sev­en ul­tra deep-wa­ter blocks off the east coast.

“Once suc­cess­ful, es­pe­cial­ly if at­trac­tive fis­cal terms are agreed up­on, this can bring in ad­vanced deep-wa­ter ex­plo­ration tech­nol­o­gy and sig­nif­i­cant cap­i­tal, ac­cel­er­at­ing dis­cov­ery and de­vel­op­ment of new re­serves, while al­so low­er­ing pro­duc­tion costs.”

The econ­o­mist al­so high­light­ed that the Gov­ern­ment flagged the lack of au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments among State en­ti­ties.

“Cor­rect­ing this go­ing for­ward will sig­nif­i­cant­ly en­hance fis­cal trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty, im­prov­ing cred­i­bil­i­ty among in­vestors and cred­it rat­ing agen­cies, and mul­ti­lat­er­als. Im­proved fi­nan­cial dis­clo­sure can help iden­ti­fy in­ef­fi­cien­cies, cor­rup­tion, and fi­nan­cial mis­man­age­ment, which en­ables bet­ter al­lo­ca­tion of fi­nances and more dis­ci­plined fis­cal pol­i­cy­mak­ing.”

Po­lit­i­cal ri­vals weigh-in

While the UNC’s Bar­ry Padarath has giv­en the ad­min­is­tra­tion high marks for its per­for­mance so far, prais­ing its more com­pas­sion­ate ap­proach to­ward cit­i­zens, po­lit­i­cal ri­vals strong­ly dis­agree.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les said she does not think the peo­ple be­lieve that at all.

“You need to find out what the peo­ple think about you and I mean hav­ing sent home al­most 25,000 work­ers, whether it be CEPEP, whether it be URP, whether it’s re­for­esta­tion, whether it’s hous­ing,” she said out­side the Red House on her way to Par­lia­ment,

San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning shared sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments.

“Clear­ly, what is lack­ing from this Gov­ern­ment is a lev­el of hu­man­i­ty. I mean, my of­fice is filled with for­mer URP, CEPEP work­ers and oth­er peo­ple who have been left un­em­ployed in the past few weeks. I’m pret­ty sure that they wouldn’t think that this Gov­ern­ment has done an ex­cel­lent job,” Man­ning said.

Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Chris­t­ian Birch­wood de­scribed the Gov­ern­ment’s per­for­mance as “PR dri­ven.”

“They’ve tak­en a lot of pic­tures, but it’s like my grand­moth­er used to say, self-praise is no praise.”

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader Mick­ela Pan­day of­fered a sharp cri­tique, say­ing the UNC cur­rent­ly ap­pears no dif­fer­ent from its pre­de­ces­sor.

“They seem quite sim­i­lar. I am hav­ing a dif­fi­cult time dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing them right now. So a lit­tle bit more time be­fore we can judge.”