I re­call re­peat­ing the old adage that “our peo­ple are our great­est as­set” on the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) hus­tings when our par­ty and our Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment were peo­ple-cen­tred. At this mo­ment, as a reg­u­lar par­ty mem­ber and cit­i­zen, I con­tem­plate the con­straints on cur­rent mem­bers of Gov­ern­ment as oth­er cit­i­zens ap­proach me with their con­cerns.

When Cana­di­an fer­tilis­er gi­ant Nu­trien an­nounced the in­def­i­nite shut­down of its Trinidad and To­ba­go ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions last week, my first con­cern was the fam­i­lies af­fect­ed. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 350 per­ma­nent em­ploy­ees face im­me­di­ate ter­mi­na­tion, fol­low­ing an ear­li­er lay­off of 350 con­tract work­ers when op­er­a­tions were idled in Oc­to­ber 2025. These fig­ures ex­clude in­di­rect jobs and in­come loss­es to sup­pli­ers, trans­port op­er­a­tors, main­te­nance com­pa­nies and oth­er con­trac­tors that de­pend­ed on Nu­trien.

Af­ter a 45-year his­to­ry in T&T and an in­vest­ment of US$130 mil­lion just in 2024, the com­pa­ny cit­ed “port ac­cess re­stric­tions and a lack of re­li­able and eco­nom­ic nat­ur­al gas sup­ply” as rea­sons for its with­draw­al.

The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) claimed Nu­trien owed US$28 mil­lion in port fees, which Nu­trien de­nied.

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­fend­ed NGC’s de­ci­sions, say­ing that it “will no longer sell its gas at prices that are not ben­e­fi­cial to the com­pa­ny.”

One cit­i­zen shared his con­cern with me that Nu­trien was pos­si­bly “try­ing to hold the Gov­ern­ment to ran­som.” En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has in­di­cat­ed that dis­cus­sions with the com­pa­ny are still on­go­ing, while Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing, Phillip Alexan­der, in­di­cat­ed here were three in­vestors lined up to buy the Nu­trien plant.

Might there be Amer­i­can in­ter­ests ready to step in im­me­di­ate­ly, as we await the re­fur­bish­ment of the Ibis Steel Plant and the sit­ing of the da­ta cen­tres?

We know that hun­dreds of Trinida­di­an work­ers and their fam­i­lies are be­ing neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed by Nu­trien’s pull­out right now. The Prime Min­is­ter blames Nu­trien for mak­ing the de­ci­sion to “send them home.”

Pro­man had al­ready an­nounced a work­force re­struc­tur­ing in Sep­tem­ber due to un­cer­tain gas sup­plies, but the NGC’s gen­er­al po­si­tion has been more about dis­agree­ments over com­mer­cial pric­ing than about ac­tu­al gas vol­ume short­ages.

Massy Cat Ltd’s sale of its Cater­pil­lar deal­er­ship to MA­CORP is al­so putting 140 work­ers on the bread­line. With sev­er­al labour lead­ers sit­ting in cab­i­net and the Gov­ern­ment’s close re­la­tion­ship with oth­ers, to­day’s bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion’s treat­ment of un­em­ploy­ment and wage ne­go­ti­a­tions in a tight econ­o­my will be com­pelling.

Last Wednes­day, the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026 was passed in the low­er house. PM KPB said the bill was one of her gifts to the na­tion as she en­ters her 40th year of pub­lic life.

I re­call much be­ing made of the red and yel­low con­trast on the map which tracked the re­sults of the last lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions in 2023. The land area cov­ered was pre­dom­i­nant­ly yel­low, with 72-69 coun­cil­lors elect­ed in favour of the UNC over the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, yet the mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions con­trolled score was a 7-7 dead heat.

The bill’s cre­ation of three new mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties, bring­ing the to­tal to 17, could help pre­vent a fu­ture tie be­tween the two ma­jor par­ties. St Au­gus­tine, Cou­va, and Barataria are the three ad­di­tion­al bor­ough cor­po­ra­tions, with San­gre Grande al­so pro­mot­ed to bor­ough sta­tus. The tru­ly his­toric im­pli­ca­tion of this bill is the el­e­va­tion of Ch­agua­nas to a city. St Joseph (1592), Port-of-Spain (1757) and San Fer­nan­do (1988) have been our on­ly oth­er cities.

Is the bustling, soon-to-be city of Ch­agua­nas go­ing to ben­e­fit from fur­ther pub­lic al­lo­ca­tions and pri­vate in­vest­ments? Will the sur­round­ing ar­eas al­so ben­e­fit? Will there be a move to “de­cen­tralise in­to cen­tral” from a Port-of-Spain con­cen­tra­tion? What are the im­pli­ca­tions for ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic and res­i­den­tial de­vel­op­ments over the com­ing years?

There is al­so a “floor-cross­ing” de­ter­rent in the bill, which will va­cate the of­fice of any lo­cal gov­ern­ment prac­ti­tion­er who open­ly changes po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance af­ter an elec­tion. The UNC’s con­trol over the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion was af­fect­ed by the de­fec­tions of coun­cil­lor Ja­son Ali and al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts, which was com­pound­ed by the death of coun­cil­lor Ra­mona Vic­tor. Such de­fec­tions will now be a thing of the past.

The Op­po­si­tion dis­missed the bill as ‘ger­ry­man­der­ing’, with MP Colm Im­bert claim­ing that the new mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties were cre­at­ed with­in UNC strong­holds to stack the deck ahead of next year’s lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions. This is an ex­pect­ed ar­gu­ment.

It is al­so high­ly un­like­ly that any Trin­bag­on­ian gov­ern­ment would pri­ori­tise a bill to dis­ad­van­tage its pow­er. The fact that the Gov­ern­ment on­ly re­quired a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty to pass it is proof enough that its stip­u­la­tions were with­in its re­mit. As MP Im­bert said, if the peo­ple be­come an­gry at the gov­ern­ment, they will be vot­ed out re­gard­less of the bound­aries.

The Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Cou­va-Tabaquite-Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, and San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion were in­deed the largest mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties in terms of the num­ber of burgess­es and, there­fore, de­serv­ing of di­vi­sion. Al­though the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion did not par­tic­i­pate in the Gov­ern­ment’s mu­nic­i­pal bound­ary re­view com­mit­tee, it will be re­spon­si­ble for ad­just­ing elec­toral dis­trict bound­aries and con­duct­ing vot­er sen­si­ti­sa­tion ahead of LGE 2027.

The Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act, 2026, is now in force. The new polic­ing dis­tricts will co­in­cide with the new­ly pro­posed mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties. The PM sug­gest­ed that crim­i­nals should leave the ar­eas where spe­cial op­er­a­tions were to be con­duct­ed. Are those PNM-con­trolled ar­eas? Will there even­tu­al­ly be a call from PNM MPs to ex­pand “closed ar­eas” af­ter their ini­tial op­po­si­tion? Will the bud­get de­bate in the days ahead con­firm that ad­e­quate fund­ing is avail­able to sup­port these new laws?