The mes­sage was sent. Short­ly af­ter Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est meet­ing with for­eign in­vestors on Thurs­day, Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas said it loud and clear out­side WASA at 10 pm.

“The work­ers are here but it seems their is­sues aren’t im­por­tant to the chair­man and board, as they’re ab­sent from what’s tak­ing place here. But I can as­sure you we wouldn’t be leav­ing this com­pound un­til we get a re­sponse. And it will not be work as usu­al,” said the head of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ PSA coali­tion part­ner.

It’s hard­ly a wake-up call to Gov­ern­ment, now ty­ing up its 2027 Bud­get prepa­ra­tions. From here on un­til Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, the ad­min­is­tra­tion can ex­pect de­mands, re­quests and re­minders on as­sort­ed mat­ters.

Apart from WASA’s stalled ne­go­ti­a­tions, 20,000 work­ers from the NUGFW ex­pect ad­just­ed salary rates plus back­pay in 2027’s Bud­get, and SWW­TU’s Port Au­thor­i­ty work­ers await the fi­nal 80 per cent of their back­pay, in­clud­ing over­time.

Fol­low­ing PSA’s WASA “siege,” word from Gov­ern­ment was that it’s ex­pect­ed that based on the Fi­nance Min­is­ter’s pre­vi­ous ut­ter­ances, “sig­nif­i­cant pro­vi­sions will be made in the Bud­get to par­tial­ly or com­plete­ly” ad­dress ne­go­ti­a­tions which have been set­tled by unions and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer.

Gov­ern­ment’s re­cent meet­ings with key for­eign part­ners, while shoring up in­vest­ment po­ten­tial—with an­nounce­ments geared to win for­eign friends and in­flu­ence lo­cal peo­ple—have al­so raised cit­i­zens’ ex­pec­ta­tions

Af­ter Deputy US Sec­re­tary of State Christo­pher Lan­dau’s vis­it, came Thurs­day’s meet­ing with Exxon­Mo­bil of­fi­cials and St Lu­cia’s Prime Min­is­ter. Lan­dau’s vis­it marked the US’s at­ten­tion to its hemi­spher­ic in­vest­ments with a swing-through of pro-US ter­ri­to­ries (T&T, Guyana), soon af­ter a top-lev­el US team al­so vis­it­ed Venezuela last month on is­sues sim­i­lar to the agen­da in T&T.

The US, whose new Joint Task Force West­ern Hemi­sphere takes over its South­ern Spear counter-car­tel mis­sion, has, in par­al­lel with that push, moved to strength­en South­ern Hemi­spher­ic ties with in­creased eco­nom­ic and se­cu­ri­ty ven­tures.

While vis­it­ing con­tin­gents have been op­ti­mistic about re­spec­tive dis­cus­sions—and Gov­ern­ment has al­ter­nat­ed be­tween gush­ing (on US plans) and diplo­ma­cy (on Exxon­Mo­bil po­ten­tial), op­por­tu­ni­ty to get re­al in­sight in­to the plans—which would have aid­ed cred­i­bil­i­ty—was min­i­mal.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice gave its usu­al week­ly Thurs­day an­nounce­ment—that there would be no post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing and the pos­i­tive an­nounce­ment of am­bi­tious plans re­gard­ing the three US in­vest­ments have been ham­pered by the ab­sence of fol­low-up state­ments and replies from Gov­ern­ment to queries on as­pects, from pro­ject­ed time­lines to con­di­tions T&T may have to agree to.

An­swers are al­so out­stand­ing on the cost of po­lice posts, sup­pli­er/con­trac­tor; and same for the work on the In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade’s new lo­ca­tion at Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah’s North. Queries have arisen on whether the new lo­ca­tion’s size will see a small­er pub­lic gath­er­ing.

It’s not the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion’s first time in of­fice to be so obliv­i­ous to the fact that an­nounce­ments need flesh­ing out via de­tails—or at least open­ness to query—least they’re seen as mere “in­for­ma­tion,” seed­ing doubt and dis­trust. Prob­lems the Gov­ern­ment has in­creas­ing­ly tot­ed.

The si­lence on in­vest­ment plans has pro­vid­ed Op­po­si­tion can­non fod­der and will in­crease the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s ques­tions in Par­lia­ment for the Prime Min­is­ter.

For T&T’s pop­u­la­tion, cop­ing with the cold­ness of a stag­nant econ­o­my plus po­lit­i­cal bush­fires heat, Lan­dau’s words that the US and T&T lead­ers are fo­cused “not just on pro­duc­ing words but pro­duc­ing re­sults” is of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance—Gov­ern­ment will have to has­ten to trans­late the one to the oth­er con­sid­er­ing pub­lic dis­trust of its modus operan­di.

Com­pound­ing that is the at­mos­phere cre­at­ed by the PM’s racial slurs, which ap­pear to be di­vid­ing noth­ing but her lead­er­ship stocks. Af­ter em­ploy­ing the term fol­low­ing the Hadeed/Sab­ga is­sue and the African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day heck­ling of Gov­ern­ment, her po­lice post an­nounce­ment pro­vid­ed op­por­tu­ni­ty to shift to a more pos­i­tive top­ic. But she con­tin­ued push­ing the “PNM c****e ha­tred” but­ton, dog whistling UNC’s base on op­po­nents. The PM’s dis­missal of the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ties Com­mis­sion and its—cur­rent­ly on­go­ing—in­ves­ti­ga­tion of PNM Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne’s com­plaint on her lan­guage, lit­er­al­ly spoke to how much re­spect Per­sad-Bisses­sar has for the com­mis­sion’s man­date—en­sur­ing equal op­por­tu­ni­ty. It al­so telegraphed what that says for the op­er­a­tions of Gov­ern­ment, which has been ac­cused of dis­crim­i­na­tion.