Six months in­to her ad­min­is­tra­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has made sweep­ing changes to her Cab­i­net, not by re­plac­ing min­is­ters, but by shift­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties across min­istries. On pa­per, it might seem like rou­tine fine-tun­ing. But be­neath the sur­face, these changes re­veal some­thing deep­er about how we gov­ern, and per­haps, how we might fi­nal­ly be­gin to do it bet­ter.

For a six-month-old gov­ern­ment, such a sig­nif­i­cant re­align­ment so soon is un­usu­al. This rais­es the ques­tion: why, af­ter so much fan­fare over the “his­toric” Cab­i­net ap­point­ments, are key port­fo­lios be­ing re­dis­trib­uted? Was this planned as a strate­gic ad­just­ment be­fore the na­tion­al bud­get? Or is it an ac­knowl­edge­ment that some of those ap­point­ed sim­ply weren’t de­liv­er­ing?

If that is the case, then it is not just about struc­ture; it’s about suit­abil­i­ty. It sug­gests that once again, we may have put square pegs in round holes. And in­stead of re­shap­ing the sys­tem to suit the needs of the na­tion, we are now re­shap­ing the na­tion’s pri­or­i­ties to suit the abil­i­ties, or lim­i­ta­tions, of those in charge.

This is not new. We have seen it be­fore. Grand promis­es, over­sized cab­i­nets, and the same old pat­tern of too many ti­tles but too lit­tle de­liv­ery. Trinidad and To­ba­go now has 24 Cab­i­net min­is­ters, four ju­nior min­is­ters, and six par­lia­men­tary sec­re­taries, the largest in our his­to­ry. Yet, six months lat­er, the Prime Min­is­ter her­self has had to take back over­sight of crit­i­cal port­fo­lios, in­clud­ing Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form, Na­tion­al Trust, Her­itage Build­ings, Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self-Help Ltd, Nalis, Home Im­prove­ment Grants pol­i­cy, Hous­ing and Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme, and Gov­ern­ment-Aid­ed Self-Help Hous­ing Pro­gramme.

When one per­son must ab­sorb so many re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, it’s a sign that the ma­chin­ery be­low isn’t run­ning as it should. If these min­istries were func­tion­ing ef­fi­cient­ly, the Prime Min­is­ter wouldn’t need to in­ter­vene. So, what hap­pened? Were these func­tions ne­glect­ed, or were they hand­ed to in­di­vid­u­als who didn’t have the ex­pe­ri­ence or ca­pac­i­ty to man­age them?

It is not un­fair to ask whether this is the re­sult of po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age trump­ing mer­i­toc­ra­cy. Ap­point­ments made as re­wards for loy­al­ty rarely de­liv­er the com­pe­tence re­quired for gov­er­nance. We have seen it across suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions: peo­ple el­e­vat­ed be­cause they are po­lit­i­cal­ly use­ful, not be­cause they are qual­i­fied. When that hap­pens, it’s the coun­try that pays the price.

But per­haps this is where the hope­ful part be­gins. Be­cause in these changes, there might al­so be a glim­mer of self-aware­ness, an im­plic­it recog­ni­tion that some­thing was not work­ing and that it must be fixed. That, in it­self, can be the be­gin­ning of re­al re­form if it is fol­lowed by hon­est eval­u­a­tion and ac­count­abil­i­ty. The ques­tion is whether we will seize this mo­ment to do things dif­fer­ent­ly or sim­ply re­peat the mis­takes of the past.

Hous­ing is per­haps the most glar­ing ex­am­ple. Sev­er­al key re­spon­si­bil­i­ties have been re­moved from the min­istry, yet there are still three min­is­ters as­signed to it. If the work­load has been re­duced, the struc­ture should re­flect that. Keep­ing such a large team sug­gests that po­si­tions are be­ing pro­tect­ed, not per­for­mance re­ward­ed.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate a gov­ern­ment that works smarter, not big­ger. One that val­ues per­for­mance over po­si­tion and ex­per­tise over al­le­giance. T&T’s chal­lenges, from a strained econ­o­my to ris­ing in­se­cu­ri­ty, de­mand a gov­ern­ment that is fo­cused, dis­ci­plined, and co­he­sive.

True co­he­sion de­mands clar­i­ty and com­pe­tence, not ex­cess. There is a les­son here, if we are will­ing to learn it—gov­er­nance is not about how many peo­ple hold min­is­te­r­i­al ti­tles, but about how well those ti­tles trans­late in­to re­sults for the peo­ple they serve.

An­oth­er con­cern is the in­creas­ing cen­tral­i­sa­tion of pow­er. With the Prime Min­is­ter now over­see­ing so many port­fo­lios, there is a risk of overex­ten­sion; no one per­son, how­ev­er ca­pa­ble, can per­son­al­ly man­age every de­tail of gov­er­nance. That is why strong teams and em­pow­ered in­sti­tu­tions are so im­por­tant. And this is al­so why the Prime Min­is­ter’s phys­i­cal pres­ence and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty are vi­tal. Es­pe­cial­ly now, when na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, in­fra­struc­ture, and so­cial is­sues re­quire co­or­di­na­tion across min­istries, the coun­try needs to see that lead­er­ship is vis­i­ble, en­gaged, and ground­ed.

Still, there is rea­son to hope that these changes are more than just a reshuf­fling of re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, that they sig­nal a readi­ness to cor­rect course and gov­ern dif­fer­ent­ly. If the Prime Min­is­ter tru­ly us­es this mo­ment to eval­u­ate per­for­mance and build a mer­it-based cul­ture with­in her Cab­i­net, it could mark a turn­ing point not on­ly for her Gov­ern­ment but for T&T as a whole.

The truth is, the peo­ple are tired. Tired of promis­es that nev­er reach per­for­mance and of changes made for op­tics rather than out­comes.

The Prime Min­is­ter now has a chance to prove that this is not just an­oth­er ex­er­cise in po­lit­i­cal re­arrange­ment. She has the chance to show that she recog­nis­es the weight of her of­fice and the ur­gency of the mo­ment. The coun­try needs sta­bil­i­ty, di­rec­tion, and re­as­sur­ance that those steer­ing the ship are fit for pur­pose.

Reshuf­fling port­fo­lios can’t fix every­thing. But if it sig­nals a gen­uine ef­fort to match peo­ple with their strengths, stream­line gov­ern­ment, and fo­cus on de­liv­ery, then it could be the start of some­thing our na­tion des­per­ate­ly needs: a gov­ern­ment that fi­nal­ly learns from its past in­stead of re­peat­ing it. Maybe this time, we can choose to get it right.

Mick­ela Pan­day is po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and an at­tor­ney. Email: pa­tri­ot­ic.front.tt@gmail.com