Gail Alexan­der

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo was point­ed in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, in pi­lot­ing changes to the law gov­ern­ing a Prime Min­is­ter’s pen­sion.

“.. This bill isn’t ad hominem, it’s meant to ap­ply to every­one ap­point­ed Prime Min­is­ter,” Tan­coo added, deny­ing it tar­get­ed for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who was ab­sent in protest.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Colm Im­bert, slam­ming what’s been dubbed the “Spite Stu­art bill,” added, “Gov­ern­ment MPs can jump high or low - this bill is tar­get­ed at a sin­gle in­di­vid­ual!”

It was the lat­est wave af­ter re­cent state­ments in the Par­lia­ment man­i­fest­ed in de­vel­op­ments at the Cen­tral Bank and WASA board­room. Doors closed on some. And opened for oth­ers.

Pat­terns of com­plaint against per­sons, lat­er cat­a­pult­ed out and ac­com­pa­ny­ing fe­roc­i­ty, have sparked con­cerns about a loss of good­will for Gov­ern­ment.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath’s “free-rein” im­age re­gard­ing WASA and oth­er is­sues - and his strong pres­ence on most Par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tees - has fu­elled spec­u­la­tion about whether Padarath may act for Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar when she at­tends Cari­com’s Ju­ly 6-8 con­fer­ence in Ja­maica.

Padarath’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) in­ner sanc­tum col­leagues Tan­coo, Jear­lean John, and Roodal Mooni­lal are al­so the sub­ject of spec­u­la­tion. As is Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste, af­ter Labour Day passed mi­nus the de­liv­ery of cer­tain Gov­ern­ment promis­es and SWT­TU jefe Michael An­nisette com­plained about labour’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion on state boards.

Pri­or to Cari­com, Per­sad-Bisses­sar hosts In­dia Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di next Thurs­day and Fri­day. As­sign­ments with In­dia and Cari­com are ide­al­ly timed for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to bridge with each, is­sues of co­op­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing on Mo­di’s pre­vi­ous Cari­com con­ces­sions. She has fer­tile ground to work with from Mo­di’s 2024 dis­cus­sions with for­mer PM Dr Kei­th Row­ley on joint ven­tures. But she al­so has to match Row­ley’s Cari­com rank­ings. Be­yond en­er­gy plans with some ter­ri­to­ries, it’s ahead what Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Cari­com de­but pro­duces, in­clud­ing T&T’s in­flu­ence on re­gion­al di­rec­tions re­gard­ing T&T’s US al­ly - and Venezuela.

What­ev­er part­ner­ships and Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ex­pe­ri­ence with such, Gov­ern­ment stands a tougher test this time. As re­cent re­minders (be­yond An­nisette’s) re­flect. Par­lia­ment de­bate on sup­ple­men­tary fund­ing saw Point Fortin MP (OW­TU’s) Ernesto Ke­sar, un­der­pin­ning a pitch for con­stituen­cy im­prove­ment with the his­to­ry of Petrotrin re­fin­ery’s clo­sure, telegraph­ing its im­por­tance. And need for re­open­ing.

To­ba­go MPs ad­vo­cat­ed for a big­ger To­ba­go al­lo­ca­tion - on the eve of THA’s call for $3.71 bil­lion from Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 Bud­get.

Gov­ern­ment sent its own mes­sages with re­cent al­leged mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion rev­e­la­tions dur­ing the PNM’s tenure. Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein de­clared, “What we’re do­ing now is as­sess­ing where the mon­ey gone - we in­tend to get back some of that…”

On what will be done with in­for­ma­tion gath­ered, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials say, “There are ex­ist­ing agen­cies with the ca­pa­bil­i­ty to in­ves­ti­gate blue/white col­lar crime which will deal with these al­le­ga­tions ...”

How­ev­er, le­gal ac­tion against Gov­ern­ment is ex­pect­ed from some of those in­di­vid­u­als dis­missed. And it’s ahead if the Pen­sion bill ends in court al­so.

An­oth­er area where le­gal ac­tion’s hov­er­ing in­volves Padarath’s Mon­day clash with PNM’s Colm Im­bert in Par­lia­ment on cer­tain fig­ures. Like Padarath, Im­bert’s the sub­ject of spec­u­la­tion on whether he’ll be among PNM deputy lead­ers be­ing an­nounced by po­lit­i­cal leader-elect Pen­ny Beck­les (on whom Padarath al­so passed scathing UNC judge­ment) at to­mor­row’s PNM con­ven­tion.

Deputies as­sume greater sig­nif­i­cance fol­low­ing last Sun­day’s PNM elec­tion, whose abysmal­ly low turnout and re-elec­tion of an ex­ec­u­tive that con­trolled the par­ty in­to Gen­er­al Elec­tion de­feat, is telling re­gard­ing the size of Beck­les’ task. And al­so shows PNM’s need for deputies with po­ten­tial, proven record, sharp, swift smarts, and peo­ple-savvy enough to re-at­tract mem­bers.

Beck­les’ “One PNM” slate en­dorse­ment clear­ly as­sist­ed its vic­to­ry. The turnout in her Ari­ma seat was among the high­est. Nor can it be spun that out of PNM’s 102,30 el­i­gi­ble vot­ers, the 7,200 turnout was due to the lead­er­ship “not be­ing con­test­ed.” PNM’s slide was ev­i­denced in 2022 ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions, when the lead­er­ship was con­test­ed and 9,661 mem­bers vot­ed.

A fur­ther slide was con­firmed with the high­est vote in Sun­day’s poll (trea­sur­er Nal Ram­s­ingh’s 5,555), which was less than the low­est fig­ure in the 2022 elec­tion (So­cial me­dia of­fi­cer Kwasi Robin­son’s 6,268).

With Gov­ern­ment tar­get­ing five PNM MPs, and the pro­tec­tion of Beck­les’ his­toric ad­vent as PNM’s first fe­male leader nec­es­sary, PNM’s ex­ec­u­tive will have to mas­ter the job they failed at. And Beck­les will have to de­liv­er the mes­sage to PNM - plus Padarath et al - to­mor­row.