Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was frank at Thurs­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing on cer­tain points which show that her month-old Gov­ern­ment is quick­ly con­fronting the harsh re­al­i­ties of gov­ern­ing.

She de­ferred to pub­lic opin­ion on Gov­ern­ment’s per­for­mance. Ad­mit­ted things take time and “there’s al­ways room for im­prove­ment.” Con­ced­ed that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) asked for the job, signed up for it and it made no sense to just “come here and blame peo­ple.” Ac­knowl­edged that Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is “just too big for one per­son to han­dle.” Con­firmed tread­ing pub­lic “ground” care­ful­ly: avoid­ing week­ly “doom, gloom, fear and stress” re­ports.

Gov­ern­ment’s modus operan­di—scru­ti­nise op­er­a­tions, so­lu­tionise is­sues, stock­pile al­leged Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) “sins”—will con­tin­ue un­til its cur­tain rais­er per­for­mance: June 16 Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC) meet­ing and June 18 mid-year Bud­get re­view based on SFC out­comes on fund­ing Gov­ern­ment op­er­a­tions for the rest of the fis­cal year.

SFC de­lib­er­a­tions will re­veal how Gov­ern­ment han­dles the pro­ject­ed $11 bil­lion deficit and what funds, whether sup­ple­men­tal or via vari­a­tion—shift­ing sums from one di­vi­sion to an­oth­er, as Per­sad-Bisses­sar hint­ed Thurs­day will be used to tide min­istries through the fis­cal year’s last four months.

Among Thurs­day’s mat­ters be­tween lay­ing down the law on some, and as­sess­ment sta­tus for oth­ers call for bal­ance in synch with UNC’s much-tout­ed in­clu­siv­i­ty mantra.

While the theme lurked be­hind Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s bit­ing ra­tio­nale re­gard­ing the UWI Debe cam­pus op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion for South res­i­dents, full in­clu­siv­i­ty and free­dom of choice ex­tends to hav­ing oth­er stud­ies which peo­ple wish to pur­sue at Debe, along­side law. South Trinidad should have the best uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus pos­si­ble - an ap­pro­pri­ate lega­cy item.

Amnesty for state en­ti­ties and com­pa­nies to meet Com­pa­nies’ Reg­istry re­quire­ments may as­sist. But word of new an­ti-ter­ror­ism/an­ti-mon­ey laun­der­ing pol­i­cy, fol­low­ing T&T’s shift from black­list to “brown list­ed” sta­tus, af­ter many changes to laws in­clud­ing re­gard­ing com­pa­nies, has raised query on if this will fur­ther change leg­is­la­tion. Nu­mer­ous busi­ness­es have giv­en up. Small en­ti­ties strug­gle with weak­ly pub­li­cised leg­isla­tive changes, opaque pro­ce­dures and large penal­ties for fail­ing to com­pre­hend legalese in time.

Be­yond the choice of Jagdeo Singh for House Speak­er ig­nit­ing pub­lic de­bate and queries on the UNC’s judge­ment, com­fort for such choic­es re­sides in Gov­ern­ment’s 26-seat ma­jor­i­ty, now strength­ened by To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP)/To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s ar­rival to Cab­i­net sta­tus on To­ba­go mat­ters.

TPP MPs will be seat­ed low­er down Gov­ern­ment’s back bench when Par­lia­ment re­sumes, Gov­ern­ment sources said. Deputy Speak­er Ay­i­na Ali and deputy leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Nicholas Mor­ris will sit be­hind Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Gov­ern­ment house­keep­ing al­so needs pol­i­cy on min­is­ters’ post-du­ty do­ings fol­low­ing Min­is­ter in Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der’s re­cent is­sue with ad­ver­tis­ing jobs for a pri­vate con­trac­tor in the con­stituen­cy he con­test­ed and bland com­ments from his boss David Lee and Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Alexan­der’s luck­i­er than Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) leader Prakash Ra­mad­har, whose ex­ec­u­tive met Mon­day af­ter he re­ceived no Gov­ern­ment ap­point­ment. A sub­se­quent COP re­lease, how­ev­er, toed the Gov­ern­ment line, seek­ing to dis­pel is­sues be­tween both. This, de­spite the fact that COP’s sta­tus as UNC’s hind­most part­ner was clear pre-elec­tion: non-re­ceipt of “safe seats,” rel­e­gat­ed to PNM strong­holds, con­cerns about in­ter­nal is­sues with pre­vi­ous ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers mar­ring COP’s pro­file. That pub­lic re­minder for a po­si­tion was need­ed pre-Par­lia­ment launch, which al­so spoke to COP’s coali­tion rank­ing.

Par­lia­ment pro­ceed­ings ahead will de­ter­mine if Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “shot” across the aisle to In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors—on em­u­lat­ing two reap­point­ed sen­a­tors’ be­hav­iour—finds any mark, be­yond stamp­ing Gov­ern­ment’s dis­ap­proval on both.

The PNM, seek­ing sta­bil­i­sa­tion via in­ter­nal elec­tions, is so far ex­pect­ed to see two slates com­pet­ing. At­tor­ney Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai leads the Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons slate seek­ing ex­ec­u­tive posts amid re­ports of an­oth­er slate in­volv­ing some in­cum­bents. What­ev­er ma­te­ri­alis­es for Mon­day’s nom­i­na­tion day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ny Beck­les pi­lot­ing PNM over new ground re­quires the best and widest pool.

While PNM’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives team is half the Gov­ern­ment’s size, with ex­pe­ri­enced MPs and four new ones whose cam­paign trail per­for­mance showed vigour, its HOR and Sen­ate com­ple­ment boasts nine lawyers, in­clud­ing To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tive Melanie Roberts-Radg­man. She’s a for­mer rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion, a union whose ne­go­ti­a­tions is Gov­ern­ment’s high pri­or­i­ty (Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Thurs­day.)

Elec­tion re­sults are ex­pect­ed the night of the June 22 vot­ing. In­stal­la­tion of the new ex­ec­u­tive and deputy lead­ers will be at the June 29 con­ven­tion.