In ad­di­tion to nam­ing her Cab­i­net, bar one, the Min­is­ter of Trade, who is said to be out of the coun­try, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has set off on her jour­ney a sec­ond time around. Up front, in her role as Prime Min­is­ter with the ul­ti­mate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the Gov­ern­ment meet­ing needs, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is de­mand­ing her min­is­ters “get to work” with “boots on the ground.”

In her most de­fin­i­tive of state­ments in re­la­tion to the ini­tial ob­jec­tives of her Gov­ern­ment post-elec­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed her in­ten­tion to keep her cam­paign promise to dis­man­tle the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA) and to equip cit­i­zens who qual­i­fy un­der her pro­posed “Stand Your Ground Leg­is­la­tion” with weapons to re­spond to crim­i­nals.

In the in­stance of the lat­ter, there is the well-known con­cern of ad­di­tion­al guns in the en­vi­ron­ment and the dan­ger that some of them may fall in­to the wrong hands. In re­la­tion to the re­moval of the TTRA law, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, un­der­stand­ing there will be a loss of rev­enue from this act while Gov­ern­ment seeks to de­liv­er so­cial wel­fare as­sis­tance, was cau­tious in main­tain­ing the par­ty’s com­mit­ments will be kept.

But Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar en­tered a note of cau­tion, say­ing her new Gov­ern­ment will on­ly know by to­day what can, in fact, ac­tu­al­ly be achieved af­ter get­ting de­tailed in­for­ma­tion on the state of the Trea­sury.

Such ten­ta­tive com­ments are the nat­ur­al out­come of an op­po­si­tion par­ty mak­ing promis­es in gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paigns in a vac­u­um with­out spe­cif­ic knowl­edge of the state of the coun­try’s fi­nances.

Out­side of those specifics, what can be said about the Cab­i­net as re­vealed, is that it lacks in min­is­te­r­i­al and gov­ern­men­tal ex­pe­ri­ence and is of un­known spe­cial­ist skills. In its cur­rent com­po­si­tion, on­ly Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Jear­lean John, Kennedy Swaraths­ingh, Anil Roberts and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie have pre­vi­ous min­is­te­r­i­al ex­pe­ri­ence.

It is well ap­pre­ci­at­ed that it’s the pub­lic ser­vants in the min­istries, head­ed by the per­ma­nent sec­re­taries, who are there to guide min­is­ters in their func­tion­ing. But that will not be in pol­i­cy and de­ci­sion-mak­ing, which will be the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the min­is­ters and Gov­ern­ment.

The above, how­ev­er, is the norm. What will be crit­i­cal is the learn­ing curve for min­is­ters to get down to work­ing on an econ­o­my and for a so­ci­ety in des­per­ate need of mean­ing­ful re­form.

All of Trinidad and To­ba­go has a stake in Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Cab­i­net do­ing well to achieve planned ob­jec­tives.

In ad­di­tion to the fi­nan­cial and eco­nom­ic is­sues fac­ing the coun­try, those min­istries most in need of pro­duc­ing im­me­di­ate so­lu­tions are Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty (Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty), with re­tired se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer Roger Alexan­der at the helm, and the Min­istry of De­fence, head­ed by at­tor­ney Wayne Sturge.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, the Prime Min­is­ter has point­ed to en­er­gy-based pos­si­bil­i­ties for T&T with Guyana and Grena­da as the leads in this area of eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty. The in­com­ing Min­is­ter of Trade will pos­si­bly have this on his/her im­me­di­ate agen­da. Ul­ti­mate­ly, though, the Prime Min­is­ter will first have to en­gen­der a mea­sure of co­he­sion in her Gov­ern­ment to sig­nal to the pop­u­la­tion that it can in­deed ful­fil its cam­paign promis­es and turn T&T around.