If an “an­niver­sary” gift was in or­der for the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion’s three-month mark in Gov­ern­ment in the first week of Au­gust, a State of Emer­gency was hard­ly ex­pect­ed along with the com­pli­ments and com­plaints.

While aimed at a spe­cif­ic threat of an or­gan­ised crime syn­di­cate tar­get­ing cer­tain per­sons, it’s earned Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress - and T&T - cer­tain fall­out from which re­coup will be added to the long list of oth­ers to be rec­ti­fied. Old mat­ters and new­ly UNC-cre­at­ed.

The coun­try’s im­age was al­ready hit by this week’s Tele­graph “From Tourism to Ter­ror” ar­ti­cle on T&T’s crime sit­u­a­tion. What­ev­er Tele­graph se­quel there is now, Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proval of the SoE bids to demon­strate strength by a new Prime Min­is­ter—and new Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er —in deal­ing with surg­ing crime, of a high­ly sin­is­ter na­ture re­vealed by CoP Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie.

A sit­u­a­tion which clear­ly couldn’t be tack­led by Gov­ern­ment’s man­i­festo plans or stand-your-ground law. It’s grim­ly been the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fi­cial “bap­tism” on se­cu­ri­ty is­sues, with no less than hot wa­ter. And Per­sad-Bisses­sar has fired back with po­lice force.

The sev­enth SoE since 1970, it’s the sec­ond dur­ing a Ju­ly pe­ri­od, the oth­er hav­ing oc­curred in Ju­ly 1990 dur­ing the failed coup at­tempt by the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen. From May to No­vem­ber 2021, an SoE was in force due to the COVID pan­dem­ic.

It’s al­so the sec­ond SoE rounds for a Gov­ern­ment head­ed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar. She had an­nounced a lim­it­ed SoE for hotspots in Au­gust 2011, a year in­to her Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment’s term. It fol­lowed es­ca­lat­ed crime and mur­ders. Se­cu­ri­ty forces were al­so on alert af­ter a plot to as­sas­si­nate the PM and three min­is­ters.

Af­ter 2011, Per­sad-Bisses­sar knows the cons which ac­com­pa­ny an SoE’s pros:

1. Judge­ment of the new Gov­ern­ment’s smarts on se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters.

2. Hav­ing two SoEs back-to-back.

3. In­dict­ment on the se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems’ abil­i­ty to deal with T&T’s #1 prob­lem to the ex­tent that SoEs are fre­quent­ly re­quired.

4. Im­pact on T&T’s rep­u­ta­tion as a safe lo­ca­tion. In­clud­ing when an in­com­ing Gov­ern­ment needs new in­vestors.

5. Ques­tions over SoE use af­ter her crit­i­cism of the PNM’s SoE.

6. The com­pli­ment to the PNM of copy­ing its cur­few-less mod­el and morn­ing an­nounce­ment pat­tern.

Gov­ern­ment, hav­ing vowed to do bet­ter than the PNM, will be ex­pect­ed to show tan­gi­ble re­sults from this SoE, be­yond mur­der sup­pres­sant val­ue. Out­comes will sig­nal where work’s need­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, when she speaks at Mon­day’s UNC Re­port, may al­so have to ad­dress oth­er chal­lenges where Gov­ern­ment’s im­age is at risk.

A lack of race eq­ui­ty on State boards, where even some UNC per­son­al­i­ties are con­cerned about ap­pointees “on­ly from South/Cen­tral not East/West cor­ri­dor,” prompt­ed counter with Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Nel­son Man­dela In­ter­na­tion­al Day mes­sage. It’s ahead how well her de­c­la­ra­tion for it to re­new T&T’s col­lec­tive re­solve to “up­lift com­mu­ni­ties, re­ject prej­u­dice, and build a more just and unit­ed na­tion” will be main­tained in plan­ning.

The spec­tre of po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age (haunt­ing UNC via the “friends, fam­i­ly and fi­nanciers,” term it weaponised (against the PNM) re­mains live with the ap­point­ment of UNC je­fes to key posts in­volv­ing pub­lic in­ter­ac­tion.

From UNC’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary helm­ing the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion to its cam­paign man­ag­er lead­ing the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme. That was for­mer­ly head­ed by PNM’s elec­tion of­fi­cer and per­ceived as a PNM po­lit­i­cal tool. UNC of­fi­cials’ be­lief that choic­es are geared to “watch­dog” en­ti­ties will be mea­sured with oth­er ap­point­ments. In­clud­ing Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny chair­man Ger­ald Ramdeen’s.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Pe­nal ad­dress —an­nounc­ing con­tin­u­ing pub­lic meet­ings and Bud­get con­sul­ta­tions, ex­plain­ing de­lays on jobs and of­fer­ing plans—con­firmed an un­der­stand­ing of keep­ing mem­bers close. But de­spite watch­ing PNM’s loss due to dis­con­nec­tion and poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion, her ad­min­is­tra­tion still re­quires a ded­i­cat­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion point man.

A sit­u­a­tion yes­ter­day’s SoE mat­ter re­in­forced, as oth­ers will. Bud­get con­sul­ta­tions—al­so tak­ing the pub­lic’s pulse—have sparked re­quests which will fur­ther “tax” Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo, now loaded with An­tigua and St Vin­cent’s over­flight pay­ment de­mands and the Cli­co debt res­o­lu­tion.

To­mor­row’s PoS/Laven­tille Bud­get con­sul­ta­tion will re­veal Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) and Peo­ple’s Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty sup­port­ers’ wish­es. COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har’s al­ready called for $1 mil­lion ex gra­tia pay­ments as the start­ing point for com­pen­sa­tion for the Paria Fu­el pipeline tragedy vic­tims’ fam­i­lies.

And the SoE’s costs are yet to ar­rive.