Af­ter al­most six months in of­fice, one would ex­pect that the Gov­ern­ment would have al­ready laid a strong, com­pre­hen­sive leg­isla­tive agen­da aimed at eas­ing the bur­dens of our cit­i­zens. In­stead, what we have seen are bills that, while per­haps nec­es­sary in the broad­er sense, are not the ur­gent pri­or­i­ties our peo­ple were promised.

Let us be­gin with the most re­cent bill de­bat­ed in the Par­lia­ment, the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025. In­tro­duced, sur­pris­ing­ly, not by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al but by the Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, the bill seeks to amend the Con­sti­tu­tion to al­low peo­ple s to be­come cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go if their grand­par­ent was a cit­i­zen of this coun­try at the time of their birth.

While di­as­poric con­nec­tions mat­ter, and broad­en­ing the scope of cit­i­zen­ship can bring ben­e­fits, is this the burn­ing pri­or­i­ty in terms of con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form? Is this the pri­or­i­ty that de­mands our law­mak­ers’ im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion? Our Con­sti­tu­tion, the very bedrock of our na­tion, re­quires deep, thought­ful mod­erni­sa­tion in ar­eas such as cam­paign fi­nance, term lim­its, par­lia­men­tary over­sight, and strength­en­ing our in­sti­tu­tions against cor­rup­tion. Yet, in­stead of tack­ling these, the Gov­ern­ment’s idea of con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form is to ex­tend cit­i­zen­ship by de­scent. At best, this feels cos­met­ic; at worst, a dis­trac­tion.

The oth­er bills tabled in­clud­ed the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (FATF Com­pli­ance) Bill, 2025, the Counter-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Fi­nanc­ing Bill, 2025, and the Vir­tu­al As­sets and Vir­tu­al As­sets Ser­vice Providers Bill, 2025. While these bills are nec­es­sary tech­ni­cal house­keep­ing, they are re­ac­tive, not proac­tive, and do lit­tle to ad­dress the every­day strug­gles of our cit­i­zens, fam­i­lies grap­pling with high gro­cery bills, small busi­ness­es starved of for­eign ex­change, and com­mu­ni­ties held hostage by crime.

This mis­place­ment of fo­cus be­comes even more glar­ing when we con­sid­er what is con­spic­u­ous­ly miss­ing from the Or­der Pa­per. Where is the ro­bust leg­isla­tive agen­da promised to the thou­sands who feel un­safe in their own beds?

Af­ter the fail­ure of the State of Emer­gency to curb home in­va­sions, what has be­come of the Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill? Pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions were abrupt­ly ter­mi­nat­ed, and the si­lence since then has been deaf­en­ing.

Mean­while, fam­i­lies con­tin­ue to be bru­talised in the most hor­rif­ic ways in their own homes. Every week, we see sto­ries of cit­i­zens ter­rorised by crim­i­nals, yet the leg­isla­tive fo­cus is else­where. Are peo­ple feel­ing safer to­day than they did six months ago? The an­swer is a re­sound­ing no.

Then there is the mat­ter of the prop­er­ty tax.

On Oc­to­ber 6, 2024, while in op­po­si­tion, David Lee, now Min­is­ter of Hous­ing, re­it­er­at­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s promise to scrap the prop­er­ty tax “with­in days” if re-elect­ed to of­fice. Al­most half a year has passed since the elec­tion, and still the law re­mains on the books.

To com­pli­cate mat­ters, we saw the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, say on May 3, 2025, that no prop­er­ty tax would be in­tro­duced and that any­one who had al­ready paid would be re­fund­ed. “I think it’s log­i­cal that those per­sons would have to be re­fund­ed,” he said con­fi­dent­ly.

Yet with­in days, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­tanced her­self from that com­mit­ment. At a post-Cab­i­net press con­fer­ence, she de­clared, “Re­funds? You will have to talk to Tan­coo. I think (he is) the on­ly per­son who men­tioned re­funds; I have nev­er said that. Let Tan­coo tell me where he is find­ing the mon­ey for re­funds. He is the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance.” The min­is­ter’s on­ly re­sponse? A cryp­tic What­sApp mes­sage stat­ing, “The PM’s words were un­am­bigu­ous.”

So, where does that leave the peo­ple of this coun­try? With the tax still hang­ing over their heads and with con­fu­sion at the high­est lev­els of gov­ern­ment. This is not the first time the prop­er­ty tax has been used as a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball with cit­i­zens. Re­call that in 2010, the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship, rid­ing on the promise of “Axe the Tax”, won a con­sti­tu­tion­al ma­jor­i­ty. Yet de­spite that re­sound­ing man­date, the tax was nev­er re­pealed. To­day, his­to­ry seems to be re­peat­ing it­self.

The peo­ple did not vote for am­bi­gu­i­ty, de­lay, or mis­placed pri­or­i­ties. They vot­ed for re­lief, for se­cu­ri­ty, and for a gov­ern­ment that would act swift­ly on their be­half. Af­ter spend­ing nine-and-a-half years in op­po­si­tion, six months is more than enough time to ta­ble the leg­is­la­tion promised to pro­tect fam­i­lies, ease the cost of liv­ing, and be­gin to de­liv­er on cam­paign promis­es. It is enough time to present a clear, co­her­ent plan.

The peo­ple did not vote for a gov­ern­ment to mere­ly man­age in­her­it­ed prob­lems or to pur­sue niche con­sti­tu­tion­al changes while press­ing do­mes­tic cries fes­ter. They vot­ed for a gov­ern­ment that would act with con­vic­tion on the is­sues that mat­ter most: safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, and eco­nom­ic re­lief.

Still, I re­main hope­ful. Our democ­ra­cy is young but re­silient. It is not too late for this gov­ern­ment to cor­rect its course and present a leg­isla­tive agen­da that re­flects the needs of cit­i­zens.

T&T is blessed with tal­ent, cre­ativ­i­ty, and re­silience. We can craft laws that pro­tect our fam­i­lies, em­pow­er our youth, sup­port our busi­ness­es, and build com­mu­ni­ties where peo­ple feel safe. That is the kind of leg­isla­tive agen­da that will turn hope in­to re­al­i­ty.

Mick­ela Pan­day is the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and an at­tor­ney.