The con­cept of the “first 100 days in of­fice” as a sig­nif­i­cant pe­ri­od for as­sess­ing the per­for­mance of a new gov­ern­ment orig­i­nat­ed with Franklin D Roo­sevelt’s pres­i­den­cy in 1933.

Elect­ed to of­fice dur­ing the “Great De­pres­sion”, an eco­nom­ic cri­sis that be­gan in 1929 with a fi­nan­cial crash, he ini­ti­at­ed a whirl­wind of leg­is­la­tion and ex­ec­u­tive or­ders to re­vive the econ­o­my, re­duce un­em­ploy­ment, and re­form the fi­nan­cial sys­tem. This be­came a bench­mark to judge the per­for­mance of ad­min­is­tra­tions and their like­ly ef­fec­tive­ness.

Here in Trinidad and To­ba­go, as the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress this week marks its first 100 days in of­fice, the coun­try faces a myr­i­ad of long-term is­sues that can­not be solved in 100 days or five years.

A coun­try’s per­for­mance is a re­lay race in which the run­ner with the ba­ton must im­prove on the per­for­mance of his col­league on the pre­vi­ous leg. Giv­en the long time to im­ple­ment changes, a five-year term must be bro­ken in­to two pe­ri­ods. The first two years are to ad­just the pol­i­cy ap­proach­es and to im­ple­ment the nec­es­sary de­ci­sions. The next three years are to em­bed those de­ci­sions and gen­er­ate the re­sults or ev­i­dence to val­i­date an ad­min­is­tra­tion’s per­for­mance and fit­ness for of­fice if it wants to be re-elect­ed.

The im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ty of any gov­ern­ment is the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of cit­i­zens, as ev­i­denced by the lev­el of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. Crime is not as­so­ci­at­ed with eco­nom­ic de­pres­sion in T&T. As the econ­o­my boomed from 1999, so did the mur­der rate, ris­ing from less than 50 mur­ders in the 1980s to 97 in 1998 to over 600 in 2024.

Dur­ing the same pe­ri­od, more pris­ons and courts were built. Yet the jus­tice sys­tem is over­bur­dened and un­able to cope with the case­load. There have been three states of emer­gency since 2011, the last two pro­vid­ing on­ly tem­po­rary respites. None pro­vid­ed the ap­pre­hen­sion or tri­al and con­vic­tion of the ne­far­i­ous “plot­ters” that they were in­tend­ed to fore­stall.

The rot al­so af­fects our uni­formed ser­vices. Over the past 12 months, 15 po­lice of­fi­cers—ac­cused in three sep­a­rate cas­es of bribery, ex­tor­tion, rob­bery, and mul­ti­ple counts of mis­con­duct—were all set free. Why? Po­lice pros­e­cu­tors failed to do their job. They failed to meet ba­sic pro­ce­dur­al oblig­a­tions. Wit­ness­es (in­clud­ing po­lice wit­ness­es) failed to show, dead­lines were missed, and crit­i­cal ev­i­dence was nev­er filed. This was prob­a­bly just the tip of the ice­berg, and there is much more that goes un­re­port­ed or by­passed.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, in its press re­lease on the mat­ter, not­ed that suc­ces­sive po­lice com­mis­sion­ers had ig­nored its ad­vice on how to deal with the fail­ures of po­lice pros­e­cu­tors. Who will guard the guards? What is re­quired are ur­gent re­forms in po­lice ser­vice ad­min­is­tra­tion de­signed to pro­duce a bet­ter po­lice ser­vice and bet­ter po­lice of­fi­cers, not more of­fi­cers. Fur­ther, in the con­text of an over­ar­ch­ing ap­proach to crime re­duc­tion, the con­sul­ta­tions on the pro­posed stand-your-ground law are a pub­lic re­la­tions ex­er­cise for vent­ing steam.

There are many oth­er is­sues. Ad­dress­ing for­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty and the ex­change rate re­quires crit­i­cal de­ci­sions as the of­fi­cial re­serves con­tin­ue to de­cline. Sim­i­lar­ly, the vi­a­bil­i­ty of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Scheme as the pop­u­la­tion ages can­not be ig­nored. What about the re­tire­ment age and in­creased con­tri­bu­tions? What are the plans for eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion? How will Gov­ern­ment ad­dress these mat­ters in the na­tion­al bud­get?