Gail Alexan­der

Gov­ern­ment had al­ready warned that yes­ter­day’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive sit­ting would have been “hot,” the Op­po­si­tion ad­just­ed its own set­ting to “heat­ed” and re­cent down­pours put nei­ther damper nor dis­claimer on ei­ther side’s de­liv­ery.

In­deed, de­spite over­cast skies, there wasn’t any rain in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day.

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Bar­ry Padarath’s jab to Op­po­si­tion whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les’ query on wa­ter pro­vi­sion for ar­eas af­fect­ed by flood, was the first of “warn­ing” jabs.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar then re­leased an avalanche of can­non shots from the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­port on T&T’s 2024 ac­counts.

“It was a free for fall - a feed­ing fren­zy of epic pro­por­tions at tax­pay­ers’ ex­pense,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared of the rev­e­la­tions of “ghost rentals,” un­ver­i­fied sums and no cab­i­net ap­proval for some rentals.

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s (clear­ly in­censed) query on her con­clu­sion, re­ceived a hail of Gov­ern­ment protests.

“Calm down every­one, calm down,” House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh in­ter­vened.

A telling open­ing for the first work­ing sit­ting of the new term and pro­ceed­ings where po­lit­i­cal shots threat­ened, via oth­er state­ments in de­bate and ex­changes on the nom­i­na­tion for a po­lice com­mis­sion­er. The lat­ter, aris­ing from the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion’s short­list of a hand­ful of names (in­clud­ing DCP Suzette Mar­tin).

With Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s at­tack on Im­bert yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment, al­so fresh from flood-fight­ing, was en­er­gised de­spite re­cent neg­a­tive spot­light of ten­sions with Venezuela.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers’ state­ment yes­ter­day of no hos­til­i­ties brew­ing with Venezuela, saw Gov­ern­ment mov­ing on from crit­i­cism trig­gered by Per­sad Bisses­sar’s re­ac­tion to Venezuela’s state­ments, which —though seek­ing to por­tray strength and coun­try de­fence - over­reached.

Gov­ern­ment sought to re­in­force a warn­ing to Venezuela, em­pha­sis­ing its US links with Mon­day’s De­fence Min­istry meet­ing with US of­fi­cials telegraph­ing ex­plo­ration of “new ways of col­lab­o­ra­tion on bor­der se­cu­ri­ty and emer­gency re­sponse ca­pa­bil­i­ties.” If its pro­file con­cern­ing in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions and diplo­ma­cy was dent­ed by the is­sue, the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry’s meet­ing with Venezuela’s am­bas­sador that day al­lowed for an im­proved face to­wards re­duc­tion of ten­sions.

At­tempt­ing to quell the heat con­cern­ing ad­vice to have sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion be­fore “cuss,” the min­istry’s state­ment un­der­lined “re­it­er­at­ing Gov­ern­ment’s pre­vi­ous re­quest” for in­for­ma­tion from Venezuela “and con­ced­ed on agree­ing that in the spir­it of con­struc­tive di­a­logue, open diplo­mat­ic chan­nels would be main­tained.” What­ev­er di­a­logue yields is ahead. As is a PNM mo­tion to de­bate the is­sue.

It’s a les­son on how wide­ly T&T’s viewed. News re­ports on the is­sue ranged from France, Iran and In­dia. It’s de­bat­able whether Cari­com el­der states­man, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines PM Ralph Gon­salves’ ad­vice on the mat­ter may arise when he sees Per­sad-Bisses­sar at Cari­com’s 49th con­fer­ence soon. Se­cu­ri­ty is among top­ics at the Ju­ly 6-8 con­fer­ence in Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica, to which Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­turns 15 years af­ter her first Cari­com sum­mit in Ju­ly 2010.

Cur­rent­ly, how­ev­er, T&T’s econ­o­my looms in fo­cus for Mon­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing re­gard­ing fund­ing for Gov­ern­ment agen­cies for the fis­cal year to Sep­tem­ber, af­ter the $11 bil­lion deficit re­vealed. Wednes­day’s mid-year re­view tests Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo on fi­nan­cial pre­scrip­tion for how Gov­ern­ment’s bor­row­ings, Trea­sury bill frame­work and Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund fund­ing will be ap­plied.

Gov­ern­ment faces promised pub­lic ser­vant pay­ments, in­creased gra­tu­ities ac­com­pa­ny­ing this, fund­ing for the buy­out of non-re­newed con­tracts, TTRA clo­sure ex­pens­es—and agen­cies’ re­quire­ments where health RHAs alone are seek­ing $400 mil­lion in ad­di­tion­al fund­ing in SFC de­lib­er­a­tions. Af­ter the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s 2024 re­port, a clam­p­down on rentals is a giv­en now.

The PNM, in the hot spot of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s sear­ing rentals rev­e­la­tions, was in team mode against Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day. But ques­tions are sim­mer­ing among some PN­Mites on the depth of uni­ty—and sin­cer­i­ty of “One PNM’s” slate slo­gan “bring­ing back the love,” af­ter its re­cent launch graced by leader-elect Pen­ny Beck­les.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing “the pain,” plat­form en­er­gy in­di­rect­ly pelt­ing blame at for­mer lead­er­ship col­leagues, was high­er than lev­els dis­played at Mon­day’s Op­po­si­tion brief­ing on Gov­ern­ment’s per­ceived mis­deeds.

Oth­ers are con­cerned Beck­les’ ap­pear­ance with the slate sanc­tions it as her se­lec­tion be­yond oth­er can­di­dates. Some Gen­er­al Elec­tion de­feat lessons have, how­ev­er, been learned: cer­tain PN­Mites were in the field with flood-hit con­stituents. It’s ahead if Gov­ern­ment’s “every­body wins” op­er­a­tion will see PNM prov­ing oth­er­wise—turn­ing its elec­tion loss in­to a “win” for it­self.