When Guyana Pres­i­dent Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali vis­it­ed T&T in 2023, he had lunch at the Break­fast Shed (Femmes du Chalet), some­thing un­like­ly dur­ing his T&T vis­it yes­ter­day.

Ali will have had no il­lu­sions about T&T, af­ter par­tic­i­pa­tion in yes­ter­day’s T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try & Com­merce busi­ness out­look for 2026/27 and oth­er en­gage­ments - in­clud­ing with Gov­ern­ment.

It was an­oth­er mile­mark day for Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment, weeks from its one-year an­niver­sary; the PM yes­ter­day coun­ter­ing chal­lenges and crises - and pro­mot­ing T&T to Ali - with pos­i­tives re­gard­ing Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny prof­it and TT NGL Lim­it­ed.

Among chal­lenges: nurs­es hit the streets yes­ter­day, an­oth­er of its of­fi­cial protest march­es af­ter most unions were si­lenced by Gov­ern­ment’s back­pay/salary hikes.

Al­so: yes­ter­day’s bor­der se­cu­ri­ty bill de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment was a grim re­minder of the sear­ing­ly trag­ic death of lit­tle An­gel­i­ca Saydee Jo­gie, hit by a jet ski dri­ver at To­ba­go’s pre­mier Pi­geon Point tourist lo­ca­tion. There was no im­me­di­ate com­mis­er­a­tion/ac­tion call from Per­sad-Bisses­sar, known to pro­nounce on trag­ic deaths be­fore.

There’s no sym­pa­thy for her as­so­ciate To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and his col­leagues on the tragedy. Au­gus­tine’s record of East­er ben­e­fits To­ba­go reaped can­not stand along­side the child’s death, with queries on why his THA nev­er act­ed on jet ski dan­gers that have in­creased.

It’s an in­dict­ment on THA of­fi­cials if they don’t know the tiny lit­tle is­land and res­i­dents un­der their charge. And if they’re ig­no­rant of the well-known jet ski lo­ca­tions/busi­ness­es, “jock­eys” and routes, par­tic­u­lar­ly Store Bay to Pi­geon Point.

Try­ing to use the lit­tle beach par­al­lel to the road from Pi­geon Point’s gate­way to the Point is a stress­ful ex­er­cise in de­cap­i­ta­tion avoid­ance. Jet skiers zoom up and down the Pi­geon Point/Store Bay strip. For cul­prits run­ning close to shore, a bather must stand to en­sure they see a hu­man - not a co­conut. Where are their li­cences? Train­ing cours­es. Who’s tu­tor­ing? Dai­ly drug/al­co­hol tests? Life­jack­ets for pas­sen­gers? How some are al­lowed to dri­ve.

How can An­gel­i­ca’s fam­i­ly or any­one from Trinidad re­turn to To­ba­go af­ter the sto­ry of her death - in a crowd­ed, roped-off en­clo­sure - went vi­ral.

Trinidad isn’t far be­hind. If Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and De­fence Min­is­ters Roger Alexan­der and Wayne Sturge face poor re­views from their boss, Alexan­der con­firmed the depth of Gov­ern­ment’s predica­ment af­ter the SoE emerged as no crime-stop­per. He urged a pub­lic/law en­force­ment part­ner­ship. Which the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment did.

Fox News last Sun­day list­ed T&T among “Five dan­ger­ous cruise ports that trav­ellers should re­search be­fore book­ing ex­cur­sions.” It cit­ed Trav­el Scouts’ pod­cast, which al­so not­ed Be­lize, Ja­maica, Mex­i­co and Haiti.

East­er Sun­day’s cur­ry duck do by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo’s Fyz­abad con­stituen­cy might have sig­nalled good times. But telling­ly, Fyz­abad Cham­ber pres­i­dent Clint Ar­joon lament­ed ris­ing tax­a­tion and high crime forc­ing busi­ness clo­sure, plus no mean­ing­ful re­lief post-Bud­get.

The sto­ry’s the same with oth­er busi­ness groups, some hop­ing for Gov­ern­ment-tout­ed respite. It’s ahead if the Gov­ern­ment’s up­com­ing mis­sion to Venezuela earns pos­i­tives to boost Tan­coo’s mid-year re­view, as the PM’s NGC/TTNGL news. And more are ex­pect­ed pre-re­view.

Tan­coo, who hasn’t said when his Bud­get promise of pen­sion tax ex­emp­tion will ma­te­ri­alise, now needs to ad­dress the ef­fect of an­oth­er is­sue which was ex­pect­ed: sig­nif­i­cant ship­ping (bunker) fu­el in­crease on im­port­ed car­go be­tween US, Cana­da and the Caribbean be­gin­ning mid- month. Busi­ness­es say it will hike costs, caus­ing in­fla­tion.

Such eco­nom­ic tur­moil is amid Per­sad- Bisses­sar’s “demi­tasse squall” with Cari­com on the reap­point­ment of its sec­re­tary gen­er­al, af­ter she left the con­fer­ence where the mat­ter was un­der­tak­en. It’s ahead how yes­ter­day’s Cari­com meet­ing on T&T’s com­plaint im­pacts T&T For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, his boss and T&T. Gov­ern­ment’s shak­en T&T’s Cari­com place at a bad time of a con­strict­ed war-torn glob­al land­scape. Mi­nus lux­u­ry of time, place and thriv­ing ac­tiv­i­ties to af­ford dra­ma, it’s ahead what T&T’s pok­ing pro­duces re­gion­al­ly.

Nom­i­na­tions close to­day for the To­ba­go PNM’s in­ter­nal elec­tions, with a lead­er­ship fight be­tween de­feat­ed ex-As­sem­bly­man Kelvon Mor­ris (seek­ing PNM uni­fi­ca­tion sup­port­ed by de­ci­sion mak­ers, in­clud­ing for­mer Coun­cil lead­ers) and de­feat­ed ex-MP Sham­fa Cud­joe (al­so seek­ing par­ty re­vival). PNM’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment prep in­cludes re­gard­ing UNC’s tar­gets (Ari­ma to Diego Mar­tin) and South, where UNC’s con­sol­i­dat­ing sup­port.

It’s ahead what An­gel­i­ca’s lega­cy brings Au­gus­tine, Per­sad-Bisses­sar - and how NGC and TTNGL perks will be used. Be­yond im­age back­up.