Gail Alexan­der

The Red House was abuzz yes­ter­day with si­mul­ta­ne­ous Sen­ate and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives sit­tings.

Yet an­oth­er sign of the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion’s mov­ing on with busi­ness re­gard­ing T&T’s pri­or­i­ties of fi­nance and se­cu­ri­ty and that its as­sign­ment list is long. In case PSA’s back­pay “bac­cha­nal” and se­cu­ri­ty is­sues didn’t in­di­cate this.

The Fi­nance 2025 Bill in the House sig­nalled moves be­yond 2026 Bud­get items, to ex­pand/re­in­force the econ­o­my via rev­enue-earn­ing mea­sures and bor­row­ings - the lat­ter re­flect­ing the depth of Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 com­mit­ments.

The Home In­va­sion (Self De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill 2025 in the Sen­ate re­flect­ed what T&T and Gov­ern­ment face on se­cu­ri­ty, il­lus­trat­ed in Trade Min­is­ter Ka­ma Ma­haraj’s state­ments on crime’s ef­fect, par­tic­u­lar­ly in­clud­ing re­jec­tion of his for­eign out­reach­es.

It’s im­por­tant giv­en Gov­ern­ment’s hope for re­turns from re­cent meet­ings with the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates and Khal­i­fa Port of­fi­cials. Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said T&T was ad­ver­tised as pos­sess­ing ease of do­ing busi­ness, com­mit­ment to se­cu­ri­ty and a sta­ble democ­ra­cy. With a Jan­u­ary 22 dead­line for ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est, they said more trips are ahead.

Se­cu­ri­ty’s al­so key, as Amer­i­ca’s threat of land strikes on Venezuela re­mains hang­ing, with four De­mo­c­rat and Re­pub­li­can law­mak­ers seek­ing a new war pow­ers res­o­lu­tion if there’s a strike with­in Venezuela. US back­foot sta­tus al­so cen­tres on its War Sec­re­tary’s is­sues, in­clud­ing the Sep­tem­ber 2 “dou­ble strike” on two sur­vivors from a strike on a boat.

That brought T&T in­to the pic­ture again. “The Hill,” which cov­ers the US Con­gress, stat­ed that in the in­ci­dent “a mis­sile was fired off the Trinidad coast and hit its tar­get.” Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s flip-flop on the US-in­stalled To­ba­go radar fea­tured in so many over­seas pub­li­ca­tions that it reached Ukraine’s “Mil­i­tarnyi” and the US mil­i­tary com­mu­ni­ty’s “Mil­i­tary.com.”

The PM’s sub­se­quent full re­sponse on To­ba­go’s radar con­firmed ac­knowl­edge­ment of the dam­age done by pre­vi­ous pos­tures. Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials said the tem­po­rary radar in Trinidad she dis­closed, is up.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s as­sur­ance to cit­i­zens on edge, un­for­tu­nate­ly, didn’t ac­knowl­edge the feel­ings of folk, con­front­ed by US mil­i­tary planes - re­port­ed­ly five land­ings - mi­nus au­thor­i­ties’ ex­pla­na­tion, in­clud­ing their Chief Sec­re­tary’s. Her state­ment’s trig­gered more queries.

Why wasn’t a full ex­pla­na­tion giv­en when she was first ques­tioned? Why “tem­po­rary” radars - not new per­ma­nent ones if need­ed to de­tect drug cul­prits? “Tem­po­rary “un­til when?

Since the radar’s de­scribed as re­quired to be set up on site with­in 45 min­utes, will the 200 Marines in To­ba­go be here dur­ing THA elec­tions and re­main un­til af­ter Car­ni­val? Is their de­par­ture date con­nect­ed to the US Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s No­vem­ber no­tice for Puer­to Ri­co to South­ern Caribbean op­er­a­tors to ex­er­cise ex­treme cau­tion due to in­creased state air­craft dur­ing No­vem­ber 18, 2025, to Feb­ru­ary 15, 2026?

Why an AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR radar (which no one’s de­nied), de­scribed as Ma­rine Corps Air Sur­veil­lance/Air De­fence and Air Traf­fic Con­trol equip­ment ca­pa­ble of de­tect­ing mis­siles, drones, air-breath­ing tar­gets, rock­ets, ar­tillery, and mor­tars - and be­ing he­li­coptered to the site, in­clud­ing via MV-22B Os­prey tilt-ro­tor air­craft?

If the US didn’t need a radar in T&T for cer­tain pur­pos­es, why was that sought in An­tigua and Grena­da, where there was no talk of “as­sist­ing” their radar? Why was the PM’s radar re­quest “months ago” not shared pub­licly as com­fort amid crime?

Whether or not it’s a gift to To­ba­go, as­sist­ing Gov­ern­ment’s To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) part­ner for THA polls, radar ar­rival and US mil­i­tary in­volve­ment amid US/Venezuela ten­sions has turned it in­to a THA elec­tion cam­paign is­sue.

TPP leader/Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s replies on the mat­ter may as­sist his par­ty less than woo­ing ex- PNM To­ba­go West chair­man Keigon De­noon to TPP might. Au­gus­tine’s re­mark that he wasn’t sur­prised he wasn’t con­sult­ed on the US troops, but “it sharp­ened the con­ver­sa­tions about what au­ton­o­my should mean for To­ba­go,” ac­knowl­edged by he sit­u­a­tion’s im­pact for TPP and oth­er­wise.

While it serves the PNM as a ba­sis to present TPP’s per­for­mance, some PN­Mites be­lieve the Jan­u­ary 12 elec­tion may be an up­hill bat­tle, though oth­ers say word of De­noon’s TPP links ar­rived ear­ly enough for PNM to or­gan­ise af­fairs. De­noon’s con­test­ing against To­ba­go PNM leader An­cil Den­nis, who can ill af­ford an­oth­er loss af­ter 2021. Nor can the PNM, with leader Pen­ny Beck­les/team still “com­ing along” in­to their role.