KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal and diplo­mat­ic con­fronta­tion, in­sti­tu­tion­al up­heaval, and a per­va­sive sense of fear and anx­i­ety, punc­tu­at­ed on­ly oc­ca­sion­al­ly by mo­ments of re­lief, marked June.

A month-old gov­ern­ment found it­self prepar­ing a Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view and sup­ple­men­tary ap­pro­pri­a­tion, which Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar framed on June 18 not as rou­tine house­keep­ing but as an ur­gent fis­cal in­ter­ven­tion. She said the ex­er­cise aimed to “find mon­ey, shift mon­ey” to keep pub­lic ser­vices run­ning un­til the end of the fis­cal year.

Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view

June 18 de­liv­ered Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo’s first ma­jor par­lia­men­tary test, as he pre­sent­ed the Fi­nance (Sup­ple­men­tary Ap­pro­pri­a­tion) Bill, 2025, seek­ing an ad­di­tion­al $3.14 bil­lion.

Tan­coo cit­ed what he de­scribed as alarm­ing fis­cal in­di­ca­tors: a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in na­tion­al debt, a 50 per cent fall in for­eign ex­change re­serves, and a 20 per cent con­trac­tion in the econ­o­my. He es­ca­lat­ed the po­lit­i­cal stakes by ref­er­enc­ing the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s find­ing of $30 bil­lion that was “un­ver­i­fied, could not be al­lo­cat­ed, was not pre­sent­ed for au­dit or was not placed in the vote books in 2024”. He fur­ther linked it to cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment by the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion, in­clud­ing “friends, fam­i­ly and fi­nanciers ... hand­ed con­tracts with no ac­count­abil­i­ty”. The sup­ple­men­tary fund­ing, he said, was need­ed to re­verse that dam­age.

“We met T&T’s econ­o­my in the In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU) ... but we’ll fix it. We’re in cri­sis due to the PNM ... to­day we’re here to pay bills caused by the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. In this mid-year ‘cleanup bill’, we’re forced to sup­ple­ment a PNM bud­get. This isn’t our short­fall. It’s the lat­est chap­ter in their long his­to­ry of se­r­i­al un­der­bud­get­ing,” Tan­coo said.

The Op­po­si­tion re­ject­ed Tan­coo’s claims, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of po­lit­i­cal the­atrics and un­will­ing­ness to ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for its own fi­nan­cial de­ci­sions. For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert warned that the abo­li­tion of the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA), plans to elim­i­nate prop­er­ty tax, re­duce cor­po­ra­tion tax and fund cam­paign promis­es would plunge the coun­try in­to “dark and dis­mal days”.

He ar­gued that by aban­don­ing key rev­enue streams, the Gov­ern­ment left bor­row­ing as the on­ly op­tion to fi­nance the pro­ject­ed $9 bil­lion bud­get deficit. “The on­ly way that the Gov­ern­ment can fund the $9 bil­lion deficit that they are pro­ject­ing for 2025 is through bor­row­ing,” Im­bert said.

TTRA col­laps­es

On June 14, the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA) Re­peal Bill was passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives with 27 votes for and 11 against, and the Sen­ate ap­proved it two weeks lat­er. Sen­ate de­bate was in­tense; in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors split on the is­sue with ar­gu­ments for and against re­peal and de­tailed Gov­ern­ment po­si­tions against keep­ing the TTRA, cit­ing con­cerns that the act rep­re­sent­ed an un­con­sti­tu­tion­al over­reach threat­en­ing the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion’s (PSC) in­tegri­ty.

Tan­coo ar­gued that the TTRA Act was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, breached the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers, and al­so un­der­mined the in­de­pen­dence of the PSC. He al­so de­scribed the au­thor­i­ty as an ex­pen­sive fail­ure that did not im­prove rev­enue col­lec­tion.

The Gov­ern­ment said the so­lu­tion lay in restor­ing and prop­er­ly fund­ing the Board of In­land Rev­enue and the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, which it claimed the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion had de­lib­er­ate­ly weak­ened.

The Op­po­si­tion coun­tered that the TTRA ad­dressed decades of in­ef­fi­cien­cy with­in the lega­cy rev­enue sys­tem and aligned T&T with glob­al best prac­tice. The PNM dis­missed the re­peal as a reck­less move aimed at scor­ing “cheap po­lit­i­cal points”, ar­gu­ing that the Privy Coun­cil had al­ready up­held the act’s con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty.

Dur­ing an­oth­er de­bate, Per­sad-Bisses­sar read ex­cerpts from the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­port on the 2024 ac­counts, high­light­ing the ab­sence of prop­er­ty leas­es and Cab­i­net ap­provals de­spite $493 mil­lion spent on rentals un­der the PNM.

“You talk about ghost rentals, ghost land­lords, ghost leas­es, ghost Cab­i­net ap­proval ... It was a free-for-all, a feed­ing fren­zy of epic pro­por­tions at tax­pay­ers’ ex­pense, fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the PNM gov­ern­ment,” she said.

In re­sponse, Im­bert said that many of the rentals orig­i­nat­ed un­der the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion be­tween 2010 and 2015, in­clud­ing the Es­tate Trace and the Barataria build­ing, for which he stat­ed that $41 mil­lion was paid with­out oc­cu­pan­cy.

Diplo­mat­ic fall­out

June al­so marked a sharp shift in T&T’s Venezuela pol­i­cy. Per­sad-Bisses­sar piv­ot­ed to a se­cu­ri­ty-first pos­ture, em­pha­sis­ing bor­der de­fence, pro­tec­tion of T&T ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty against un­law­ful in­cur­sions, and reaf­firm­ing align­ment with the Unit­ed States.

The change fol­lowed claims by Venezue­lan of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Jus­tice Min­is­ter, that “ter­ror­ists” or “mer­ce­nar­ies” were us­ing Trinida­di­an ter­ri­to­ry to desta­bilise Venezuela. Ca­bel­lo and Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro al­leged that the group, which they said in­clud­ed Colom­bians, launched an at­tempt­ed in­cur­sion from T&T.

When Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties iden­ti­fied a Trinida­di­an na­tion­al as “Gis Kendel Jheron”, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ject­ed the claim out­right, call­ing Ca­bel­lo’s com­ments threat­en­ing and un­sup­port­ed by ev­i­dence. The in­ci­dent un­der­pinned her de­c­la­ra­tion that T&T would stand “solid­ly” with the US and con­sid­er us­ing “dead­ly force” against il­le­gal in­cur­sions.

In Ce­dros, res­i­dents ex­pressed fear as ten­sions es­ca­lat­ed. Fish­er­men warned that the rhetoric en­dan­gered their liveli­hoods and safe­ty near the mar­itime bor­der.

“The place where the fish are, we can­not go be­cause they are say­ing it’s the bor­der ... The fish­er­men from Fullar­ton vil­lage, the fish­er­men from Ica­cos vil­lage ... they can’t make a liv­ing right now,” fish­er­man Arvin Ma­habir said.

Re­gion­al­ly, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves urged re­straint and peace­ful res­o­lu­tion in line with in­ter­na­tion­al law, cau­tion­ing against in­flam­ma­to­ry lan­guage. Lo­cal­ly, Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader David Ab­du­lah called on the Gov­ern­ment to en­gage Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties di­rect­ly.

Ca­bel­lo dis­missed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments as “crazy”, in­sist­ing Venezuela posed no threat and ques­tion­ing T&T’s ca­pac­i­ty to use lethal force. For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers main­tained that diplo­mat­ic chan­nels re­mained ac­tive.

“Diplo­mat­ic chan­nels would have been en­gaged from the be­gin­ning ... That had been on­go­ing since last week Tues­day, when we first be­came ap­prised and aware of this in­ci­dent,” Sobers said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so con­firmed that re­la­tions re­mained peace­ful but re­it­er­at­ed her ad­min­is­tra­tion’s com­mit­ment to US co­op­er­a­tion on Venezue­lan is­sues.

“To­day, I want to make it very clear to the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment and of­fi­cials that they can do what­ev­er they want on Venezue­lan ter­ri­to­ry, but they can­not come here. T&T ter­ri­to­ry is off lim­its to them,” she said at a post-Cab­i­net brief­ing.

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge lat­er sig­nalled a re­view of poli­cies af­fect­ing Venezue­lan mi­grants, par­tic­u­lar­ly those of mil­i­tary age.

In­sti­tu­tion­al shake-ups

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath in­ten­si­fied scruti­ny of CEPEP af­ter an au­dit re­vealed that more than 360 con­tracts were re­newed for three-year terms short­ly be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion. He said man­age­ment con­firmed there was no Cab­i­net ap­proval.

“Sim­i­lar­ly to what oc­curred in Re­for­esta­tion, we dis­cov­ered that over 360 CEPEP con­tracts were re­newed for a pe­ri­od of three years dur­ing April 14–April 24, 2025,” Padarath said.

On June 26, the Gov­ern­ment ter­mi­nat­ed 336 CEPEP con­trac­tors, leav­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 10,500 work­ers with­out in­come. Padarath said the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al guid­ed the process and that “the com­pa­ny must re­turn to its core man­date.”

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi con­demned the move, high­light­ing its im­pact on vul­ner­a­ble work­ers, in­clud­ing sin­gle moth­ers.

WASA al­so un­der­went up­heaval, with the board ter­mi­nat­ing 10 ex­ec­u­tives, in­clud­ing CEO Kei­throy Hal­l­i­day, and ap­point­ing Jee­van Joseph as act­ing CEO. For­mer min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les crit­i­cised the changes, claim­ing ex­pe­ri­enced ex­ec­u­tives were side­lined.

At Caribbean Air­lines, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the for­mer board of mis­lead­ing the pub­lic about the air­line’s fi­nances, cit­ing a $260 mil­lion loan re­peat­ed­ly rolled over with­out re­pay­ment.

Kar­tel dis­ap­points

On the en­ter­tain­ment front, fall­out con­tin­ued from Ja­maican dance­hall artiste Adid­ja “Vy­bz Kar­tel” Palmer’s fail­ure to ap­pear at the One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val. Tan­coo re­quest­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the for­eign ex­change trans­ac­tions linked to the event.

Or­gan­is­ers said Kar­tel had re­ceived US$950,000 of a US$1.3 mil­lion con­tract be­fore with­draw­ing over al­leged breach­es. Is­land E-Tick­et and Front­line Tick­et­ing promised re­funds, while Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin con­firmed that the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch had launched a probe.

New top cop

June al­so sig­nalled a change at the helm of the Po­lice Ser­vice, as the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion nom­i­nat­ed Act­ing Snr Supt Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. Par­lia­ment lat­er ap­proved his ap­point­ment unan­i­mous­ly.

Gue­var­ro ac­knowl­edged pub­lic con­cern over crime, school vi­o­lence and trust in the ser­vice, pledg­ing stake­hold­er en­gage­ment. Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der lat­er re­vealed a pref­er­ence for is­su­ing bul­let­proof vests over body cam­eras, ex­plain­ing that al­though body cam­eras are im­por­tant, the im­me­di­ate fo­cus should be on of­fi­cers’ per­son­al safe­ty gear be­cause ex­ist­ing vests were out­dat­ed.

Wor­ri­some school vi­o­lence

In ed­u­ca­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced a ze­ro-tol­er­ance stance on school vi­o­lence, warn­ing that stu­dents who as­sault­ed teach­ers or peers would face ex­pul­sion. Par­ents who re­sort­ed to threats or vi­o­lence, she said, would face pros­e­cu­tion.

Her com­ments fol­lowed sev­er­al vi­o­lent in­ci­dents, in­clud­ing the hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion of a stu­dent at South East Port-of-Spain Sec­ondary and the as­sault of a Holy Faith Con­vent stu­dent in Cou­va. Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath lat­er re­vealed that 21,661 sec­ondary school sus­pen­sions oc­curred be­tween 2022 and 2025.

Weath­er woes

Heavy rain­fall dur­ing the sec­ond week of June trig­gered wide­spread flood­ing, prompt­ing an Or­ange Lev­el River­ine Flood Alert. Flood­ing af­fect­ed mul­ti­ple com­mu­ni­ties, while land­slides, fall­en trees and col­lapsed road­ways dis­rupt­ed trans­port. Sol­diers used mil­i­tary ve­hi­cles to trans­port stu­dents to CAPE ex­am­i­na­tions.

Our women mur­dered

The month closed un­der the shad­ow of vi­o­lence against women and girls. DNA con­fir­ma­tion in June iden­ti­fied the re­mains of autis­tic teenag­er Ma­li­ni Per­sad, whose ac­cused killer lat­er took his own life. Po­lice al­so dis­cov­ered the bod­ies of Sa­van­na Dy­er and two uniden­ti­fied His­pan­ic women, while sev­er­al oth­er women were mur­dered in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents.

Labour claims vic­to­ry

On June 19, unions marched in Fyz­abad to cel­e­brate Labour Day and the UNC’s elec­tion vic­to­ry. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the first prime min­is­ter to ad­dress the Char­lie King Junc­tion plat­form, spoke of re­open­ing the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery.

Days lat­er, Par­lia­ment passed the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill, set­ting the stage for for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young to lose el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for a PM’s pen­sion, spark­ing heat­ed Sen­ate de­bate.

June end­ed as it be­gan, with con­fronta­tion and un­cer­tain­ty, as CEPEP work­ers protest­ed for re­lief while law­mak­ers clashed in the Up­per House over pen­sions, gov­er­nance and the cost of po­lit­i­cal tran­si­tion.