Econ­o­mist Pro­fes­sor Roger Ho­sein be­lieves Trinidad and To­ba­go could con­tin­ue run­ning fis­cal deficits un­til 2040, warn­ing that the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic fragili­ty re­quires ur­gent ac­tion to ex­pand non-en­er­gy ex­ports, im­prove labour force par­tic­i­pa­tion and re­duce its de­pen­dence on Gov­ern­ment spend­ing.

If the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor and the Named Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cer (NPO) were a mar­riage, we would now be sit­ting in cou­ples ther­a­py. I would be on one side of the room, ex­haust­ed from car­ry­ing the weight of the re­la­tion­ship, while the Reg­u­la­tor sat on the oth­er side in­sist­ing that the rules of the house­hold were clear. The ther­a­pist would ask, “When did com­mu­ni­ca­tion break down?” My an­swer would be sim­ple: it broke down when I need­ed sup­port and was met with si­lence.

A few weeks ago, I watched The AI Doc: Or How I Be­came an Apoc­alop­ti­mist on Net­flix. The doc­u­men­tary, di­rect­ed by Daniel Ro­her and Char­lie Tyrell, fol­lows a fa­ther-to-be as he tries to un­der­stand the world his child will in­her­it. Its ques­tions about ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence stayed with me be­cause they reach be­yond tech­nol­o­gy in­to par­ent­ing, ed­u­ca­tion, work and trust.

Cro­chet­ing is a skill in which the av­er­age young per­son may not be in­ter­est­ed, but 18-year-old Aliyah Pope has turned it in­to a busi­ness. Un­der her brand Tia­Hooked­It, she crotch­ets swim­suits, pants, shirts, hand­bags, hair ties, buck­et hats, key chains and a num­ber of oth­er items, which can be or­dered from her on­line store.

Bud­get 2027 mea­sures could help cush­ion the im­pact of T&T’s “strug­gling” econ­o­my, econ­o­mist Dr Mar­lene Attzs has said.

A con­sis­tent theme run­ning through my com­men­taries in the last 30-plus years has been strong and con­sis­tent ad­vo­ca­cy for the di­vest­ment (and pri­vati­sa­tion) of state-owned com­pa­nies in T&T. A re­cur­ring theme in my ear­li­er BG View com­men­taries has been that pri­vatis­ing state en­ter­pris­es (us­ing tem­plates of the ini­tial pub­lic of­fer­ing of First Cit­i­zens, Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd and Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Ltd) trans­fers wealth from the State di­rect­ly to T&T na­tion­als and lo­cal in­sti­tu­tion­al in­vestors.

Re­gion­al econ­o­mist Je­re­my Stephen is warn­ing that Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd can face a pe­ri­od of re­duced prof­itabil­i­ty and strate­gic un­cer­tain­ty fol­low­ing last week’s res­ig­na­tion of board di­rec­tor Ed­ward Ince and the de­par­ture of CEO-des­ig­nate Richard Sam­my, de­vel­op­ments he says that have cre­at­ed un­set­tling sig­nals for cus­tomers, share­hold­ers and the wider mar­ket.

For years, peo­ple have told me there is on­ly so much I can build as a solo­pre­neur. Even­tu­al­ly, they ar­gue, the ideas will out­grow the hours avail­able to ex­e­cute them.

Three years ago, the Jun­ta de Aviación Civ­il (JAC), the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s civ­il avi­a­tion board, grant­ed ul­tra-low cost car­ri­er (UL­CC) Ara­jet Air­lines per­mis­sion to op­er­ate flights be­tween the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and Trinidad & To­ba­go. Ear­li­er this year, T&T signed an Air Ser­vices Agree­ment with the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic clear­ing the way for sched­uled flights. How­ev­er, de­spite hav­ing per­mis­sion to fly, Ara­jet says the ear­li­est po­ten­tial start date for sched­uled flights is 2028.

A po­lit­i­cal war of words has erupt­ed over doc­u­men­ta­tion linked to the Drag­on Gas Project, with En­er­gy Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal ac­cus­ing for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young of neg­li­gence and mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion, while Young has fired back, dis­miss­ing the claims as dis­hon­est and urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to seek copies of the agree­ments from par­ties in­volved in the project.

Tra­cy To­bias has been for­mal­ly con­firmed as chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Ex­port-Im­port Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ex­im­Bank), as the state-owned in­sti­tu­tion en­ters a new phase of lead­er­ship fol­low­ing the de­par­ture of for­mer CEO Navin Dook­er­an last De­cem­ber.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GDP) in con­stant prices de­clined by 1.8 per cent in the first quar­ter of 2026, com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2025.