Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go says it will, in ear­ly Jan­u­ary, pro­vide de­tails on how the gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to ex­tend the use of the for­mer Coat of Arms un­til Jan­u­ary 2, 2031, will af­fect lo­cal cur­ren­cy.

The ex­ten­sion is con­tained in Le­gal No­tice No. 468, pub­lished in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gazette on De­cem­ber 22, 2025, and made un­der Sec­tion 5(2) of the Na­tion­al Em­blems of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Reg­u­la­tion) (Amend­ment) Act, 2025. The or­der al­lows the min­is­ter to pre­scribe a lat­er date for the con­tin­ued use of the for­mer em­blem.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the CBTT to as­cer­tain if it re­ceived any for­mal di­rec­tion on whether to re­sume, re­design or per­ma­nent­ly halt the 2025 se­ries $100 poly­mer note.

The CBTT was al­so asked if the ex­ten­sion ef­fec­tive­ly nul­li­fies the orig­i­nal de­sign ap­proved for the 2025 $100 notes that fea­tured the re­vised Coat of Arms with the steel­pan.

The CBTT said, “The gazetted no­tice refers to the gen­er­al use of the Coat of Arms. As far as how this will im­pact the cur­ren­cy, the Bank will pro­vide an up­date in the first week of the new year.”

Mean­while, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo is deny­ing that the gov­ern­ment “de­layed” the use of the new Coat of Arms.

In a post to his What’s App sta­tus, Tan­coo yes­ter­day wrote, “Re­ject PNM lies & me­dia mis­chief. Both Coat of Arms are cur­rent­ly in use and have been so since the new Coat of Arms was done. Ob­vi­ous­ly then, there is NO “de­lay­ing” use of the new Coat of Arms.”

As cul­tur­al groups such as Pan Trin­ba­go ex­pressed “deep dis­ap­point­ment” over the move, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo told Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day that the de­ci­sion is root­ed in prac­ti­cal­i­ty and cost-sav­ing mea­sures, which he said could spare the coun­try mil­lions of dol­lars.

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter said the tran­si­tion pe­ri­od is a prac­ti­cal ne­ces­si­ty, cit­ing the mil­lions of dol­lars al­ready in­vest­ed in gov­ern­ment sig­nage, sta­tionery, stamps, seals and ma­te­ri­als lo­cal­ly and abroad. He added that the change ex­tends in­to com­plex and cost­ly state op­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing the re­place­ment of cur­ren­cy and mint­ing of coins, stress­ing that phas­ing out the old over time is sen­si­ble and “ab­solute­ly noth­ing clan­des­tine.”

The new Coat of Arms which re­places the three ships used by Christo­pher Colum­bus dur­ing his voy­age in 1498 with a gold steel­pan and two pan sticks, of­fi­cial­ly came in­to use fol­low­ing a procla­ma­tion by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo.

The move was ini­ti­at­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in Au­gust 2024. On Jan­u­ary 13, 2025, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives unan­i­mous­ly passed the amend­ment bill to fa­cil­i­tate the changeover. And one week lat­er the then Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment un­veiled the new de­sign cre­at­ed by lo­cal de­sign­er and jew­eller Gillian Bish­op.