Yes­ter­day morn­ing’s killing of three peo­ple in Bel­mont - in­clud­ing a 23-month-old ba­by boy who was be­ing tak­en to day­care by his fa­ther and moth­er - shocked and sick­ened many peo­ple in this coun­try, who un­for­tu­nate­ly have grown ac­cus­tomed to the al­most dai­ly re­ports of mur­ders.

“Pen­ny for your thoughts,” dear Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Pen­ne­lope Beck­les. When con­front­ed by re­porters in re­la­tion to the mat­ter of ap­point­ed Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates, Beck­les un­der­stand­ably not­ed that she had just re­turned from aboard and need­ed time to avail her­self of all that was in­volved in the mat­ter.

I don’t think the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance should treat the mid-year re­view as just a re­al­lo­ca­tion ex­er­cise for this fis­cal year. He has to do that, of course, but I think the Gov­ern­ment as a whole should be think­ing about get­ting through this 2026 fis­cal year with­out cri­sis. They should al­so be think­ing hard of fis­cal 2027 and 2028 be­cause, as our Gov­ern­ment, they need to pre­pare the ground to op­ti­mise the wind­fall in nat­ur­al gas an­tic­i­pat­ed in 2028.

Sev­er­al years ago, a re­spect­ed Caribbean in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert told me in pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion that the no­tion of “na­tion­al sov­er­eign­ty” was be­com­ing an out­dat­ed con­cept.

Af­ter all ef­forts to keep na­tion­al foot­ball hero Dwight Yorke in charge of the se­nior men's na­tion­al foot­ball team were ex­haust­ed, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) has turned to one of his as­sis­tants in Derek King.

Cit­i­zens of this coun­try need not on­ly pro­tec­tion from re­lent­less vi­o­lent crime but con­fi­dence in how that pro­tec­tion is de­liv­ered. That is why it is im­por­tant to do a care­ful ex­am­i­na­tion of the record of po­lice-in­volved killings.

Crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go is no longer just a mat­ter of sta­tis­tics, polic­ing strate­gies or po­lit­i­cal de­bate. Its most dev­as­tat­ing ef­fect is the ero­sion of our chil­dren’s safe­ty and well-be­ing. They em­body the cost of this re­lent­less vi­o­lence, ab­sorb­ing trau­ma and fear that will de­ter­mine not just their fu­tures, but the fu­ture of our na­tion.

Whether in the Sen­ate or House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, which each met yes­ter­day—with heavy ver­bal bat­tle in the House and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) un­der siege in the Sen­ate—Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion faced each oth­er with a new, hard­er at­ti­tude.

The first an­niver­sary on Tues­day of the huge vic­to­ry by Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress in the April 28, 2026, gen­er­al elec­tion should have prompt­ed a great deal of in­tro­spec­tion by both the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, as both po­lit­i­cal par­ties have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to their sup­port­ers to un­der­take re­al­is­tic as­sess­ments of their re­spec­tive po­si­tions with 20 per cent of the elec­tion cy­cle com­plet­ed.

The Prime Min­is­ter was clear and di­rect about year two of her Gov­ern­ment: “More jobs and eco­nom­ic growth and a ruth­less re­sponse to crim­i­nals...” That is the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­mit­ment. But what kind of jobs, where will the growth come from and what about jus­tice and trust?

In­for­ma­tion on the re­port­ed in­ten­tion to dis­solve the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) and to cre­ate what is be­ing re­ferred as a “Na­tion­al Fes­ti­vals Com­mit­tee,” which will take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for re­or­gan­is­ing the Car­ni­val and oth­er na­tion­al fes­ti­vals, is at­tract­ing se­ri­ous con­cern.

The re­cent re­gion­al trav­el itin­er­ary of Venezuela’s act­ing pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez has tak­en her to Grena­da and Bar­ba­dos with cal­cu­lat­ed vis­i­bil­i­ty, but most strik­ing­ly, not to Trinidad and To­ba­go her coun­try’s clos­est neigh­bour.