Every gov­ern­ment points to its cur­rent suc­cess, re­al or imag­ined, and blames the for­mer regime for the coun­try’s cur­rent fail­ures. Blam­ing pre­de­ces­sors is a uni­ver­sal po­lit­i­cal strat­e­gy used to de­flect ac­count­abil­i­ty, man­age pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tions and sim­pli­fy com­plex sys­temic is­sues. Lead­ers use this “blame game” to ex­plain away un­ful­filled promis­es and main­tain a nar­ra­tive of progress de­spite on­go­ing hard­ships.

The lat­est twist in the Joshua Sama­roo case has once again forced this coun­try in­to a fa­mil­iar de­bate: when dead­ly en­coun­ters oc­cur be­tween po­lice of­fi­cers and civil­ians, where does the truth re­side?

If the 13th Par­lia­ment’s First Ses­sion opened in May 2025 with cer­e­mo­ni­al panache, it end­ed yes­ter­day with un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous po­lit­i­cal punch­es in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Sen­ate.

The last six weeks have been a par­tic­u­lar­ly tor­rid pe­ri­od for this na­tion's chil­dren: On April 8, sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Saydee Jo­gie, along with three mem­bers of her fam­i­ly, were se­ri­ous­ly in­jured by a jet ski while bathing at Pi­geon Point, the world-fa­mous beach in To­ba­go; on April 18, 2026, po­lice in east Trinidad com­mu­ni­ty of Cu­mu­to dis­cov­ered the bod­ies of 50 in­fants and six adults dumped in a mass grave at its ceme­tery; on April 19, nine-year-old J'Lay­na Arm­strong was among four peo­ple ex­e­cut­ed in car on the La­dy Young Road in Mor­vant; on May 7, 23-month Aki­ni Kafi was killed af­ter the car in which he was be­ing dri­ven to day­care was blocked and the three oc­cu­pants killed.

Two meet­ings in Chi­na’s cap­i­tal, Bei­jing, which in­volved the three lead­ers who have the great­est eco­nom­ic and mil­i­tary pow­er in the world to­day, have not de­liv­ered de­fin­i­tive re­sults to at least re­duce the po­ten­tial for se­ri­ous mil­i­tary con­flict. Nei­ther have those meet­ings un­blocked the Strait of Hor­muz to ease the pres­sure on the price of oil and its im­pact on the glob­al econ­o­my.

The on­go­ing po­lit­i­cal dra­ma with­in the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion (SBC) has once again ex­posed a gap­ing chasm be­tween the le­gal frame­work gov­ern­ing those who func­tion with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies and the eth­i­cal oblig­a­tions of pub­lic ser­vice.

The ag­o­nis­ing dis­ap­pear­ance of two-year-old An­ge­lo To­bias-Plaza has shak­en Trinidad and To­ba­go to its core. For days, cit­i­zens across both is­lands have fol­lowed every de­vel­op­ment with dread, prayer and grow­ing anger. With the na­tion still mourn­ing the bru­tal killings of two-year-old Aki­ni Kafi and eight-year-old J’Lay­na Arm­strong, an­oth­er child’s name has been added to a list no so­ci­ety should ever ac­cept as nor­mal.

Once again, and not sur­pris­ing­ly, al­le­ga­tions have been made of cor­rup­tion in the award of mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar Gov­ern­ment con­tracts.

Man­ag­ing a coun­try is in­her­ent­ly chal­leng­ing, es­pe­cial­ly when deep-seat­ed eco­nom­ic and so­ci­etal prob­lems can­not re­al­is­ti­cal­ly be solved with­in a five-year elec­toral cy­cle.

The pas­sage in the Low­er House of the Crim­i­nal Records (Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of Of­fend­ers) Bill, 2026, marks a po­ten­tial­ly trans­for­ma­tive mo­ment in this coun­try’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

Fol­low­ing the re­cent spate of vi­o­lent in­ci­dents in­volv­ing school­child­ren, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath said the re­vised Na­tion­al School Code of Con­duct would be “a crit­i­cal tool in pro­mot­ing dis­ci­pline, ac­count­abil­i­ty, stu­dent sup­port and safer school en­vi­ron­ments.”

Just min­utes be­fore At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie dropped the bomb­shell that there had been a ma­jor se­cu­ri­ty threat from a Bel­mont gang mem­ber last Fri­day that re­sult­ed in par­lia­men­tar­i­ans re­ceiv­ing en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty, he made a state­ment that was even more con­se­quen­tial.