Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Gov­ern­ment is promis­ing a “very ro­bust” leg­isla­tive agen­da when Par­lia­ment re­sumes on Fri­day, with leg­is­la­tion aimed at re­mov­ing what the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion de­scribes as a long­stand­ing bot­tle­neck in the con­struc­tion ap­proval process set to come be­fore the House.

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Bar­ry Padarath con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that the Pub­lic Health (Amend­ment) (No 2) Bill, 2026 will be among the leg­is­la­tion be­fore MPs when the House re­turns on Sep­tem­ber 11.

Par­lia­ment has been on its mid-year break since June 18.

“The Pub­lic Health Amend­ment Bill 2026 will be de­bat­ed. The Gov­ern­ment has a very ro­bust agen­da when the House re­sumes from Fri­day,” Padarath said in re­sponse to ques­tions about the Gov­ern­ment’s leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ties.

The Bill seeks to re­move the over­sight of Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cers of Health (CMOH) from the con­struc­tion per­mit­ting sys­tem.

Its ex­plana­to­ry note states that this will be achieved by re­peal­ing Sec­tion 35A of the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance and re­vok­ing bye-law 6 of the Pub­lic Health (Streets and Build­ings) Bye-Laws.

The leg­is­la­tion would elim­i­nate a lay­er of health ap­proval from the con­struc­tion per­mit­ting process, which the Gov­ern­ment has ar­gued du­pli­cates work al­ready be­ing car­ried out by oth­er State agen­cies.

The move was first an­nounced by Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein in April af­ter Cab­i­net ap­proved the re­moval of CMOH over­sight.

At the time, Ho­sein said the ex­ist­ing process was con­tribut­ing to sig­nif­i­cant de­lays in ob­tain­ing ap­provals, with CMOH ap­proval tak­ing an av­er­age of eight months and, in some in­stances, as long as two years.

He ar­gued that the pub­lic health is­sues be­ing as­sessed were al­ready cov­ered by oth­er agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty, Drainage Di­vi­sion, re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and pub­lic health in­spec­tors.

Ho­sein said re­mov­ing the re­quire­ment was in­tend­ed to re­duce bu­reau­cra­cy, im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy and make it eas­i­er to do busi­ness in the con­struc­tion sec­tor.

The Bill is rel­a­tive­ly brief, con­tain­ing five claus­es. Apart from re­peal­ing Sec­tion 35A and re­vok­ing the rel­e­vant bye-law, it pro­vides that the changes will come in­to op­er­a­tion on a date fixed by the Pres­i­dent by procla­ma­tion.

How­ev­er, there re­mains un­cer­tain­ty over when an­oth­er set of leg­isla­tive changes pre­vi­ous­ly sig­nalled by the Gov­ern­ment will reach Par­lia­ment.

Guardian Me­dia al­so asked Padarath when the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to bring leg­is­la­tion to in­crease the le­gal drink­ing and gam­bling ages, as well as the age for mar­i­jua­na con­sump­tion, but he did not re­spond to those ques­tions.

Ear­li­er this year, Padarath in­di­cat­ed that changes to the drink­ing and gam­bling ages were among mea­sures the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to ad­dress “in the com­ing months.”

Speak­ing dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions in April, Padarath said cit­i­zens could ex­pect sev­er­al key pieces of leg­is­la­tion to be brought to Par­lia­ment in the months ahead.

No time­line has since been pro­vid­ed for those pro­posed changes.