Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Re­porter

Law will be brought to the Par­lia­ment to raise the le­gal age for gam­bling and mar­i­jua­na use to 25 years and over and al­so in­crease the le­gal age for al­co­hol use to 21 years and old­er.

And Gov­ern­ment is re­view­ing and amend­ing the tax laws re­gard­ing pen­sions, as Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­lieves once a per­son reach­es 60 and has been con­tribut­ing to the pen­sion sys­tem for decades, they should no longer be taxed on their re­tire­ment ben­e­fits.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced the de­vel­op­ments at last night’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Mon­day Re­port in Pe­nal - first in a se­ries of such meet­ings.

In her first ad­dress re­port­ing to UNC sup­port­ers since the par­ty’s April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion vic­to­ry, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­tailed moves for up­com­ing leg­is­la­tion and oth­er de­vel­op­ments re­gard­ing the ju­di­cia­ry, Bud­get 2026 - and her in­ten­tion to con­test the par­ty’s lead­er­ship elec­tion ahead.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing there is no progress un­less peo­ple feel a pos­i­tive im­pact in their lives and pock­ets, she said, “We’ll make it hap­pen. Progress will take some time, it will re­quire con­sid­er­able ef­fort, and will in­volve mak­ing some tough de­ci­sions to lev­el the play­ing field, but this is what’s need­ed; you don’t want the next five years to be ter­ri­ble as the past ten...”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced plans she raised dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign - the planned in­crease in age to 25 for mar­i­jua­na use and gam­bling, and 21 years for al­co­hol use. Dur­ing the cam­paign, she’d re­peat­ed­ly cit­ed the neg­a­tive ef­fects of mar­i­jua­na us­age on youths and the hav­oc gam­bling ad­dic­tion and al­co­holism cause.

On ex­empt­ing pen­sions from tax, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I be­lieve that once a per­son reach­es 60 and has been con­tribut­ing to the pen­sion sys­tem for decades, they should no longer be taxed on their re­tire­ment ben­e­fits.

“This on­go­ing tax lessens the val­ue of a pen­sion, which is meant to sup­port re­tirees in their lat­er years, and can feel like dou­ble tax­a­tion—pay­ing tax­es both dur­ing work­ing years and in re­tire­ment. These tax­es strain the fi­nances of se­niors, es­pe­cial­ly those liv­ing on fixed or lim­it­ed in­comes, and can be a sig­nif­i­cant source of frus­tra­tion.”

She added, “My Gov­ern­ment will re­view and amend the tax laws re­gard­ing pen­sions to re­flect fair­ness and recog­ni­tion of life­long con­tri­bu­tions paid. Ex­empt­ing pen­sion in­come from tax­es af­ter age 60 is a fair pol­i­cy ad­just­ment that ac­knowl­edges the ser­vice and sac­ri­fices of re­tirees, while al­so strength­en­ing so­cial sup­port for the el­der­ly. This en­sures that those who have con­tributed so much are not un­du­ly bur­dened in their gold­en years.”

Stand-your-ground law in Sep­tem­ber

On stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion against home in­va­sion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill 2025 is draft­ed and ready to be is­sued for con­sul­ta­tion.

“On Thurs­day, it will be pre­sent­ed to Cab­i­net. Na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tions will then be­gin with tar­get­ed com­ple­tion in Ju­ly. We’ll make any nec­es­sary change that comes in. It will be brought to Par­lia­ment when it re­opens in Sep­tem­ber,” she added.

The bill pro­vides that:

A per­son has no du­ty to re­treat when op­er­at­ing in self-de­fence or de­fence of his prop­er­ty; that they may use de­fen­sive force, in­clud­ing dead­ly force, to pro­tect him­self or his prop­er­ty.

The of­fence of home in­va­sion would in­clude the un­law­ful en­try by a home in­vad­er in­to a dwelling house with the in­tent to use force, or threat­en the im­mi­nent use of force, on oc­cu­pants.

Al­so caters for in­stances in which a home in­vad­er in­ten­tion­al­ly caus­es in­jury to oc­cu­pants of a dwelling house, in­clud­ing griev­ous bod­i­ly harm, griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault, rape and death.

For self-de­fence, use of dead­ly force may be jus­ti­fied where an oc­cu­pant rea­son­ably be­lieves force is nec­es­sary to pre­vent death, griev­ous bod­i­ly harm, griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault or rape.

As soon as that leg­is­la­tion is im­ple­ment­ed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said amend­ments will be made to the Firearms Act to make it eas­i­er to ac­cess le­gal firearms.

“Then you can legal­ly ‘emp­ty the clip,” she quipped.

She said Gov­ern­ment will al­so col­lab­o­rate with the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to sim­pli­fy and stream­line the pep­per spray ap­pli­ca­tion process.

“Where pos­si­ble, se­nior of­fi­cers at po­lice sta­tions will be au­tho­rised to sign off on ap­pli­ca­tions. This will quick­en the process and al­low the se­nior dis­trict of­fi­cer flex­i­bil­i­ty to make re­al-time de­ci­sions re­gard­ing ap­pli­ca­tions where there are im­mi­nent threats, par­tic­u­lar­ly do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es.”

Manda­to­ry cut-off time for out­door fetes

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Gov­ern­ment al­so in­tends re­view­ing leg­is­la­tion for the grant­i­ng of bar/par­ty li­cences.

“We’ll en­able cit­i­zens to hire their own at­tor­neys to rep­re­sent their in­ter­ests at li­cenc­ing hear­ings. Cur­rent­ly, the po­lice rep­re­sent the pub­lic at hear­ings. Most of the time, they don’t ac­cu­rate­ly re­flect truth­ful opin­ions of cit­i­zens who have ob­jec­tions,” she said.

“There will al­so be leg­is­la­tion for a manda­to­ry cut-off time for all pub­lic events re­quir­ing a dance­hall li­cence that are not held with­in an en­closed build­ing, plus leg­is­la­tion re­gard­ing the use of mu­sic trucks and the cut-off times for mu­sic trucks. But there will be ex­emp­tions for fes­ti­vals.

“Mu­sic trucks have be­come a scourge, af­fect­ing ill peo­ple, and a source of ir­ri­ta­tion across T&T. Many nights you hear them play­ing mu­sic loud­ly at late hours. Fire­works leg­is­la­tion will be brought to Par­lia­ment and passed in the new term. There will be spe­cif­ic days and pe­ri­ods when per­sons will be al­lowed to use fire­works.”