Grate­ful for her ap­point­ment as an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor, Dr Mar­lene Attzs has pledged to draw on her ex­per­tise as an econ­o­mist to ad­dress press­ing na­tion­al fi­nan­cial is­sues.

Attzs was se­lect­ed as one of nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors in the 13th Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment.

She has pre­vi­ous­ly ex­pressed con­cerns about how the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to fund its cam­paign promis­es.

“Ab­solute­ly. I think the con­ver­sa­tions have on­ly just start­ed. We’re ex­pect­ing the mid-year re­view to be read at some point in time and then we’re go­ing to get the bud­get for fis­cal 2026. So some of the things I’ve been ut­ter­ing be­fore will in fact make their way in­to my con­tri­bu­tions be­cause the chal­lenges still re­main. We still have rev­enue short­falls. We still have ex­pen­di­tures that, ac­cord­ing to the prime min­is­ter, our deficit for 2025 could well be one of the largest we’ve ever seen in the coun­try. So some of my con­ver­sa­tions will still re­main and I think now I have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to el­e­vate those con­ver­sa­tions in a dif­fer­ent space.”

Com­ment­ing on her de­ci­sion to ac­cept the of­fer to join the oth­er eight in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, Attzs said it pre­sent­ed a piv­otal plat­form to fur­ther con­tribute to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

She said, “This is re­al­ly the ul­ti­mate space to be able to rep­re­sent the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. So, it was an easy de­ci­sion for me when her ex­cel­len­cy’s of­fice con­tact­ed me. It’s a con­tin­u­a­tion of what I do, rep­re­sent the peo­ple, speak for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and try to en­sure that we con­tribute to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.” —DA­REECE PO­LO