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Saturday, July 26, 2025

PM to MPs: No partying during SoE

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5 days ago
20250721

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Fol­low­ing crit­i­cism over re­cent so­cial out­ings by some UNC par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has urged mem­bers of her Gov­ern­ment to avoid “par­ty­ing and fete­ing” while the coun­try re­mains un­der a State of Emer­gency (SoE), say­ing this is not the time for such ac­tiv­i­ties.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der con­firmed the di­rec­tive yes­ter­day and de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to im­ple­ment the SoE, ref­er­enc­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) for­mal re­quest for it and le­gal ad­vice from At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, who sup­port­ed the move.

Alexan­der spoke to Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a break in yes­ter­day’s bud­get con­sul­ta­tions at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, which drew over 600 at­ten­dees.

He de­clined to com­ment on the can­cel­la­tion of the UNC’s pub­lic meet­ing sched­uled for tonight in Cou­va, where the Prime Min­is­ter was set to speak. When con­tact­ed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “All cit­i­zens should ex­er­cise a height­ened sense of alert dur­ing the SoE.”

UNC PRO Kirk Meighoo ex­plained that the meet­ing was can­celled on the ad­vice of se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials, though he de­clined to spec­i­fy the na­ture of that ad­vice.

Alexan­der ac­knowl­edged that the Prime Min­is­ter’s di­rec­tive to Gov­ern­ment mem­bers came af­ter some UNC par­lia­men­tar­i­ans at­tend­ed the Unit­ed States Em­bassy’s In­de­pen­dence Day cock­tail par­ty, which had been post­poned from Ju­ly 4.

“It was a good net­work­ing event... a bunch of us went,” he said. “But she said that’s not a good look right now, so we’re be­ing guid­ed.”

He clar­i­fied, how­ev­er, that he was not present at a re­cent so­cial event held in To­ba­go.

Alexan­der al­so pushed back against crit­i­cism from small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties, who claimed the SoE was a re­cy­cled strat­e­gy from the “PNM play­book.”

He said: “The Con­sti­tu­tion al­lows for a se­ri­ous in­ter­ven­tion when na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns go be­yond the scope of nor­mal law en­force­ment. It’s usu­al­ly re­served for cat­a­stro­phes or dis­as­ters.

“Crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go has al­most be­come a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter,” he added.

“The Gov­ern­ment has been do­ing every­thing it can to ad­dress it, but we’ve seen a spike, es­pe­cial­ly with a lot of po­lit­i­cal hy­per­bole in the pub­lic space that seems to be in­cit­ing peo­ple.”

Alexan­der said he had heard voice notes cir­cu­lat­ing in which gang mem­bers ap­peared to be en­cour­ag­ing un­rest.

“The Gov­ern­ment is be­ing test­ed, and I think the Prime Min­is­ter is not above re­spond­ing. So the SoE is an ex­cel­lent de­ci­sion at this time to cool down all of that rhetoric.”

Re­spond­ing to claims that the UNC Gov­ern­ment is “bereft of ideas” and mere­ly copy­ing the PNM, Alexan­der said, “Bereft of ideas? She (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) has ac­cess to many bril­liant minds and a pow­er­ful Cab­i­net. We have no short­age of ideas.”

He added: “We all read the same TTPS re­lease ask­ing for the SoE. The AG ad­vised it was the right move, and the Gov­ern­ment act­ed ac­cord­ing­ly. The SoE is not a crime-fight­ing tac­tic—it ad­dress­es spe­cif­ic se­cu­ri­ty threats that were in­her­it­ed from the last ad­min­is­tra­tion. We’re man­ag­ing that and putting it ‘back in the bot­tle.’”

Alexan­der ac­cused the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion of call­ing an SoE with­out pro­vid­ing up­dates or trans­paren­cy.

Re­gard­ing when the SoE might end, and whether Par­lia­ment will re­con­vene be­fore the ini­tial 15-day pe­ri­od ex­pires on Au­gust 2 to seek an ex­ten­sion, Alexan­der said no guid­ance had been giv­en to min­is­ters so far.

“I be­lieve the Prime Min­is­ter is be­ing ad­vised by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and the TTPS. When she’s briefed, we’re briefed.”

As for whether a ded­i­cat­ed Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter will be ap­point­ed, Alexan­der said: “The Prime Min­is­ter is keep­ing a firm grip on mes­sag­ing, and that’s a wise move giv­en all the mov­ing parts. She un­der­stands com­mu­ni­ca­tion bet­ter than most, and I too look for­ward to the ap­point­ment of a sub­stan­tive Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter.”


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