Po­lice and sol­diers can­not be de­ployed un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act un­til they are trained in hu­man rights, the use of force and con­flict de-es­ca­la­tion, rais­ing ques­tions about how soon the new crime-fight­ing pow­ers can be put in­to ef­fect.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has rub­bished claims by Op­po­si­tion MP and for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les that the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) may be fail­ing to ad­e­quate­ly treat the coun­try’s wa­ter be­cause of an in­abil­i­ty to pay sup­pli­ers of treat­ment chem­i­cals.

The rel­a­tives of peo­ple re­ceiv­ing treat­ment at the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency (A&E) De­part­ment of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC), Mt Hope, say they ful­ly agree with com­ments from po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front Mick­ela Pan­day, liken­ing con­di­tions at the unit to that of a “war­zone.”

For­mer En­er­gy Min­is­ter and Port-o- Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young is ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of pre­sid­ing over the col­lapse of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy sec­tor amid mount­ing un­cer­tain­ty over ma­jor in­dus­tri­al op­er­a­tions and job loss­es at Pro­man.