Ra­mona Ram­di­al

To­day is the first day of school for 2026, and it is ex­pect­ed to be the first of many high-traf­fic days on our na­tion’s roads this year. Will greater dri­ver dis­ci­pline be ev­i­dent in the face of ma­jor traf­fic fine in­creas­es, which took ef­fect on New Year’s Day? Will there be an eas­ing of the traf­fic jams? Will there be less road car­nage? Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­fend­ed these in­creas­es as mea­sures aimed at cor­rect­ing the “en­ti­tled at­ti­tudes of some cit­i­zens” which have made our coun­try a “law­less dump.”

This ex­pres­sion re­mind­ed me of US Pres­i­dent Trump’s com­ment about “S-hole coun­tries” in 2018 and of our re­cent Moody’s down­grade to “Junk” sta­tus. Is the PM serv­ing “tough love” to in­cite re­me­di­al ac­tion from the cit­i­zen­ry? The feed­back I re­ceived was most­ly one of anger and dis­sat­is­fac­tion, as sev­er­al felt that the PM broke her cam­paign promise that “a UNC gov­ern­ment will re­duce traf­fic fines across the board.”

Pre­vi­ous­ly, she viewed in­creased traf­fic fines as a “scheme for gov­ern­ment rev­enue col­lec­tion.” Along with oth­er new tax­es, fees, and in­creas­es, it is clear that the elec­tion­eer­ing is over. Af­ter pub­lic back­lash, the Prime Min­is­ter was “will­ing to re­duce traf­fic fines to low­er than they pre­vi­ous­ly were … if there is a de­crease in road deaths, reck­less dri­ving, and drunk dri­ving” by mid-2026.

The Prime Min­is­ter re­port­ed a 42 per cent de­crease in the mur­der rate, down to 369 in 2025. She cred­it­ed the coun­try’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty lead­er­ship, a strength­ened strate­gic al­liance with the Unit­ed States, the “stand-your-ground” leg­is­la­tion, and the State of Emer­gency. She high­light­ed the TTPS’ seizure of 673 il­le­gal firearms and over three tonnes of mar­i­jua­na. These ef­forts are ap­pre­ci­at­ed. I know many who would say that is the kind of po­lice work that they ful­ly sup­port, but not so much their achieve­ments in road traf­fic of­fences. Watch out for those oil leaks!

I heard the many voic­es of­fend­ed by our PM’s de­scrip­tion of our coun­try as a “law­less dump,” and per­haps I would have joined the in­dig­na­tion with my own na­tion­al pride but right now, in my own com­mu­ni­ty, we are be­ing ter­rorised by heavy and in­dis­crim­i­nate dump­ing of garbage along a par­tic­u­lar road­way that cuts through un­oc­cu­pied state lands.

In 2008, and in the same lo­ca­tion, as pres­i­dent of the vil­lage coun­cil, with sev­er­al agri­cul­tur­al groups, I had protest­ed plans by the EM­B­DC to build hous­es on those arable lands. Sad­ly, the fail­ure of the au­thor­i­ties to ful­ly cul­ti­vate the land since then has def­i­nite­ly es­tab­lished a “law­less dump!”

When­ev­er the coun­cil­lor or re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion has the garbage re­moved, the “law­less dumpers” re­turn, worse than be­fore. This area is an ide­al lo­ca­tion for a TTPS cam­era in­stal­la­tion. I won­der why the fines for lit­ter­ing were not dou­bled. This would be a most de­served con­tri­bu­tion to the cof­fers for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

I can­not dis­agree with the Prime Min­is­ter when she speaks of “the en­ti­tled at­ti­tudes of some cit­i­zens who be­lieve they can do what­ev­er they want while in­con­ve­nienc­ing oth­ers with­out con­se­quences.” How­ev­er, a “law­less” so­ci­ety could al­so be the prod­uct of poor leg­is­la­tion and/or poor en­force­ment. How can the Gov­ern­ment and TTPS be more ef­fec­tive in get­ting the re­al “bad guys”? Are they set­ting the ex­am­ple them­selves? It was brought to my at­ten­tion that a ju­nior Hous­ing Min­is­ter was us­ing a cell­phone to record a video while dri­ving with­out a seat­belt. What if a reg­u­lar mo­torist does the same thing? Is this not an ex­am­ple of “en­ti­tle­ment?”

With­in the same min­istry, the HDC chair­man prob­a­bly did not hear the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent com­ments when he spoke about a plan to reg­u­larise squat­ters in HDC units. Isn’t that a re­ward for “law­less­ness?” Per­haps peo­ple who ap­plied for HDC hous­ing many years ago should have just oc­cu­pied any va­cant unit of their choice? “Law­less dump” in­deed!

The bur­den of de­liv­ery is square­ly on the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment from the first day of 2026. They are no longer “new,” and even those who de­fend them are ex­pect­ing the de­liv­ery of goods and ser­vices, a bet­ter econ­o­my, and a safe and se­cure coun­try. MPs and coun­cil­lors have a lot of work to do. The cit­i­zens have no more pa­tience, and they are on­ly go­ing to in­crease their de­mands.

When will our roads be paved? There are even pot­holes on our high­ways! Pub­lic spaces are over­grown, and our drains are over­flow­ing and clogged. Will the in­creased tax­es and fines be used to fix such ba­sic in­fra­struc­ture?

Our Prime Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed that “our bright­est days are still ahead. The best is yet to come!” That is a promise we ex­pect her Gov­ern­ment to de­liv­er on this year.