The Gov­ern­ment out­ma­noeu­vred the Op­po­si­tion in wind­ing up the 2026 Bud­get de­bate in the wee hours on the Sat­ur­day be­fore Di­vali. The Gov­ern­ment’s 2-1 ad­van­tage al­lowed them to de­ploy their front­line in­fantry of the green­est mem­bers of Gov­ern­ment, while the Op­po­si­tion lay in wait to as­sault the Gov­ern­ment’s high-val­ue tar­gets. They nev­er emerged, and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Tan­coo caught the Op­po­si­tion nap­ping.

How­ev­er, the sub­se­quent sit­tings of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC) per­mit­ted the ex­pe­ri­enced for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment min­is­ters to turn the ta­bles. Min­istry by min­istry, they ex­posed cuts and non-pro­vi­sions for par­tic­u­lar cam­paign promis­es. I be­lieve the Gov­ern­ment should have opened with the ex­pe­ri­enced min­is­ters in the SFC. Each min­is­ter is sub­ject to in­ter­ro­ga­tion based on their port­fo­lios. All the Op­po­si­tion has to do is tar­get and fire, and boy did they own it!

I my­self re­main par­tic­u­lar­ly proud of skew­er­ing the PNM-con­trolled To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly as a for­mer op­po­si­tion MP re­spon­si­ble for To­ba­go’s af­fairs. I fre­quent­ly found waste, mis­man­age­ment, and cor­rup­tion in al­most every line item. Ahead of the SFC, the new min­is­ters should have at least prac­tised with a dev­il’s ad­vo­cate. Us­ing the life­line of “pro­vid­ing de­tails in writ­ing” too of­ten erodes con­fi­dence in the min­is­ter.

Even the com­ic re­lief of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Alexan­der en­ter­tains but hard­ly re­as­sures. His modus operan­di ap­pears to be “if you can’t daz­zle them with bril­liance, baf­fle them with (some­thing else).” “Most­ly could be half of the most” was one of Min­is­ter Alexan­der’s more re­cent di­ver­sions dur­ing an SFC sit­ting.

The an­tic­i­pat­ed pro­vi­sions for the 10% salary in­crease for the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion mem­bers were not dis­cernible so far, but Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo ex­plained that the mid-term re­view would ad­dress this fol­low­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Con­verse­ly, when for­mer Ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly asked her suc­ces­sor about a par­tic­u­lar “$903 mil­lion” in­crease, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath re­spond­ed, “Back­pay ar­rears, the 5%.” So, my for­mer teach­ing col­leagues will have to con­sole them­selves with an ear­li­er pay­off.

Al­though Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not con­tribute to the Bud­get de­bate, her new pet project of fill­ing “20,450 pub­lic ser­vice va­can­cies” has be­gun. Em­ploytt.gov.tt pro­vides the on­line por­tal, while the in-per­son dri­ve ran through­out last week at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre, Cou­va. Speak­ing at the na­tion­al re­cruit­ment dri­ve last Thurs­day, the PM re­ferred to short-term em­ploy­ment like CEPEP and URP as a “kind of slaver.” How­ev­er, it is al­leged that every re­gion was reg­is­ter­ing qui­et­ly for the URP Pro­gramme last week.

What are the em­ploy­ment tar­gets over time, though? Will 20,450 po­si­tions be filled? By when? Are any of the po­si­tions re­dun­dant? Why weren’t they filled be­fore? Re­gard­less, this must bring hope to many thou­sands. It has been said that 110,000 ap­pli­ca­tions have al­ready been re­ceived. The first line of hir­ing should be a body of cler­i­cal and screen­ing per­son­nel to short­list the best can­di­dates for each po­si­tion. In­di­vid­u­als not mak­ing the ini­tial cut should be of­fered oth­er avail­able po­si­tions based on their ex­pe­ri­ence, skills, and qual­i­fi­ca­tions. Mer­it should ap­ply and not just place­ment for sta­tis­tics. Should a per­son be placed in a po­si­tion for which they dis­play lit­tle com­pe­tence or com­mit­ment? “Pro­vid­ing 20,000+ jobs” sounds com­pelling, though!

Best of luck to the Gov­ern­ment and all ap­pli­cants. Hope­ful­ly, they will pay their NIS, in­come tax­es, and con­tribute to in­creased do­mes­tic eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty. We look for­ward to the pre­sen­ta­tion of the key per­for­mance in­di­ca­tors for this pro­gramme.

T&T fi­nal­ly got its new Chief Jus­tice, Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh. The Op­po­si­tion claimed that the ap­point­ment was rushed through by act­ing Pres­i­dent Wade Mark. How­ev­er, the just re­tired CJ of 17 years, Mr Ivor Archie, was ap­point­ed the day his pre­de­ces­sor, CJ Sat Shar­ma, re­tired on Jan­u­ary 23rd, 2008. I am un­both­ered. Does CJ Boodoos­ingh have it in him to make the ur­gent and sweep­ing changes re­quired? We hope that be­hind his qui­et and unas­sum­ing vis­age is the change agent who will fix our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. Will his lega­cy be that of de­liv­er­ing ‘jus­tice on time’? What are his views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment? Will he be able to fast-track high-pro­file cas­es, which will help to lift pub­lic con­fi­dence and the ex­pec­ta­tion that there is hope for the thou­sands of oth­er lan­guish­ing mat­ters? The court of pub­lic opin­ion does not ad­journ, and even a CJ is not im­mune to its prej­u­dices and haste. We wish him well. If he is suc­cess­ful, our coun­try will be the bet­ter for it.

The USS Grave­ly de­stroy­er is cur­rent­ly docked in our cap­i­tal’s port to con­duct joint train­ing with the T&T De­fence Force. With 10 con­firmed hits on “nar­co-ter­ror­ist” ves­sels and a kill count of 43, the US forces con­tin­ue to amass at the the­atre just off Venezuela. The USS Ger­ald R. Ford Car­ri­er Strike Group is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive soon.

Venezuela’s quak­ing Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro has been plead­ing, “No crazy war” and “peace for­ev­er.” The US State De­part­ment’s US$50 mil­lion boun­ty on Maduro is twice as much as its pre­vi­ous record US$25 mil­lion boun­ties for Sad­dam Hus­sein and Osama Bin Laden. I doubt that tough-talk­ing Pres­i­dent Trump is go­ing to va­cate the in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters off Venezuela with­out Maduro demit­ting of­fice, one way or the oth­er. I doubt Pres­i­dent Maduro is still plan­ning to rig an­oth­er pres­i­den­tial elec­tion or an­nex most of Guyana. I be­lieve that we can patch up our re­la­tions with Cari­com when this episode is over. As of now, what more can we do than “re­main calm” un­der the wings of the Amer­i­can ea­gle?