Ra­mona Ram­di­al

The much-an­tic­i­pat­ed UN­GA 81 meet­ing be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and act­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez took place, and it could scarce­ly have gone bet­ter. Pres­i­dent Ro­driguez rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed the “I love you,” and their em­brace was warm, “herald­ing the be­gin­ning of a new era in bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions.” PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar is now “Per­sona Gra­ta” in Venezuela again, with an agree­ment for re­turn state vis­its be­tween the two lead­ers.

The de­tails of a “work agen­da” across var­i­ous ar­eas, in­clud­ing “en­er­gy,” were not pro­vid­ed, but they should be ham­mered out dur­ing their planned meet­ings. With Pro­man an­nounc­ing this week that they will re­duce their work­force due to un­cer­tain gas sup­plies, we hope these en­er­gy agree­ments are ex­pe­dit­ed.

The lead­ers’ rec­on­cil­i­a­tion is a win for both na­tions. US Pres­i­dent Trump would claim cred­it for set­ting events in mo­tion that re­sult­ed in the joint state­ment from the Venezue­lan Mis­sion in New York. Both ladies would have felt the heat on re­turn­ing to their home coun­tries, though. Pres­i­dent Ro­driguez faced protests call­ing for the re­turn of Op­po­si­tion leader Maria Co­ri­na Macha­do and fresh elec­tions, while PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­front­ed the op­po­si­tion to the SO and OPR bills.

The Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty (Amend­ment) Bill 2026 is Gov­ern­ment’s at­tempt to fast-track de­liv­ery and per­haps en­gage more “small man” con­trac­tors and few­er of the larg­er ones, whom they hold in sus­pi­cion. How much does this have to do with the HDC’s $3.4 bil­lion de­sign-build-fi­nance pro­gramme which was be­set by OPR prob­ing and even­tu­al­ly with­drawn? How of­ten was the OPR trig­gered by com­plaints from the Op­po­si­tion and PNM-as­so­ci­at­ed con­trac­tors who felt ag­griev­ed when by­passed?

The new fi­nan­cial penal­ties for friv­o­lous or bad-faith chal­lenges would be a de­ter­rent. Would these al­so scare off le­git­i­mate “whistle­blow­ing” though? The ex­emp­tions sought for the En­er­gy, Hous­ing, and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istries sug­gest that Gov­ern­ment has mega projects queued up but that the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion will tie them up in red tape. Has the restart of the Guaracara Re­fin­ery re­al­ly been de­layed by the ex­ist­ing OPR con­straints, as com­plained about by En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal?

Can the high­est stan­dards of ac­count­abil­i­ty and in­tegri­ty co­ex­ist with ef­fi­cient de­liv­ery? Is it ei­ther or? How much is pub­lic opin­ion on this amend­ment bill de­ter­mined by which par­ty is in of­fice? What if the bill is passed and the PNM wins the next gen­er­al elec­tion? Would the sup­port­ers of that gov­ern­ment seek greater reg­u­la­tion of the de­liv­ery of goods and ser­vices as they are call­ing for now? Would UNC sup­port­ers have been as sup­port­ive if the PNM were bring­ing these same amend­ments?

I feel this re­flec­tive­ness is im­por­tant for na­tion­al progress be­cause of our tem­pera­men­tal elec­torate. The Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act was pro­claimed in 2015 un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment. The am­bi­tions for that act, then, are now con­sid­ered re­stric­tive by a gov­ern­ment led by the same Prime Min­is­ter.

Do cit­i­zens sup­port leg­is­la­tion that will keep our na­tion on an even keel, re­gard­less of who is in pow­er? Will the OPR’s find­ings now be re­duced to pure­ly post fac­to, non-bind­ing ad­vi­so­ry re­ports that can be eas­i­ly dis­re­gard­ed? Or will there now be greater breath­ing room for pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships, which will stim­u­late the econ­o­my?

PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not mince words in her de­scrip­tion of the nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors fol­low­ing their non-sup­port of the SO bill, which ul­ti­mate­ly ex­posed Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Mark’s sup­port for the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion when he cast his vote to break the dead­lock. “Scum­bags,” “sa­tan­ic,” and “demons” were words used by the Prime Min­is­ter in ref­er­ence to the Sen­a­tors who were se­lect­ed by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo.

This emo­tive­ness is an­oth­er sign­post to re­mind the pop­u­la­tion why Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo and all her Sen­a­tors will not be ex­pect­ed to serve be­yond the ex­piry of her term in 2028. That time can’t come soon enough for the Prime Min­is­ter, who has in­di­cat­ed that her Gov­ern­ment will not en­ter­tain any amend­ments from the In­de­pen­dents.

Will any of them re­act de­fen­sive­ly in their de­bates? Will they sup­port gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion and con­tin­ue to sug­gest amend­ments re­gard­less of ex­pect­ed re­jec­tion? Can they ex­pect praise when they sup­port and in­vec­tive when they don’t?

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Mark re­ceived the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go at the Re­pub­lic Day awards for his dis­tin­guished life-long ser­vice. Al­most all of that ser­vice has come as a UNC par­lia­men­tar­i­an. His tie-break­ing vote to pass the SO Bill was the lat­est ev­i­dence of par­ty loy­al­ty based on “no set­tled prac­tice.”

For­mer Sen­ate pres­i­dent Ganace Ram­di­al (a rel­a­tive of mine), un­der a Bas­deo Pan­day-led UNC gov­ern­ment, chose to pre­serve the sta­tus quo by vot­ing against his own gov­ern­ing par­ty’s bills on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions in strict ad­her­ence to West­min­ster par­lia­men­tary tra­di­tions. Which is right? Po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance? Par­lia­men­tary con­ven­tions? In­de­pen­dent po­si­tion on bills?

“In­de­pen­dent” Sen­a­tors could have par­ti­san in­cli­na­tions or oth­er sig­nif­i­cant al­le­giances that in­flu­ence their po­si­tions. When their votes dis­ad­van­tage var­i­ous gov­ern­ments, they tend to come un­der fire, and their per­ceived im­par­tial­i­ty is ques­tioned. Per­haps the Gov­ern­ment can en­gage in con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form as a rem­e­dy.

What is the PNM Op­po­si­tion’s per­spec­tive on an ex­ec­u­tive pres­i­dent? What about pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion? What about cam­paign fi­nance re­form? Would OPR leg­is­la­tion be­come less prob­lem­at­ic if spe­cial in­ter­ests were iden­ti­fied ear­ly?

Our leg­is­la­tion should con­tin­u­ous­ly help build trust in state in­sti­tu­tions, op­ti­mise ser­vice to the peo­ple, and ad­vance na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. Is it hap­pen­ing?