Na­tion­al re­new­al, sore­ly need­ed, is be­ing sown by the new ad­min­is­tra­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

We see de­ci­sive­ness, ded­i­ca­tion and pur­pose in the bat­tle against crime, pro­vid­ing hope for the restora­tion of a safe so­ci­ety.

Here we had the rec­om­men­da­tion of a State of Emer­gency (SoE) by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, to deal with a “very re­al threat” to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

The PM ac­cept­ed Gue­var­ro’s rec­om­men­da­tion and told the na­tion, “I will not stand idly by while a mi­nor­i­ty of il­le­gal­ly armed in­di­vid­u­als act in con­cert to in­tim­i­date the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. I will not tol­er­ate a resur­gence of kid­nap­pings for ran­som and oth­er heinous crimes ini­ti­at­ed by gangs. I will not al­low these el­e­ments to con­tin­ue to ter­rorise and trau­ma­tise law-abid­ing cit­i­zens and wreak hav­oc in our land.”

The la­dy means busi­ness. Hav­ing neu­tralised the threat, they kept the SoE in place.

A crit­i­cal de­ci­sion, al­low­ing them “to dis­rupt or­gan­ised vi­o­lence at its source, backed by Par­lia­ment and the courts,” says the Prime Min­is­ter.

With the SoE in ef­fect, se­cu­ri­ty forces have been able to neu­tralise or lock down key com­mand tar­gets, break prison-to-street com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and iden­ti­fy and act against col­lud­ing in­sid­ers.

De­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ties were es­tab­lished at Teteron Bar­racks and Staubles Bay in Ch­aguara­mas and Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders were is­sued, 38 be­tween Ju­ly 26 and Au­gust 3, pre-empt­ing vi­o­lent crimes be­fore they are com­mit­ted.

The tide is turn­ing. Af­ter two months of the SoE, mur­ders are down by 41 per cent, a clear in­di­ca­tor of suc­cess.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin points to a drop of over 180 mur­ders from over 440 killed for the same pe­ri­od in 2024.

Al­so, “vi­o­lent crimes are down 22 per cent, se­ri­ous re­port­ed crimes by 15 per cent and lar­ce­ny of mo­tor ve­hi­cles by 34 per cent, well above our re­duc­tion tar­get,” says Ben­jamin, who com­mends Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro’s lead­er­ship and “the fo­cused ef­forts” of po­lice of­fi­cers.

The bat­tle is by no means over. As the PM says, “We are just get­ting start­ed.”

This war must be fought on all fronts. Fo­cus on youth is crit­i­cal and “youth de­vel­op­ment will stay cen­tral” in the com­ing na­tion­al bud­get, says Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“We must in­vest in tech­ni­cal and vo­ca­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion for prac­ti­cal de­vel­op­ment, ed­u­ca­tion­al train­ing and fu­ture-ready skills.”

The PM wants path­ways to de­cent work; en­tre­pre­neur­ship train­ing in align­ment with in­dus­try de­mand; and ex­pan­sion of fi­nanc­ing for youth-led en­ter­pris­es.

The Gov­ern­ment will al­so re­in­state the school’s lap­top pro­gramme, al­low­ing every Form One stu­dent “an equal tool for an equal chance.”

Not­ing over 300,000 young peo­ple ben­e­fit­ed from train­ing pro­grammes and schol­ar­ships dur­ing her first stint as Prime Min­is­ter, Per­sad-Bisses­sar says, “These are not just mere fig­ures. They are about lives redi­rect­ed, about fam­i­lies strength­ened and com­mu­ni­ties re­vi­talised.”

This is na­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion in mo­tion.

The Prime Min­is­ter has al­so warned about be­com­ing a “na­tion of grass-cut­ters,” as she crit­i­cised cur­rent op­er­a­tions of the CEPEP, URP and Na­tion­al Reaf­foresta­tion pro­grammes, which are now be­ing re­vamped to in­clude the de­vel­op­ment of skills, mak­ing CEPEP and URP em­ploy­ees ready for long-term em­ploy­ment and in­di­vid­ual em­pow­er­ment.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the Gov­ern­ment’s fo­cus on ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing will see over 51 mil­lion dol­lars al­lo­cat­ed to pro­vid­ing an ad­di­tion­al 345 bur­saries to the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

Al­so, the ad­min­is­tra­tion will hire 100 con­tract as­sis­tant in­struc­tors to ad­dress long-stand­ing va­can­cies in tech­ni­cal and vo­ca­tion­al train­ing across 95 sec­ondary schools to aug­ment work­force readi­ness and en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

And dis­ci­pline is crit­i­cal. For ten years, I called on the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion to deal with the in­creas­ing vi­o­lence, hooli­gan­ism and promis­cu­ity in main­ly gov­ern­ment sec­ondary schools through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go.

We have had over 21,000 sus­pen­sions for bad be­hav­iour in schools of this na­tion be­tween 2022 and 2025.

Ut­ter­ly alarm­ing and to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able.

And this is just the tip of the pit.

But un­der the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion, youth crim­i­nal­i­ty and hooli­gan­ism will not be tol­er­at­ed in our schools.

Armed po­lice of­fi­cers have been de­ployed at some of the 62 high-risk sec­ondary schools, where 95 spe­cial­ly trained Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice are as­signed.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, po­lice pa­trols at 20 oth­er schools have start­ed for the new school term.

And si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly with this damp­en­ing of de­struc­tive be­hav­iour, the ad­min­is­tra­tion has re­sumed pub­lic recog­ni­tion of out­stand­ing per­for­mances at na­tion­al ex­am­i­na­tions like the SEA, CSEC and CAPE, a prac­tice fool­ish­ly stopped by the Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion.

We have al­ready cel­e­brat­ed the top five per­form­ers in this year’s SEA, and the Gov­ern­ment will al­so recog­nise the top 200 high-per­form­ing stu­dents and the top 25 pri­ma­ry schools from the 2025 Ex­am.

The na­tion needs this. All schools, stu­dents, par­ents and the en­tire cit­i­zen­ry must recog­nise the gulf be­tween ex­cel­lence and dis­as­trous fail­ure.

The en­tire coun­try must learn from the con­trast and be in­spired to make ex­cel­lence the goal.

Every­one must be mo­ti­vat­ed to­wards suc­cess and to al­ways pro­duce a bumper an­nu­al na­tion­al har­vest of grad­u­ates in all fields.

This is the hu­man tal­ent and po­ten­tial we must want ab­sorbed in­to the so­ci­ety and econ­o­my, peren­ni­al­ly re­new­ing and sus­tain­ing our beloved coun­try.

The resur­gence of so­ci­ety is un­der­way.

The seeds are be­ing plant­ed.

Na­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion is com­ing un­der this ad­min­is­tra­tion.