Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley would have had a dif­fer­ent at­mos­phere around the ta­ble in Guyana at yes­ter­day’s sec­ond Cari­com crime sym­po­sium than the Gov­ern­ment had at Mon­day’s T&T Par­lia­ment sit­ting where no­ti­fi­ca­tions for the new Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) were de­bat­ed.

In con­tin­u­ing fo­cus on se­cu­ri­ty yes­ter­day, UNC MP Bar­ry Padarath’s mo­tion in Par­lia­ment against bul­ly­ing was just one as­pect of T&T’s vi­o­lent un­der­bel­ly. “The time for Green Pa­pers and talk shops is over! Dras­tic times call for dras­tic ac­tion!” Padarath de­clared of­fer­ing bi­par­ti­san an­ti-bul­ly­ing and parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty law.

If Row­ley missed UNC’s of­fer, the supreme irony of T&T hold­ing the lead for Cari­com’s se­cu­ri­ty com­mit­tee fades in­to com­par­i­son with the fact that T&T‘s ex­pe­ri­ences with se­cu­ri­ty make it ide­al­ly lo­cat­ed to lend past, present, and fu­ture pic­tures for fel­low Cari­com ter­ri­to­ries.

Though T&T has as many prob­lems with­in its po­lice ser­vice to han­dle as out­side of it. A sit­u­a­tion is be­gin­ning to weigh on the po­lice com­mis­sion­er, re­flect­ed in her com­ments fol­low­ing Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s “shock” at the col­lapse of the case against sev­en of­fi­cers.

Irony al­so hov­ered on Mon­day—In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day—when the PolSC no­ti­fi­ca­tions were de­bat­ed: a male-dom­i­nat­ed com­mis­sion fol­low­ing the pre­vi­ous fe­male-dom­i­nat­ed en­ti­ty whose achieve­ments in­clud­ed ap­point­ing a fe­male CoP.

It’s ahead if the PolSC will ex­am­ine the ap­pli­ca­tions for CoP re­ceived since the April ad­ver­tise­ment or ex­er­cise pre­rog­a­tive, scrap it, in­sti­tute new cri­te­ria, and re­open. De­bate on no­ti­fi­ca­tions sig­nalled much is ex­pect­ed from the com­mis­sion.

Dr Wen­dell Wal­lace’s lead­er­ship gives the PolSC two voic­es with To­ba­go back­grounds—nom­i­nee Ethel Berke­ley-Hec­tor al­so hav­ing such his­to­ry—at a time­ly junc­ture sig­nalling recog­ni­tion of To­ba­go’s in­creased crime.

Gov­ern­ment has equal­ly large chal­lenges else­where re­gard­ing safe­guard­ing mon­ey—its Catch-22 sit­u­a­tion with for­eign ex­change in which Row­ley on Mon­day de­clared the Gov­ern­ment wouldn’t bow to “spe­cial in­ter­est pres­sure” to de­val­ue the dol­lar. In­deed, for­mer UNC min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath is al­so against de­val­u­a­tion—as is UNC fi­nance spokesman Dave Tan­coo, who pressed Row­ley in Par­lia­ment on a so­lu­tion.

Tan­coo told TG sub­se­quent­ly, “No to de­val­u­a­tion. Cur­rent­ly, the dol­lar is al­ready ‘float­ing’, man­aged in what’s called a ‘dirty float’ where Gov­ern­ment in­jects sup­ply to keep the price at a lev­el they wish. With de­val­u­a­tion, prices rise and stan­dards of liv­ing fall.

“Our par­ty has forex so­lu­tions root­ed in trans­for­ma­tion, not mere di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion: Cre­ate trans­par­ent, eq­ui­table dis­tri­b­u­tion and pur­sue low-hang­ing fruit like our leader’s ini­tia­tives. The in­fra­struc­ture was al­most com­plete in 2015 for sport, health, and ed­u­ca­tion tourism—nurs­ing schools, the Aquat­ic Cen­tre, and the Debe cam­pus.

“Cre­ate an en­cour­ag­ing for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment en­vi­ron­ment, in­clud­ing tax con­ces­sions for spe­cif­ic busi­ness types gen­er­at­ing jobs, with­in a se­ri­ous ap­proach to deal­ing with crime. Our 2020 na­tion­al eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion plan list­ed 12 medi­um-term projects ca­pa­ble of gen­er­at­ing new in­dus­tries, jobs, and Forex. Our 2025 man­i­festo will out­line even more trans­for­ma­tion plans un­der a Per­sad-Bisses­sar gov­ern­ment.”

Bharath says de­val­u­a­tion will wors­en cit­i­zens’ sit­u­a­tion, in­creas­ing im­port prices when T&T im­ports 85 per cent of what’s con­sumed. Bharath, who wrote to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, of­fer­ing so­lu­tions, says the short­age is part­ly due to en­er­gy prices, his­tor­i­cal­ly low­er pro­duc­tion, and lack of oth­er rev­enue.

In the lat­est so­lu­tion, Im­bert yes­ter­day cit­ed an up­com­ing law re­quir­ing ex­port busi­ness­es in the en­er­gy sec­tor to pay in US dol­lars all tax­es (be­yond their cur­rent 50 per cent) to strength­en forex re­serves. How­ev­er, it will re­quire more im­me­di­ate plans than shoring up fu­ture sup­plies. It’s ahead of what aris­es from Im­bert’s meet­ings with busi­ness groups, in­clud­ing next month’s with the T&T Cham­ber which is do­ing a sur­vey on the sit­u­a­tion and will present rec­om­men­da­tions.

The Gov­ern­ment will al­so be test­ed mon­ey­wise on the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion’s 120th re­port rec­om­mend­ing pay hikes for PM, Op­po­si­tion Leader, MPs, Pres­i­dent, the Ju­di­cia­ry, and oth­er top sec­tors.

In ap­par­ent loom­ing gua­va sea­son—where en­er­gy prices are bare­ly what the 2025 bud­get pro­ject­ed and glob­al/US de­vel­op­ments are to be faced in 2025—amid T&T’s elec­tion year, the pub­lic an­ten­na will be keyed to na­tion­al in­ter­est dis­play.

No mat­ter that a prime min­is­ter’s cur­rent salary to run a dif­fi­cult coun­try like T&T is less than (US)$9,000 month­ly, ap­prov­ing pro­pos­als ex­cept in­creas­es for the Ju­di­cia­ry and mi­nor of­fi­cials would earn Row­ley no thanks. And UNC, read­ing “the ground” is un­like­ly to sup­port in­creas­es.