The queries in De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge’s al­leged death threat dra­ma re­main out­stand­ing, and US-Venezuela sabre rat­tling sev­en miles off T&T may al­so trig­ger cu­rios­i­ty, if that de­vel­op­ment was among the rea­sons be­hind re­cent US vice pres­i­den­tial recog­ni­tion of T&T.

But for every­one else: Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) pas­sen­gers re­mem­ber late bus dri­ver Mun­saf Khan’s well-known face on the North/South route.

Trav­el­ling with PTSC since late last year, af­ter be­ing among a few ca­su­al­ties in an Oc­to­ber maxi taxi ac­ci­dent, the big bus­es of­fered se­cu­ri­ty and ser­vice to me. Dri­vers went slow­ly, es­pe­cial­ly care­ful­ly with heav­i­ly laden bus­es. En­coun­ters with Khan proved him to be cheer­ful, cour­te­ous, and care­ful.

Sto­ries from “PTSC trav­els” are a week­ly book. Bus­es trans­port T&T’s lifeblood: work­ers, lo­cal and for­eign, stu­dents, el­der­ly, fam­i­lies, re­flect­ing coun­try cur­rents, views spo­ken and silent. Many, like Tues­day’s de­ceased pas­sen­ger Rox­anne Phillip, se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel home-bound af­ter night shifts, are the ear­li­est at PTSC de­pots.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Trans­port Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our, with their Gov­ern­ment’s fa­mous “fix it” promise, must en­sure pro­tec­tion against in­dis­crim­i­nate use of the high­ways by cul­prits. For some, ob­tain­ing a li­cense trans­lates in­to an abil­i­ty for them to dis­re­gard the law. Tick­et­ing’s no de­ter­rent. In T&T’s road cul­ture, high­way mon­i­tor­ing and en­force­ment by the TTPS is para­mount.

Fend­ing off the per­cep­tion that Gov­ern­ment’s em­ploy­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Op­po­si­tion days habit of blank­ing In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rades in re­mov­ing cit­i­zens’ 2025 op­por­tu­ni­ty for such events, the cur­tail­ment of events due to the State of Emer­gency con­tin­ues ring­ing hol­low. Es­pe­cial­ly af­ter word that UNC’s Mon­day Night Fo­rums will con­tin­ue de­spite the SoE.

Queries height­ened af­ter word of the death threat to Sturge for a re­port­ed “shake­down” con­cern­ing jobs and al­leged­ly in­volv­ing an at­tor­ney with close ties to the UNC Gov­ern­ment, two il­le­gal quar­ri­ers and a mil­i­tary per­son.

While Gov­ern­ment pre­vi­ous­ly con­firmed threats to­wards two min­is­ters and the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme’s pro­gramme man­ag­er amid so­cial pro­gramme re­struc­tur­ing, the Sturge threat stood out due to the re­port of the at­tor­ney with “close ties” to his Gov­ern­ment. Mak­ing the is­sue a threat to the ad­min­is­tra­tion al­so, and a scar across its po­lit­i­cal face.

Soon af­ter two min­is­ters ac­knowl­edged the threat as re­al, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials - from the PM down and in­clud­ing the two - be­gan re­fer­ring ques­tions on the threat to Sturge him­self. With him silent, moves by Sturge’s peers and prin­ci­pal to have him ex­plain his sit­u­a­tion have trig­gered queries about their lack of in­for­ma­tion on the sit­u­a­tion - and a per­cep­tion of dis­tance be­tween them and his is­sue.

While law en­force­ment of­fi­cers con­tin­ue roust­ing cul­prits out in SoE op­er­a­tions, ob­tain­ing in­tel­li­gence from ar­restees and con­nect­ing trails, there’s no an­swer on whether any tar­get’s in­volved in the mat­ter. Sturge’s is­sue has prompt­ed spec­u­la­tion not on­ly on his op­er­a­tions pre- and post-elec­tion, but UNC de­ci­sion-mak­ers’ vet­ting ef­fi­cien­cy on ap­point­ments. Par­tic­u­lar­ly af­ter Sturge said, pre-elec­tion on UNC’s plat­form, that he didn’t want to be a min­is­ter if the UNC won.

Among ques­tions where Sturge and UNC are con­cerned: whether due dili­gence on one side and def­i­nite dis­clo­sure on the oth­er were prop­er­ly done. And what else emerges.

Sturge will have to re­turn to his con­stituen­cy reg­u­lar­ly to serve con­stituents and can­not duck queries in­def­i­nite­ly. Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials say Par­lia­ment’s ex­pect­ed to re­sume in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber.

Since Gov­ern­ment prob­lems are prob­lems for T&T, eyes are on the TTPS suc­cess­ful­ly ful­fill­ing de­ten­tion or­ders - to­talling al­most 40 - and what’s pro­duced from in­tel, ev­i­dence, and laws’ strength to dis­able gangs, as the de­ten­tion or­ders’ tar­gets sig­nal the SoE’s pur­pose.

If pay­back in 2025 is the same prob­lem as it was for the UNC’s gov­ern­ment in 2011 - prompt­ing SoE then - at oth­er lev­els, UNC mem­bers anx­ious­ly await jobs. Most say they’re afraid to ask now, for fear of be­ing seen as dis­loy­al.

Word from Gov­ern­ment’s re­struc­tur­ing team is that 16,000 month­ly CEPEP jobs are ahead - less grass cut­ting, but in util­i­ty sec­tor tasks.

Fi­nance’s mul­ti­pronged team (de­tailed last week), whose chal­lenges in­clude for­mer Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Alvin St Hi­laire ‘s $10 mil­lion law­suit, is mum on US tar­iff de­lib­er­a­tions de­spite Cari­com’s Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­gan­i­sa­tion’s es­ti­mat­ed $2 bil­lion po­ten­tial rev­enue loss to T&T by the tar­iff. Nor is there de­tail on forex so­lu­tions. Busi­ness groups meet­ing Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai on this re­cent­ly were warned the “prog­no­sis isn’t good” for US funds. Gov­ern­ment sources in­di­cat­ed the au­dit’s be­ing done on forex re­serves - what’s present, spent and the way for­ward.