The year 2024 is about to end, a mood of re­flec­tion has tak­en over, the ma­jor­i­ty of the cit­i­zen­ry prays with bat­ed breath for the year 2025—can the life of the or­di­nary per­son get much worse?

The post-Christ­mas spir­it con­tin­ues to be felt. Seem­ing­ly can­celling out any feel­ing over fu­ture un­cer­tain­ty. The state of our na­tion leaves one at the cross­roads, de­spon­den­cy and hope­less­ness, doubt­ing the val­ue of do­ing any­thing at all.

Let us not for­get in the com­ing year, the gen­er­al elec­tions are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due.

Mon­ey will flow in greater quan­ti­ties than the wa­ter from WASA fa­cil­i­ties.

Will the face of the na­tion change in­fra­struc­tural­ly? The crime sta­tis­tics paint a pic­ture of dooms­day. More than 600 mur­ders, mu­si­cal chairs at both Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the Of­fice of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty have re­sult­ed in lit­tle or no ces­sa­tion of these heinous crimes.

The type of homi­cides and the man­ner in which they have been car­ried out speak of a coun­try that is pop­u­lat­ed by pure­ly evil souls, who have not dis­crim­i­nat­ed against their vic­tims. From new­born babes in arms to the very old per­son in wheel­chairs, they are raped, tor­tured and butchered.

As we stand at the door­way of 2025, it is es­sen­tial to re­flect on the chal­lenges faced by our so­ci­ety, es­pe­cial­ly those per­tain­ing to youth crime.

The alarm­ing rise in ju­ve­nile delin­quen­cy de­mands our im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion and col­lec­tive ef­forts to cre­ate a more se­cure fu­ture. To ef­fec­tive­ly com­bat youth crime, to com­pre­hend the un­der­ly­ing fac­tors that con­tribute to these in­ci­dents.

So­cio-eco­nom­ic dis­par­i­ties, lack of ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties, men­tor­ship/pos­i­tive role mod­els, skills de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes and most im­por­tant­ly, com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment.

Let’s not play down the white-col­lar crim­i­nals, who have suc­cess­ful­ly sent our coun­try in­to an eco­nom­ic down­turn bor­der­ing on re­ces­sion. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 2023 Cor­rup­tion In­dex score was 42 out of 100; we were 76 of the least cor­rupt of 180 coun­tries world­wide.

Cor­rup­tion erodes the trust of cit­i­zens in the pub­lic sec­tor. It is the wastage of tax­es and rates meant for im­por­tant com­mu­ni­ty projects. This re­sults in poor qual­i­ty ser­vices or in­fra­struc­ture, projects of­ten nev­er get­ting off the ground.

Our ser­vice com­mis­sions are in dire need of in­fra­struc­tur­al and in­sti­tu­tion­al re­build­ing. Its se­lec­tions to po­si­tions in the pub­lic ser­vice are AL­WAYS ques­tion­able be­cause of its bad process.

There is work to be done in na­tion-build­ing and unit­ing our peo­ple. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the politi­cians have ac­com­plished a mas­sive de­feat in this re­gard. We use free­dom of ex­pres­sion to di­vide rather than unite our coun­try.

Many cit­i­zens in Trinidad and To­ba­go have lost con­fi­dence in the present ad­min­is­tra­tion’s com­mit­ment to pres­sure and pro­mote the rule of law and the dis­pen­sa­tion of jus­tice to all man­ner of men.

The year 2024 around the world was re­gard­ed as “The year of Elec­tion.” More than two bil­lion peo­ple were giv­en a chance to vote. Is this a mile­stone in de­mo­c­ra­t­ic his­to­ry or are we at the cross­roads where the fate of democ­ra­cy is hang­ing in the bal­ance?

Pop­ulist mo­ments, ero­sion of trust of in­sti­tu­tions. Most coun­tries hold reg­u­lar “elec­tions” but democ­ra­cies still die, but by dif­fer­ent means. Most de­mo­c­ra­t­ic break­downs have been caused not by the mil­i­tary, armed forces, gen­er­als or sol­diers, but by the elect­ed gov­ern­ments them­selves, main­ly sub­ver­sion of in­sti­tu­tions.

Many gov­ern­ments’ ef­forts to sub­vert democ­ra­cy are “le­gal’ in the way they are ap­proved by the leg­isla­tive or ac­cept­ed by the courts. Of­ten, changes may be de­scribed as ef­forts to im­prove democ­ra­cy, mak­ing the ju­di­cia­ry more ef­fi­cient, com­bat­ing cor­rup­tion or cleans­ing the elec­tion process (vot­ers’ list).

News­pa­pers are bought off or bul­lied in­to self-cen­sor­ship, and cit­i­zens who con­tin­ue to crit­i­cise the gov­ern­ment, of­ten find them­selves in the “Black Book,” fac­ing tax or le­gal trou­bles.

In a world­wide sur­vey, IP­SOS MORI, a rep­utable UK sur­vey or­gan­i­sa­tion, test­ed the ar­eas of So­cial and Pub­lic Pol­i­cy, Sport, Cul­ture, Health, Sci­ence, Ed­u­ca­tion, Crime and Em­ploy­ment. Re­spon­dents av­er­aged 65 per cent say­ing that 2024 was a bad year for their coun­try, not­ing the cost of liv­ing and con­flicts world­wide. How­ev­er, 71 per cent were op­ti­mistic that the year 2025 will re­turn to pre-COVID lev­els of pos­i­tiv­i­ty.

Rais­ing our stan­dard of liv­ing by care­ful­ly ex­e­cut­ing well-thought-out plans, plus ef­fi­cient use of our re­sources to en­sure sus­tain­abil­i­ty for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, is need­ed now.

We need to rid our­selves of the old habits; else we en­ter the New Year not “Hap­py.”