A na­tion can­not ho­n­our its his­to­ry while al­low­ing its land­marks to de­te­ri­o­rate. The de­bate over White­hall, the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fi­cial res­i­dence and the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre should, there­fore, move be­yond com­pet­ing claims about their con­di­tion. The re­al is­sue is whether Trinidad and To­ba­go is com­mit­ted to pre­serv­ing its pub­lic build­ings, main­tain­ing their val­ue and en­sur­ing they re­main fit for pur­pose.

With Di­vali Na­gar due to open in one week, the de­ci­sion by sev­er­al state-con­trolled com­pa­nies to with­draw spon­sor­ship from cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions may sig­nal a wider pol­i­cy shift, with im­pli­ca­tions for fes­ti­vals and in­sti­tu­tions across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

My wife, Sherene, and I re­cent­ly trav­elled to Fort Laud­erdale to at­tend a Jour­ney con­cert. We were not sim­ply go­ing to hear a band per­form; we were re­turn­ing to a sound­track that had been play­ing qui­et­ly in the back­ground of our 40-year re­la­tion­ship.

The tone adopt­ed by a prime min­is­ter mat­ters, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a coun­try where po­lit­i­cal ex­changes can quick­ly be­come con­tentious. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has nev­er been re­luc­tant to speak plain­ly, but some of her re­cent rhetoric rais­es ques­tions about whether that forth­right style is be­com­ing un­nec­es­sar­i­ly con­fronta­tion­al.

The search of the home of Act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Bri­an Dabideen and the seizure of elec­tron­ic de­vices as part of an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion will in­evitably un­set­tle pub­lic con­fi­dence. It must not, how­ev­er, be mis­tak­en for proof of wrong­do­ing.

Last week, the Unit­ed Na­tions Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (ECLAC) is­sued its 2026 In­ter­na­tion­al Trade Out­look for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

Sev­en years af­ter ar­riv­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go with her Venezue­lan fam­i­ly, ten-year-old Ash­ley Mendez is still ask­ing her moth­er when she will be al­lowed to go to school.

Call it “col­ic” (Amer­i­can), or “gas” (Caribbean), or “gripe” (British), or the new one it has re­cent­ly been re­placed with, “in­fant dis­tress syn­drome” (Rome). What­ev­er you name it, it caus­es par­ents, es­pe­cial­ly new par­ents, end­less wor­ry! 

There is a com­pelling case for an in­de­pen­dent re­view of the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion’s now can­celled $3.4 bil­lion hous­ing project, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en se­ri­ous con­cerns re­port­ed­ly raised by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR).

Our an­ces­tors, who left Bi­har, Ut­tar Pradesh and oth­er ar­eas of In­dia over 181 years ago to work as in­den­tured labour­ers, had very few ma­te­r­i­al pos­ses­sions in their ja­ha­ji bun­dle. But their minds and hearts were store­hous­es of their Dhar­ma.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic con­di­tions are far from ide­al, and the 2027 Bud­get must be as­sessed against that re­al­i­ty. Po­lit­i­cal de­bate will in­evitably fo­cus on the fail­ings of suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions, but the more im­por­tant ques­tion is whether the mea­sures now pro­posed can mean­ing­ful­ly im­prove the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic prospects.

Re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions are where na­tion­al pol­i­cy meets dai­ly life. They main­tain lo­cal roads and drains, sup­port san­i­ta­tion and pub­lic health, man­age waste and help sus­tain com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­ties. When they lack the re­sources to do that work, res­i­dents feel the con­se­quences through flood­ing, dam­aged roads, ne­glect­ed pub­lic spaces and in­ad­e­quate ser­vices.