Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of bla­tant po­lit­i­cal dis­crim­i­na­tion in its al­lo­ca­tion of de­vel­op­ment fund­ing and is de­mand­ing that it pub­lish the cri­te­ria used to de­ter­mine how pub­lic mon­ey is dis­trib­uted.

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne has pledged to join trade unions in their planned Oc­to­ber 30 protest against the Gov­ern­ment, claim­ing work­ers, fam­i­lies and res­i­dents in Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-con­trolled mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties are be­ing sub­ject­ed to po­lit­i­cal dis­crim­i­na­tion.

The Sen­ate yes­ter­day passed the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, paving the way for Ch­agua­nas to be el­e­vat­ed to city sta­tus and for the cre­ation of four new bor­oughs.

To­ba­go’s three new se­cu­ri­ty posts in Sig­nal Hill, Good­wood and Ply­mouth are now of­fi­cial­ly op­er­a­tional.

A new chap­ter in To­ba­go’s avi­a­tion his­to­ry took flight yes­ter­day with the grand open­ing of the new ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port’s east ter­mi­nal in Crown Point.

For­eign dig­i­tal ser­vices could pro­vide Trinidad and To­ba­go with an ad­di­tion­al source of rev­enue and im­prove com­pe­ti­tion for lo­cal busi­ness­es, but con­sumers are like­ly to bear at least part of the cost through high­er sub­scrip­tion fees, ex­perts say.

For­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les is ques­tion­ing the le­gal­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment’s planned elec­tric­i­ty sur­charge on res­i­den­tial cus­tomers, ar­gu­ing that it con­tra­venes the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) Act.

Re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture al­lo­ca­tions have been re­duced for sev­er­al min­istries, in­clud­ing the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, whose fund­ing for grants to the pub­lic has been cut by ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1 bil­lion.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer so­cial de­vel­op­ment min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Mar­lene Attzs are both ques­tion­ing the true ben­e­fits of the pro­posed in­creas­es in grants un­der the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices.

Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get has wel­comed the Gov­ern­ment’s bud­get, as he main­tained con­fi­dence in the an­tic­i­pat­ed restart of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery.

Trade union lead­ers are now press­ing ahead with a march set for Oc­to­ber 30, warn­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s bud­get promis­es on back­pay can­not set­tle their griev­ances over dis­placed work­ers, un­re­solved wage ne­go­ti­a­tions and em­ploy­ees still sur­viv­ing on 2013 salaries.

That was Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning’s view af­ter coun­cil­lor Nigel Cout­ti­er de­feat­ed Hazel Man­ning on Mon­day for chair­man­ship of PNM’s San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive.