RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo is deny­ing ac­cu­sa­tions that the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­tain the for­mer Coat of Arms dur­ing a tran­si­tion pe­ri­od is se­cre­tive, po­lit­i­cal­ly dri­ven or cul­tur­al­ly hos­tile.

In­stead, the min­is­ter says the move is root­ed in prac­ti­cal­i­ty and cost-sav­ing mea­sures that could spare the coun­try mil­lions of dol­lars.

The or­der ex­tend­ing the use of the for­mer em­blem was dat­ed De­cem­ber 18, 2025, and signed by Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der.

The ex­ten­sion is con­tained in Le­gal No­tice No. 468, pub­lished on De­cem­ber 22, 2025, in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gazette and made un­der sec­tion 5(2) of the Na­tion­al Em­blems of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Reg­u­la­tion) (Amend­ment) Act, 2025. The or­der al­lows the min­is­ter to pre­scribe a lat­er date for the con­tin­ued use of the for­mer em­blem.

When the amend­ment was pro­claimed in Jan­u­ary 2025, it pro­vid­ed that the for­mer Coat of Arms could on­ly be used un­til Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, af­ter which the new de­sign was to take full ef­fect.

The old Coat of Arms de­pict­ed the three ships used by the con­tro­ver­sial Ital­ian ex­plor­er Christo­pher Colum­bus when he spot­ted this coun­try dur­ing one of his ex­pe­di­tions. In Au­gust 2024, the then Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion an­nounced a pro­pos­al to re­move the ships, cut any colo­nial ties and re­place them with this coun­try’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment, the steel­pan. A re­design was ap­proved by the for­mer gov­ern­ment, which then led to the Na­tion­al Em­blems of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Reg­u­la­tion) (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025, be­ing passed by Par­lia­ment in Jan­u­ary 2025. It was of­fi­cial­ly pro­claimed in Feb­ru­ary by the Pres­i­dent of T&T.

But speak­ing yes­ter­day, af­ter news of the de­ci­sion to post­pone the change be­gan to cir­cu­late, prompt­ing fiery pub­lic de­bate, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter ex­plained that a phased tran­si­tion was un­avoid­able. He said that, giv­en the sheer scale of changes re­quired across the pub­lic ser­vice, state agen­cies and Trinidad and To­ba­go’s over­seas mis­sions, it could not be done. Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, the is­sue is not sym­bol­ism but lo­gis­tics, plan­ning and fis­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“There are com­mon-sense rea­sons for hav­ing a tran­si­tion pe­ri­od. There are mil­lions of dol­lars’ worth of sig­nage in every sin­gle gov­ern­ment of­fice in the coun­try and em­bassies abroad, mil­lions more in stock of let­ter­head, pass­es, stamps and seals,” Tan­coo said.

He ex­plained that the process goes far be­yond sta­tionery and sig­nage and reach­es in­to the most com­plex and cost­ly ar­eas of state op­er­a­tions.

“All cur­ren­cy has to be changed, in­clud­ing coins hav­ing to be mint­ed. Ob­vi­ous­ly, a tran­si­tion is prac­ti­cal so that the old is re­placed over time with the new. There is ab­solute­ly noth­ing clan­des­tine about it,” he said.

Tan­coo not­ed that both ver­sions of the Coat of Arms have been in use since Jan­u­ary 2025, ar­gu­ing that the con­tro­ver­sy now un­fold­ing stemmed large­ly from de­ci­sions made by the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion. He said the for­mer gov­ern­ment ap­proved the re­designed em­blem with­out cre­at­ing a roadmap for its im­ple­men­ta­tion.

“The PNM ap­proved a new Coat of Arms but made no guide­lines for tran­si­tion, no time frame for when the old Coat of Arms will be re­tired. In fact, the PNM did not even make pro­vi­sions to pay the de­sign­er for the new de­sign that they were us­ing,” Tan­coo said.

In con­trast, he praised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for in­tro­duc­ing a struc­tured and trans­par­ent ap­proach, one that sets a clear dead­line for the even­tu­al full con­ver­sion.

Con­dem­na­tion
and ac­cu­sa­tions

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter’s com­ments come as crit­i­cism in­ten­si­fied.

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress sen­a­tor Tahar­qa Obi­ka, who had crossed the floor to the PNM, in a What­sApp mes­sage yes­ter­day ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of racism for al­low­ing the for­mer Coat of Arms to re­main in use un­til Jan­u­ary 2031. Tan­coo dis­missed those claims as di­vi­sive and po­lit­i­cal­ly op­por­tunis­tic.

“I am proud to say with­out fear of con­tra­dic­tion that the UNC is the most in­clu­sive par­ty in the coun­try. We are about build­ing the coun­try — all of it. I would ad­vise Obi­ka to speak for his PNM par­ty and keep his mouth out of UNC busi­ness,” Tan­coo said.

He ac­cused Obi­ka of hypocrisy, point­ing out that the PNM it­self con­tin­ued us­ing both ver­sions of the Coat of Arms while in gov­ern­ment.

“He can speak his mis­guid­ed mis­chief about the PNM all he wants, but it is hyp­o­crit­i­cal, un­eth­i­cal and dis­gust­ing to pre­tend to speak on be­half of the UNC. The PNM were in of­fice for months af­ter the new Coat of Arms was passed and con­tin­ued us­ing the old Coat of Arms as well as the new,” Tan­coo said.

Obi­ka, how­ev­er, main­tained that the is­sue goes be­yond ad­min­is­tra­tive de­lays. In a state­ment, he claimed UNC lead­ers do not view the steel­pan as a na­tion­al in­no­va­tion cre­at­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“They clear­ly see the steel­pan as an African in­stru­ment and, as a re­sult, have no in­ten­tion of ho­n­our­ing the Coat of Arms. It is an un­for­tu­nate racist po­si­tion,” Obi­ka said.

He ar­gued that the con­tro­ver­sy is not about the three ships orig­i­nal­ly de­pict­ed on the em­blem but about the steel­pan it­self.

“The three ships is not the is­sue —it is the steel­pan. The Gov­ern­ment is be­ing con­sis­tent. The state en­ti­ties that have steel­pan spon­sor­ships have been stopped un­der NGC and Her­itage; the Coat of Arms re­ver­sal, or ex­ten­sion, is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the same,” Obi­ka said.

Op­po­si­tion MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les al­so had ques­tions for the Gov­ern­ment. He asked, “Why has the new Coat of Arms dis­turbed the sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment? Why did the na­tion­al in­stru­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go of­fend this coun­try’s lead­er­ship that, in the midst of the Christ­mas prepa­ra­tion, a mys­te­ri­ous Le­gal No­tice was pub­lished, de­lay­ing the use of the new Coat of Arms?”

Gon­za­les al­so ques­tioned why the de­ci­sion did not come via an of­fi­cial news re­lease or press con­fer­ence. He al­so asked if it was an at­tack on this coun­try’s main cul­tur­al sym­bol.

“Why be­lieve that the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go are fools? Is that the rea­son why spon­sor­ship of ma­jor steel bands has been de­nied or sus­pend­ed? Is this now the lat­est bla­tant at­tack on the cul­tur­al sym­bol of our na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty? This coun­try is be­ing led by ex­trem­ist ha­tred and dark re­venge,” he claimed.

Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young and for­mer min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell al­so ques­tioned the ex­ten­sion, rais­ing con­cerns about trans­paren­cy and con­sis­ten­cy. Young de­scribed the de­lay as part of a broad­er pat­tern af­fect­ing pan and Car­ni­val cul­ture, while Mitchell asked why the de­ci­sion was made with­out pub­lic ex­pla­na­tion.

Pan Trin­ba­go dis­ap­point­ed

The de­bate has al­so drawn sharp re­ac­tion from Pan Trin­ba­go, which ex­pressed “deep dis­ap­point­ment” at the de­ci­sion to de­fer the of­fi­cial im­ple­men­ta­tion of the steel­pan on the Coat of Arms un­til 2031. The or­gan­i­sa­tion said the de­lay un­der­mines a his­toric amend­ment passed in Feb­ru­ary 2025 with unan­i­mous par­lia­men­tary sup­port.

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore said the post­pone­ment con­tra­dicts the uni­ty demon­strat­ed ear­li­er this year.

“We are deeply dis­ap­point­ed. Both the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion stood shoul­der to shoul­der in full sup­port of the amend­ment. It was de­bat­ed, scru­ti­nised, passed, as­sent­ed to, and pro­claimed. To now de­fer im­ple­men­ta­tion to 2031 sends an un­for­tu­nate mes­sage, not on­ly to the steel­band com­mu­ni­ty, but to every cit­i­zen who cel­e­brat­ed this long-await­ed mo­ment of na­tion­al pride,” she said.

Pan Trin­ba­go said the steel­pan’s in­clu­sion on the Coat of Arms was more than sym­bol­ic.

“It for­mal­ly recog­nis­es a glob­al cul­tur­al achieve­ment that has shaped Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cre­ative econ­o­my, tourism brand, and in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion,” the or­gan­i­sa­tion said.

Pan Trin­ba­go al­so cit­ed re­cent mile­stones, in­clud­ing Ge­o­graph­i­cal In­di­ca­tion recog­ni­tion, pas­sage of the Na­tion­al Mu­si­cal In­stru­ment Act, and the es­tab­lish­ment of UN-recog­nised World Steel­pan Day, as ex­am­ples of the world ho­n­our­ing T&T’s cul­tur­al her­itage.

Pan Trin­ba­go called for trans­paren­cy on the re­vised 2031 time­line and reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to work­ing with the Gov­ern­ment and oth­er stake­hold­ers to up­hold the spir­it of the 2025 par­lia­men­tary de­ci­sion.

“De­lay­ing im­ple­men­ta­tion to 2031 is not in align­ment with the spir­it of uni­ty and progress demon­strat­ed when this Bill was unan­i­mous­ly passed,” Ram­sey-Moore said.