Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The de­liv­ery of tan­gi­bles and con­tin­ued re­struc­tur­ing from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment and ef­forts from the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) with food banks and em­ploy­ment as­sis­tance for cit­i­zens are all part of what will un­fold from both sides in 2026.

As the count­down to the end of 2025 and the start of 2026 gets un­der­way this week, most mem­bers in the UNC Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion PNM have fi­nalised their plans for the com­ing year.

The Gov­ern­ment has been clear on its sched­ule. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar set the pace at the UNC’s Christ­mas din­ner, de­clar­ing 2026 will be a de­ci­sive one for T&T and the UNC. She’d alert­ed her team of a lot of work ahead to ful­fil the UNC’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion man­date.

Where the Op­po­si­tion PNM is con­cerned, PNM leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les said, “We’ll be work­ing on that ear­ly next week (this week).”

When the clock strikes mid­night and one hour of fire­works takes off, some will be toast­ing T&T and their plans for 2026—and be­yond.

Govt: Work to pro­vide for cit­i­zens!

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the PM/Sen­ate leader Dar­rell Al­la­har:

“Fur­ther to what the Hon PM re­cent­ly de­clared is the fo­cus in the com­ing year, I look for­ward to a busy and dy­nam­ic Sen­ate in 2026. It is my earnest hope that all sen­a­tors will work to­geth­er as we have be­fore, in the in­ter­est of all of our peo­ple.”

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal:

“2026 will be a block­buster year of pace, hard-nosed ne­go­ti­a­tions and a glob­al call to in­vest in our emerg­ing en­er­gy hub. En­er­gy diplo­ma­cy will dove­tail with the Eco­nom­ic Mas­ter Plan to pro­pel en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture ex­pan­sion. We’ve fall­en on good times in terms of the in­ter­est and at­trac­tion of T&T to cap­i­tal in­vest­ment.

“The Hon Prime Min­is­ter’s hard work and our per­sis­tent pres­ence to sup­port the oil ma­jors will re­sult in record in­vest­ment lev­els. We ex­pect the En­er­gy Ac­cel­er­a­tor hub to be up and run­ning in the first quar­ter.”

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment & Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen:

“The min­istry will fo­cus on ser­vice im­prove­ment at the lo­cal lev­el by eval­u­at­ing ex­ist­ing sys­tems and fo­cus­ing on the im­pact they have on cit­i­zens’ dai­ly lives. We have some un­tapped re­sources and hu­man will­ing­ness that need to be har­nessed. The en­gage­ment of in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies in sus­tain­able rur­al de­vel­op­ment is al­so an area we’ll ex­plore to en­sure all rur­al com­mu­ni­ties’ mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties are mov­ing for­ward in tan­dem with our Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar’s vi­sion.”

Min­is­ter in Health Dr Rishard Seecher­an:

“The min­istry plans to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the high­est qual­i­ty of health­care to cit­i­zens in 2026. This in­cludes ex­tend­ed hours at se­lect­ed health fa­cil­i­ties, the con­tin­ued use of the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal, mod­erni­sa­tion of CDAP and ex­pan­sion of the Chil­dren’s Life Fund.

“2026 will see pro­grammes tar­get­ed at Non-Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­ease pre­ven­tion and to as­sist in health­i­er eat­ing choic­es. We look for­ward to 2026 with an­tic­i­pa­tion and re­newed vigour of our com­mit­ment to cit­i­zens.”

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter

Bar­ry Padarath:

“We’ll em­bark on ma­jor wa­ter projects, par­tic­u­lar­ly de­sali­na­tion plants at Moru­ga, Ma­yaro and Char­lot­teville. This will bring tremen­dous re­lief to many parts of both is­lands. We look for­ward to pass­ing land­mark, long out­stand­ing leg­is­la­tion on the bev­er­age con­tain­er/re­cy­cling bill. There’s much more work out­side of that. More will be said at the ap­pro­pri­ate time as we ad­dress the sys­tem­at­ic chal­lenges at SWM­COL, TGU, Pow­er­gen and T&TEC. There’ll be ma­jor fo­cus on project im­ple­men­ta­tion through mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion mech­a­nisms across the sec­tor.”

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin:

“The com­ing year marks a crit­i­cal pe­ri­od for the min­istry, as we ad­vance our man­date to strength­en na­tion­al iden­ti­ty, em­pow­er com­mu­ni­ties and broad­en in­clu­sive par­tic­i­pa­tion in T&T’s cul­tur­al and so­cial de­vel­op­ment.

“Strate­gic fo­cus cen­tres on build­ing com­mu­ni­ty re­silience and so­cial co­he­sion through tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tions that re­vi­talise com­mu­ni­ty-based or­gan­i­sa­tions, en­hance lo­cal lead­er­ship, ca­pac­i­ty and fos­ter mean­ing­ful cit­i­zen

par­tic­i­pa­tion in de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives. We’re strength­en­ing gov­er­nance, ac­count­abil­i­ty and in­ter-agency col­lab­o­ra­tion and en­hanc­ing mon­i­tor­ing and frame­work eval­u­a­tion. The min­istry is po­si­tioned as a key dri­ver of na­tion-build­ing, com­mu­ni­ty em­pow­er­ment and cul­tur­al sus­tain­abil­i­ty, re­in­forc­ing cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment as cen­tral pil­lars of T&T’s so­cial sta­bil­i­ty and na­tion­al progress.”

Op­po­si­tion: “Work” to pro­tect cit­i­zens!

Port-of-Spain MP Stu­art Young:

“2026 promis­es to be a very in­ter­est­ing year. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, a very dif­fi­cult one for us as T&T cit­i­zens. There­fore, fo­cus will be on high­light­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s cor­rup­tion oc­cur­ring in many ar­eas of pro­cure­ment and hold­ing them ac­count­able. The UNC hyp­o­crit­i­cal­ly con­stant­ly called for trans­paren­cy when in Op­po­si­tion but now avoid the me­dia and try to twist and turn their nar­ra­tive.

“Be alert to the UNC con­tin­u­ing to sup­press us with states of emer­gency, which re­moves many of our con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. I’m par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about the col­laps­ing en­er­gy sec­tor, as the Gov­ern­ment’s in­com­pe­tence has led to shut­downs and in­abil­i­ty to ne­go­ti­ate gas sup­ply con­tracts. I hope we’ll avoid de­val­u­a­tion and the IMF.

“I in­tend to con­tin­ue as­sist­ing my con­stituents and fight­ing for our vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens. T&T peo­ple—are you ‘win­ning’ yet?”

Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca MP Do­minic Ro­main:

“I’ll be col­lab­o­rat­ing with my cor­po­rate con­stituents to find em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for the many vis­it­ing my of­fice re­quest­ing this. We were over­whelmed with re­quests for food sup­port in the last two weeks from con­stituents and oth­ers who saw our ham­per dis­tri­b­u­tion on Face­book. So, my ex­ec­u­tive and I’ll work on es­tab­lish­ing a food bank in part­ner­ship with FEEL and pri­vate donors.”

San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning:

“My 2026 fo­cus is clear - pro­tect­ing the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do East from this vin­dic­tive, cal­lous Gov­ern­ment; and al­so to ex­pose the flawed think­ing be­hind many of their ill-con­ceived eco­nom­ic ‘poli­cies’. They’re drag­ging this coun­try in­to an eco­nom­ic abyss, and the peo­ple of T&T must re­main vig­i­lant in pro­tect­ing our­selves from this eco­nom­ic blitzkrieg of ig­no­rance and vic­tim­i­sa­tion.”

Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Christo­pher Birch­wood:

“My con­stituents de­serve reg­u­lar en­gage­ment and safe spaces to raise their con­cerns and strong rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment to en­sure their lived re­al­i­ties help shape na­tion­al de­ci­sions. Pri­or­i­ty’s sus­tained out­reach, com­mu­ni­ty well­be­ing and op­por­tu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing con­tin­ued ad­vo­ca­cy around pub­lic safe­ty, ac­cess to health­care, men­tal well­ness, es­pe­cial­ly re­gard­ing youths

“At na­tion­al lev­el, 2026 must be a year of ac­count­abil­i­ty. The PNM will fo­cus on hold­ing the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion to ac­count while strength­en­ing its pol­i­cy plat­form and readi­ness for gov­er­nance. This, via mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion with cit­i­zens, trans­lat­ing their ex­pe­ri­ences in­to prac­ti­cal peo­ple-cen­tred pol­i­cy po­si­tions. I sup­port that with en­er­gy and dis­ci­pline, con­tin­u­ing to give Laven­tille East/Mor­vant a strong, con­sis­tent, re­spon­si­ble voice in Par­lia­ment.”

Op­po­si­tion Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les:

“My fo­cus is en­sur­ing the PNM’s Par­lia­men­tary cau­cus re­mains ever vig­i­lant in the Par­lia­ment to hold this Gov­ern­ment to ac­count and en­sure that Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Or­ders aren’t used to shield the Gov­ern­ment but to strength­en the democ­ra­cy process for trans­paren­cy and fair­ness. As PNM chair­man, I’ll con­tin­ue work­ing with my col­leagues in the lead­er­ship and po­lit­i­cal leader to trans­form and pre­pare the par­ty for gov­er­nance.”