Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

In the out­go­ing Chi­nese cal­en­dar Year of the Drag­on, when crime man­age­ment was again the bane of Gov­ern­ment and a boon for the Op­po­si­tion’s bat­tles, it was al­so a year of oth­er drag­on-sized chal­lenges for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

Crime, which start­ed off the year on a par­tic­u­lar­ly bad note in To­ba­go, would end the year with such height­ened ac­tiv­i­ty over­all that a State of Emer­gency was called 48 hours be­fore 2024 end­ed.

And 2024 be­gan and end­ed with the deaths of politi­cians - from both Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion.

JAN­U­ARY

• A day af­ter for­mer To­ba­go “heavy roller” Ho­choy Charles closed 2023 with his death, T&T’s fifth Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day con­tin­ued mak­ing his­to­ry as the first for­mer PM to die over­seas, be re­turned on CAL and have the first State fu­ner­al un­der Hin­du rites and in South Trinidad. Ex­it­ing in as large a man­ner as his life, Bas took the Leg­end of the Sil­ver Fox and Pan­day Pol­i­tics with him.

• Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley end­ed 2023 pro­ject­ing a brighter fu­ture ahead with the Drag­on Gas ven­ture. He an­tic­i­pat­ed 2024 would be one full of risks, even as it held con­sid­er­able promise. His state­ment that glob­al­ly, fore­cast­ers pre­dict­ed 2024 would be a year of “volatil­i­ty,” “un­cer­tain­ty,” “com­plex­i­ty” and “am­bi­gu­i­ty,” in­deed was seen in T&T in the 12 months.

• Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s New Year’s mes­sage spoke to T&T’s ills from crime to costs, cur­rent and loom­ing, tar­get­ing se­cu­ri­ty. Her promis­es of UNC’s own se­cu­ri­ty plans sig­nalled the par­ty would make se­cu­ri­ty the cen­tre­piece of its elec­tion man­i­festo - and the year’s de­vel­op­ments would see that oc­cur.

• For­mer PP min­is­ter Fazal Karim died af­ter a 10-year fight with prostate can­cer.

• Af­ter ren­o­va­tions since 2018, PNM’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters re­opened with Row­ley cit­ing all the par­ty’s done for T&T - and is­sues the first of that year’s re­tire­ment teasers, as Min­is­ters Ro­han Sinanan and Colm Im­bert called on him to con­tin­ue: he not­ed his wife has re­tired.

• PNM’s first Gen­er­al Coun­cil placed PN­Mites on gen­er­al elec­tion foot­ing to await nom­i­na­tion calls and with the re­minder there’s “One PNM.” This was test­ed nine months lat­er with a heat­ed Oc­to­ber 19 Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing where the PM was braced by ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers Fos­ter Cum­mings and Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus on cer­tain is­sues.

• Af­ter a lack of bi­par­ti­san an­ti-crime talks, UNC launched its own crime con­sul­ta­tions. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide Firearms Users’ Li­cences and per­son­al le­gal firearms to all law en­force­ment of­fi­cers and promised a UNC gov­ern­ment would do so if PNM didn’t.

• Gov­ern­ment’s 2024 chal­lenges be­gin with the Paria Fu­el Div­ing Tragedy Com­mis­sion of In­quiry 380-page re­port cit­ing rec­om­men­da­tions, in­clud­ing that the Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed be in­ves­ti­gat­ed for cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter.

FEB­RU­ARY

• PM Row­ley went to the US and met Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris on part­ner­ships re­gard­ing the cli­mate cri­sis, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues, ad­dress­ing firearms traf­fick­ing – and dis­cussing Venezuela. On re­turn, he re­vealed he al­so met with the CIA and FBI and that cer­tain el­e­ments were lik­ing T&T and “they’re not small timers.” Al­so re­vealed his first va­ca­tion in March and plans for sub­se­quent med­icals.

• UNC’s bat­tling points in­clud­ed Gov­ern­ment’s pur­chase of 20 wood­en lad­ders for $999,000 for the T&T Fire Ser­vice which ini­tial­ly couldn’t be used as they were un­able to fit on fire trucks.

• Par­lia­ment’s Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ques­tioned Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher on TTPS man­age­ment but she’ was to­tal­ly off on re­spons­es. Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans lat­er ap­proved three new Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers for her.

• Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­it­er­at­ed calls for a meet­ing with the PM on crime – and slapped him with his own state­ment, as Op­po­si­tion Leader in 2012, of “... if the gov­ern­ment can’t deal with it, then the gov­ern­ment it­self is part of the prob­lem.”

• To­ba­go’s south­ern coasts “in­vad­ed” by oil spill from cap­sised Gulf­stream barge aban­doned by mys­te­ri­ous tug, which would lat­er be “ar­rest­ed” by Gov­ern­ment in An­go­la in No­vem­ber af­ter a stren­u­ous glob­al hunt. En­er­gy Min­istry rode to the res­cue with mil­lion-dol­lar clean-up.

• PM told Guyana’s En­er­gy Con­fer­ence that col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort is need­ed to en­sure en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty for the re­gion and com­bat the neg­a­tive im­pacts of cli­mate change. He lat­er joined Cari­com lead­ers for their con­fer­ence.

MARCH

• PM rub­bished Op­po­si­tion claims and chal­lenged any­one to prove con­clu­sive­ly that any mem­ber of his ad­min­is­tra­tion is in­volved in cor­rup­tion.

PM goes on va­ca­tion to Ire­land with wife.

• UNC Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray broke out a pow­er play, call­ing for UNC na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions due by June and ex­press­ing in­ter­est in lead­er­ship. Sup­port­ed by fel­low MP Dr Rai Rag­bir - who al­so called for lead­er­ship elec­tions. Oth­er sup­port came from col­leagues Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Rod­ney Charles, Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, cer­tain coun­cil­lors and ac­tivists. Thus be­gan UNC’s oth­er chal­lenge be­sides the PNM.

• Per­sad-Bisses­sar, al­lud­ing to wannabes whose am­bi­tions out­weighed tal­ents, said “any­one who wants to jump the gun will wait their turn” and “now isn’t the time for that.” Paray and part­ners al­so threat­ened with ex­pul­sion if they vot­ed against the par­ty line in Par­lia­ment.

• There was a lock­down of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency, and a probe was launched, head­ed by T&T’s for­mer am­bas­sador to the US, An­tho­ny Phillips Spencer, who was named to re­place sus­pend­ed di­rec­tor Ma­jor Roger Best and sev­er­al em­ploy­ees who were sus­pend­ed and ter­mi­nat­ed by May, in­clud­ing “Spy Pas­tor” Ian Browne - in a sit­u­a­tion the PM lat­er hint­ed in­volved an al­leged “coup” plot.

APRIL

• UNC MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly called for leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar to step down, say­ing this was the on­ly way it would win the next gen­er­al elec­tion. He added that in­stead of run­ning on prin­ci­ples, the par­ty was be­ing run ac­cord­ing to per­son­al­i­ties and on press re­leas­es.

• Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass clashed with Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour over is­sues fol­low­ing Fi­nance’s Feb­ru­ary dis­cov­ery of $2.6 bil­lion un­der­stat­ed in T&T’s ac­counts for 2023, due to new Cen­tral Bank elec­tron­ic cheque-clear­ing sys­tem is­sues. Found too late for the Jan­u­ary dead­line of sub­mis­sion of 2023 in­for­ma­tion to Ram­dass, she re­fused to ac­cept it, sub­se­quent­ly did so but didn’t add it to the 2023 ac­counts. Im­bert re­fused to lay her 2023 re­port in Par­lia­ment, had Par­lia­ment ex­tend the time to sub­mit in­for­ma­tion to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al and sub­mit an amend­ed re­port. Im­bert ap­point­ed a team to probe the is­sue’s ori­gins. Ram­dass hired Anand Ram­lo­gan SC to de­fend her and didn’t add the $2.6B to her sup­ple­men­tary re­port. Some as­pects were still in court at year end. Per­sad-Bisses­sar and UNC de­fend­ed Ram­dass, ac­cus­ing Im­bert and Ar­mour of try­ing to co­erce her to add $3.4B to the 2023 ac­counts.

• Paray and part­ners con­tin­ue push­ing for UNC elec­tions de­spite blis­ter­ing “bouff” from some col­leagues.

• Op­po­si­tion pound­ed Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh af­ter deaths of ba­bies at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal’s Neona­tal ICU.

• PM met the fam­i­lies of the de­ceased Paria Fu­el divers, say­ing he’d made it clear to Paria that he want­ed the mat­ter con­clud­ed quick­ly and fair­ly.

MAY

• UNC screamed over PM’s spend­ing for of­fi­cial trav­el.

• PM went to Ghana for the com­mem­o­ra­tion of the 25th an­niver­sary of the en­stool­ment of the 16th As­an­te­hene King Otum­fuo Nana Os­ei Tu­tu II. A sub­se­quent to trip to In­dia re­vealed that land at Trinci­ty had been iden­ti­fied for a “high-qual­i­ty” crick­et acad­e­my, with sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment from In­di­an mul­ti-na­tion­al con­glom­er­ate Re­liance In­dus­tries Ltd, lo­cal pri­vate in­vestors and Gov­ern­ment.

• On what would have been Bas­deo Pan­day’s 91st birth­day, daugh­ter Mick­ela an­nounced plans for her Pa­tri­ot­ic Front to con­test all gen­er­al elec­tion seats in its first elec­tion par­tic­i­pa­tion. She mount­ed a huge bill­board in Cen­tral Trinidad which pro­claimed “Change Doesn’t mean Ex­change” and walked con­stituen­cies, in­clud­ing Oropouche West, which she once rep­re­sent­ed for UNC. By De­cem­ber Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed any al­liance with Mick­ela.

• Gov­ern­ment an­nounced a June 17 date for by-elec­tions in Lengua/In­di­an walk and Quinam-Morne Di­a­blo.

• UNC, still sus­tain­ing bit­ter fight­ing be­tween UNC MP Paray and his sup­port­ers and UNC MPs and ac­tivists loy­al to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, fol­lowed this by an­nounc­ing its in­ter­nal ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion for June 15. Paray, who launched a slate known as the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots – in­clud­ing Rag­bir, and oth­ers as can­di­dates – sought the deputy leader’s post. Per­sad- Bisses­sar backed her Stars team com­pris­ing main­ly her loy­al­ist MPs.

JUNE

• Fi­nance Min­is­ter Im­bert’s mid-year re­view gave the 2024 Bud­get of $59.1B a $2.3B boost for 12 di­vi­sions to take them to the end of the fis­cal year in Sep­tem­ber - but not­ed “quite care­ful” Gov­ern­ment ex­pen­di­ture would be in force over the next year or two fol­low­ing a $3B rev­enue loss for 2024 due to a drop in en­er­gy prices.

• Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance leader Gary Grif­fith wrote to UNC leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar, seek­ing to rec­ti­fy her “con­stant re­fusal” to con­tin­ue com­mu­ni­cat­ing with him, called her out on de­fend­ing deputy leader Jear­lean John and de­clared she couldn’t tell him what to say about John. The cracks that month would deep­en in­to wide gap be­tween both - with re­cur­ring word-throw­ing. By year-end, NTA was left out of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s gen­er­al elec­tion coali­tion be­ing cul­ti­vat­ed all year with PSA, OW­TU, MND PEP and COP.

• Op­po­si­tion slammed Gov­ern­ment do­ing busi­ness with In­di­an busi­ness­man Naveen Jin­dal on the Petrotrin re­fin­ery, al­leg­ing he’d faced cor­rup­tion scruti­ny in his coun­try. Jin­dal bowed out of the bid fol­low­ing UNC’s ha­rangu­ing.

• PM and Cari­com lead­ers met US Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris in Ba­hamas on re­gion­al is­sues, in­clud­ing se­cu­ri­ty.

Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, filed a law­suit against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al rep­re­sent­ing PNM Min­is­ter of Youth Fos­ter Cum­mings, over the dis­sem­i­na­tion of a se­cret TTPS Spe­cial Branch note al­leged to con­tain a num­ber of un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed al­le­ga­tions against him.

• Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Stars slate beat Paray’s UPs, bring­ing out more UNC vot­ers than the par­ty’s 2022 in­ter­nals. Stars mem­bers’ top vote was 18,000 over Paray’s 4,000-odd.

• Right af­ter, PNM re­took one­time Lengua/In­di­an Walk in by-elec­tions and UNC re­tained the Quinam/Morne Di­a­blo seat.

• The loud PNM desk-thump­ing that fol­lowed UNC MP Rai Rag­bir’s state­ment move to sup­port Gov­ern­ment’s Whistle­blow­er bill in Par­lia­ment, would have re­quired re­pairs to some Gov­ern­ment desks. The Whistle­blow­er bill didn’t need Op­po­si­tion votes for pas­sage. UNC lat­er sup­port­ed a sub­se­quent bill that did re­quire Op­po­si­tion votes to pass.

• UNC MPs and leader lashed Rag­bir, tossed him out of UNC chat groups, and warned of a dis­ci­pli­nary hear­ing. He still wait­ing for that, he said in De­cem­ber.

• PNM’s Fam­i­ly Day in San Fer­nan­do West cel­e­brat­ed the Lengua vic­to­ry. The PM an­nounced PNM in­ter­nal ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions for the con­ven­tion lat­er in the year – a move that would cost the par­ty by its Oc­to­ber 19 Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing where post­pone­ment was agreed to by votes, de­spite Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus’ dis­agree­ment.

• Af­ter a 6.2 earth­quake, T&T bat­tened down the hatch­es as Hur­ri­cane Beryl head­ed to­wards To­ba­go – but re­mained at sea then charged full steam ahead to mash up Grena­da/St Vin­cent lo­cales.

• Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty ex­ec­u­tive polls post­poned, but was sub­se­quent­ly held.