Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Flash­ing every ten sec­onds on the screen be­hind the speak­er were the words “Bet­ter Days Ahead.”

On the podi­um, the same mes­sage lit up a dig­i­tal dis­play.

As the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ac­count­ed to its po­lit­i­cal base af­ter near­ly a year in of­fice, the sig­nal was un­mis­tak­able: the par­ty is bet­ting its next chap­ter on the promise that things will get bet­ter.

As cold rain pelt­ed the Cou­va South Hall carpark, a ca­pac­i­ty crowd, es­ti­mat­ed by pro­tec­tive ser­vices at around 10,000 at its peak, stood with hope.

Some UNC sup­port­ers told Guardian Me­dia they were con­fi­dent im­prove­ments are com­ing.

But while they ac­knowl­edged gains in year one, they al­so point­ed to key ar­eas where they want the Gov­ern­ment to pay par­tic­u­lar fo­cus.

Tabaquite res­i­dent Hemwatie De­onar­ine she was pleased that Gov­ern­ment had kept its promise and de­liv­ered lap­tops to Form 1 stu­dents.

De­onar­ine said she al­so got a job from the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture.

On Sat­ur­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that the min­istry had em­ployed 1,800 peo­ple in the last 12 months.

But De­onar­ine is hop­ing the gov­ern­ment can build on this year by look­ing at some key ar­eas.

“We want to look at some food prices, we want to look at some more jobs, we are hop­ing we can get some ease up of the crime be­cause crime is es­ca­lat­ing, and I think we will have a bet­ter coun­try,” she ex­plained.

Mean­while, Ka­mala Cassie, from the La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro con­stituen­cy, told Guardian Me­dia that she was thrilled when Gov­ern­ment an­nounced the ex­emp­tion of in­come tax on pay­ments re­ceived from ap­proved pri­vate pen­sion fund plans and ap­proved de­ferred an­nu­ity plans.

But her thoughts are al­so with those who lost their jobs in the last 12 months, and she is hop­ing they see em­ploy­ment soon.

“I’d like more op­por­tu­ni­ties for those who were laid off, like un­der the CEPEP pro­gramme and oth­ers, I’d like to see more op­por­tu­ni­ties for them.”

Gio­van­ni Bain al­so called for more avail­able jobs, as he be­lieves more em­ploy­ment will lead to a re­duc­tion in crime.

“Pri­ori­tise the youth, the youth is the fu­ture, you can nev­er go wrong with pri­ori­tis­ing the youth. Once em­ploy­ment solve, the crime rate is go­ing to cut in half, I know that for sure.”

He added, “But so far, every­thing look­ing promis­ing, we still have more time.”

From the podi­um on Sat­ur­day, the Prime Min­is­ter pledged 30 new mo­bile po­lice posts across the na­tion, as she ac­knowl­edged that the fight against crime has not been won. And stand­ing away from the stage, UNC sup­port­er Mar­sha Grena­do was hop­ing that the bet­ter days promised means safer days as well.

“I’d like to see at least the cit­i­zens will be able to be more com­fort­able to go out and not have to wor­ry about rob­beries and sense­less killings, so I think that is one of the ma­jor things I be­lieve they should look at.”

Or­chid Matthias mean­while said she be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment has stayed con­nect­ed with the peo­ple in its first year and she is grate­ful for that.

“So I just feel that bet­ter days are com­ing af­ter this first year.”

Asked what she is look­ing for­ward to in year two, Matthias, with­out hes­i­ta­tion, replied, “Em­ploy­ment boy, be­cause a lot of peo­ple try­ing to hold it down right now and the econ­o­my is so hard. So we re­al­ly want em­ploy­ment over­all.”

How­ev­er, Tony Ram­samooj said that he be­lieves the coun­try went through 10 pe­ri­ods of re­gres­sion un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment and turn­ing things around will not hap­pen with­in the first year.

But Ram­samooj is hop­ing ser­vices in the pub­lic health sec­tor im­prove, as he said the wait time for cer­tain pro­ce­dures is still too long and it is the mid­dle to low­er class­es that suf­fer the most.

He, too, re­mained op­ti­mistic as the dig­i­tal stage board tran­si­tioned yet again, shift­ing from the UNC lo­go to its cap­i­talised promise: “BET­TER DAYS AHEAD.”