Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo is urg­ing busi­ness­es to share re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, warn­ing that pass­ing on the bur­den of high­er tax­es to con­sumers could back­fire in an in­creas­ing­ly in­formed, price-sen­si­tive mar­ket.

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas says she has al­ready writ­ten to the chief per­son­nel of­fi­cer (CPO) to be­gin wage talks and wants ne­go­ti­a­tions con­clud­ed be­fore Christ­mas so pub­lic ser­vants can have their mon­ey in their pock­ets for the hol­i­days.

Pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), An­cel Ro­get, says the 2026 Bud­get is be­ing seen as a “res­cue mis­sion” for work­ers.

The Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union (CGW­TU) is press­ing for dis­cus­sions on a cost-of-liv­ing ad­just­ment (CO­LA) for its mem­bers, high­light­ing con­cerns that work­ers could be left at a dis­ad­van­tage if oth­er unions rene­go­ti­ate for im­proved terms.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) will re­ceive a $20 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion for the 2026 fis­cal year to pro­cure an ad­di­tion­al 3,120 Body Worn Cam­eras (BWC) for front­line of­fi­cers. A fa­cil­i­ty to sup­port na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions in the north­ern and east­ern cor­ri­dors is al­so be­ing de­vel­oped at Laven­tille.

Even as they wel­comed the gov­ern­ment’s stat­ed in­ten­tion to re­cruit 500 new prison of­fi­cers as part of its’ com­mit­ment to im­prov­ing the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, ‘ the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) yes­ter­day called for di­a­logue to en­sure it does not be­come an emp­ty promise or sim­ple rhetoric.

High Court Judge Joan Charles yes­ter­day gave the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) sev­en days to dis­close the names of at­tor­neys and fees paid for their ser­vices dur­ing the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) in­to the Paria div­ing tragedy.

A rou­tine au­top­sy on a child who was be­lieved to have choked to death on the week­end was halt­ed mid­way yes­ter­day, af­ter the pathol­o­gist dis­cov­ered marks of vi­o­lence on the body and or­dered a full-scale au­top­sy.

The Unit­ed States has car­ried out an­oth­er strike near Venezue­lan wa­ters, hit­ting a small ves­sel it claims was in­volved in nar­co traf­fick­ing and killing six peo­ple on board.

Sev­er­al To­bag­o­ni­ans be­lieve the 2026 Bud­get could ease fi­nan­cial strain, but many re­main cau­tious about whether the promis­es will tru­ly reach the peo­ple.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young says while the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­duce the cost of Su­per gaso­line by $1 is a good mea­sure, the Bud­get did not pro­vide mon­ey for any 10 per cent wage in­crease and the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s fir­ing of CEPEP and URP work­ers seems to have racial un­der­tones.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) says it wel­comes sev­er­al jus­tice-re­lat­ed mea­sures an­nounced in the 2025/2026 Na­tion­al Bud­get, de­scrib­ing them as pos­i­tive steps to­ward im­prov­ing ac­cess to jus­tice.