The ink had hard­ly dried on my plea for “road paving or patch­ing” in last week’s col­umn when I saw a post on the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture’s Face­book page an­nounc­ing “es­sen­tial spot patch­ing works across the coun­try.” It was ac­com­pa­nied by a map of 36 sites and a sched­ule of “17–21 No­vem­ber.”

I have per­son­al­ly seen some of the patch­ing along the South­ern Main Road in Cunu­pia, and I ex­pect the oth­er 35 ar­eas would have been com­plet­ed as well. There is still much to do, but I com­mend Min­is­ter Jear­lean John for her re­spon­sive­ness. I am hap­py to praise de­liv­ery even as I con­tin­ue to con­vey the views of our just­ly de­mand­ing cit­i­zens. There are spe­cif­ic roads I know all too well that re­main in dire need of repaving, but I have full con­fi­dence in Min­is­ter John that she will get them done very soon.

More than mere spot patch­ing, I view her ac­tion as a re­minder of her po­lit­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty. Whether crit­i­cism is raised out of frus­tra­tion or gen­uine need, the voice of the peo­ple must al­ways be a politi­cian’s first coun­sel. Sad­ly, some be­have as though they have “ar­rived” and be­lieve they will be en­sconced in of­fice for­ev­er.

An­oth­er po­lit­i­cal­ly ma­ture politi­cian, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, al­so scored this week when bpTT an­nounced that the Cypre gas project is ful­ly on­line. Full cir­cle: Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion in­cen­tivized re­newed ex­plo­ration in 2014, which led to the 2017 Macadamia dis­cov­ery that gave rise to Cypre.

With all sev­en wells now on­line—years ahead of the 2026 pro­jec­tion—every­one in­volved must be con­grat­u­lat­ed, in­clud­ing the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment. Noth­ing beats ac­tu­al de­liv­ery. How will the ex­tra 250 mil­lion stan­dard cu­bic feet of gas per day sup­port na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment?

Well done to Min­is­ter Mooni­lal and Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar. What are their plans to sur­pass our 2009 record yield of 4.5 bscf/d? This new pro­duc­tion will cer­tain­ly in­flu­ence the fi­nanc­ing of the am­bi­tious “TT Re­vi­tal­iza­tion Blue­print.” Has it inched clos­er to re­al­i­ty?

It took 11 years of steady progress to bring Cypre ful­ly on­line. Will bpTT’s Gin­ger project and Shell’s Aphrodite be on­line be­fore 2027? And how long be­fore we are “ami­gos” again with a Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment will­ing to per­mit de­vel­op­ment of the Drag­on and Cocuina-Man­akin gas fields with US ap­proval?

With her ar­tic­u­la­tion of a “free­dom man­i­festo,” Venezue­lan Op­po­si­tion Leader and 2025 No­bel Peace Prize Lau­re­ate María Co­ri­na Macha­do is no doubt en­cour­aged by the ac­tiv­i­ties of the US South­ern Com­mand and Joint Task Force South­ern Spear in the Caribbean Sea. The bomber at­tack demon­stra­tion by US­AF B-52s and the live-fire ord­nance ex­er­cis­es by USMC AV-8B Har­ri­er IIs must have Pres­i­dent Maduro con­tem­plat­ing his mor­tal­i­ty.

US Sec­re­tary of War Pe­te Hegseth has in­di­cat­ed that the Maduro regime is set to be des­ig­nat­ed the “Car­tel de los Soles” ter­ror or­ga­ni­za­tion by the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice to­day. This des­ig­na­tion is ex­pect­ed to ex­pand the op­tions avail­able to Pres­i­dent Trump. With 22 ki­net­ic strikes and 83 killed at sea, the on­ly oth­er “op­tion” ap­pears to be a land in­cur­sion. It is like­ly that “Car­tel de los Soles” fa­cil­i­ties have al­ready been iden­ti­fied and tar­get­ed for mis­sile or airstrikes. Will Pres­i­dent Maduro ca­pit­u­late, or call Pres­i­dent Trump’s bluff?

I have spo­ken to many Venezue­lan im­mi­grants, and they all want Maduro re­moved. Fre­quent­ly re­fer­ring to him as “Mabur­ro,” they ful­ly sup­port Macha­do and are adamant that the Maduro-con­trolled CNE stole the elec­tions. But how much sup­port does he re­tain among those who did not flee? Af­ter 12 years of his rule, Venezuela’s stan­dard of liv­ing de­fies the fact that the na­tion pos­sess­es the world’s largest proven oil re­serves.

Our Prime Min­is­ter has made it clear: “The US has NEV­ER re­quest­ed use of our ter­ri­to­ry to launch any at­tacks against the peo­ple of Venezuela. Trinidad and To­ba­go ter­ri­to­ry will NOT be used to launch any at­tacks against the peo­ple of Venezuela.” Both Min­is­ters of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty evad­ed ques­tions about the pres­ence of US war­ships in the Gulf of Paria, but in very dif­fer­ent ways. Min­is­ter Sturge in­voked par­lia­men­tary stand­ing or­der 27(1)(g), while Min­is­ter Alexan­der said, “No­body has sent any ship to me.” On­ly Blaze from The Run­down should in­ter­view him—he is pure com­ic re­lief.

Trans­port Min­is­ter Za­k­our took a page out of Min­is­ter Alexan­der’s com­ic book when he claimed to know noth­ing about the vi­ral video of the day­light rob­bery of a maxi taxi on the PBR at Windy Hill, Arou­ca. The trau­ma­tized rob­bery vic­tims would not ap­pre­ci­ate his pro­fessed ig­no­rance. The gov­ern­ment’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy could ben­e­fit from re­fine­ment. It may be best to keep cer­tain min­is­ters away from the me­dia un­til they re­ceive prop­er PR train­ing.

“An­oth­er promise made is an­oth­er promise de­liv­ered,” said PSA Pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas as her union ac­cept­ed the long-promised “10 per cent.” In­ter­est­ing­ly, it was fi­nal­ly of­fered by act­ing CPO Wendy Bar­ton. Will al­lo­cat­ing it across the two bar­gain­ing pe­ri­ods—2014–2016 and 2017–2019—in­vite fur­ther de­lay? The PSA is op­ti­mistic that they will re­ceive their new salaries and back pay by Christ­mas. If so, the oth­er unions that have long since signed and were bud­get­ed for can start their own parang sea­son.