The Par­lia­ment wasn’t in ses­sion yes­ter­day for Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion to wit­ness for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath march­ing with NATUC pro­tes­tors.

While all marchers were pur­su­ing their own bat­tles, events at Wednes­day’s Par­lia­ment sit­ting - the first day of reg­u­lar busi­ness af­ter Bud­get 2024 ex­am­i­na­tions - sig­nalled that this sec­ond to last year of the term will al­so be height­ened bat­tle for Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion, strength­en­ing gen­er­al elec­tion ground­work.

In a pe­ri­od when the Op­po­si­tion’s made it clear that its team for an­ti-crime talks will in­clude NTA leader Gary Grif­fith, Gov­ern­ment chose its first bill for de­bate on Wednes­day as the poly­graph/drug test bill for pro­tec­tive ser­vices - some­thing Grif­fith sup­port­ed as po­lice com­mis­sion­er. But the UNC ex­pressed con­cerns about the bill when it was first pre­sent­ed in 2022. It lapsed then and has on­ly now been re-of­fered - af­ter Grif­fith of­fi­cial­ly aligned with the UNC this year.

More sig­nif­i­cant­ly: Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s state­ment on the Point Fortin High­way con­struc­tion and ques­tions about Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment’s man­age­ment of the project, marked the PNM’s lat­est sal­vo against po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents. Row­ley’s re­marks al­lud­ed re­peat­ed­ly to the “UNC gov­ern­ment” over the 2010-2015 pe­ri­od in­volved, ce­ment­ing the PP’s is­sues to the cur­rent UNC Op­po­si­tion’s pro­file.

The tim­ing of Row­ley’s rev­e­la­tion that a Nid­co pa­per on the high­way project (2010-2023) will be re­ferred to Par­lia­ment’s Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Land and Phys­i­cal In­fra­struc­ture, es­tab­lish­es the is­sue as one of 2024’s open­ing acts for po­lit­i­cal fire in the elec­tion lead-up year. Be­yond cer­tain oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tions, JSC scruti­ny is the lat­est, fol­low­ing the So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry’s probe of a PP gov­ern­ment-ap­proved card pro­gramme.

The JSC, like oth­ers on Par­lia­ment’s web­site, is ex­pect­ed to have its first pri­vate meet­ing for the ses­sion this month. In the usu­al process of how JSCs op­er­ate, it’s ex­pect­ed the JSC will ex­am­ine Nid­co’s pa­per and process of in­quiry pro­posed, iden­ti­fy stake­hold­ers, is­sue ques­tions and ob­tain re­spons­es. Pub­lic in­quiry’s ex­pect­ed in ear­ly 2024, pos­si­bly Jan­u­ary.

The JSC’s head­ed by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor De­oroop Teemal, who re­cent­ly braced the TTPS on van­dal­ism of tem­ples. The com­mit­tee’s task is to as­cer­tain, from Nid­co’s in­for­ma­tion, who’s try­ing to rewrite his­to­ry (as Gov­ern­ment’s ac­cused UNC) or who’s giv­ing er­ro­neous in­for­ma­tion (as UNC’s coun­tered) and is ex­pect­ed to be an ex­plo­sive ex­er­cise, since the pa­per spans 2010-2023 PP and PNM terms and could in­volve per­son­al­i­ties from both sides, plus pub­lic ser­vants.

The com­mit­tee com­pris­es Min­is­ter in the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry Lisa Mor­ris Ju­lian, deputy Sen­ate pres­i­dent Muhammed Ibrahim, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Symon de No­bri­ga, PNM Point Fortin MP Kennedy Richards, Min­is­ter in the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Min­istry Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal - and Op­po­si­tion Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans Anil Roberts and Bar­ry Padarath.

UNC’s al­ready launched de­fences. It re­mains ahead if ex-min­is­te­r­i­al mem­bers of a PP high­way sub-com­mit­tee - rep­re­sent­ing as­pects linked to the project from en­er­gy and hous­ing in the high­way’s path, to plan­ning and fi­nanc­ing - will be in­volved al­so. Ex-mem­ber, for­mer PP Min­is­ter in Works Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine, held triple re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of sorts due to her port­fo­lio, en­gi­neer­ing acu­men and the high­way’s route through her for­mer Oropouche West con­stituen­cy.

An an­nounce­ment of the JSC ex­am­i­na­tion may be pos­i­tive po­lit­i­cal op­tics for the PNM. But it’s raised queries about why it’s nec­es­sary, since the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry on the project was man­dat­ed, in­clud­ing what the CoE’s done for $11 mil­lion so far and now with two such ex­am­i­na­tions on - pos­si­bly for the first time ever - what be­comes of re­spec­tive re­ports.

The JSC ex­am­i­na­tion wouldn’t have dis­tract­ed from Gov­ern­ment’s own “test” - T&T’s mur­der rate. Row­ley’s im­me­di­ate sharp re­sponse on Mon­day, emerged with elec­tion cli­mate flour­ish, though “re­dou­bling” ef­forts sig­nalled that au­thor­i­ties’ ac­tions are in­suf­fi­cient. It ar­rived when the Pres­i­dent’s sum­mon­ing of ex­tra army troops for the Christ­mas to Car­ni­val pe­ri­od – which is nor­mal­ly done – aid­ed the ex­tra man­pow­er im­age.

Be­yond Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds’ news yes­ter­day of the first suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tion of a hu­man traf­fick­ing case, aid­ing T&T’s pro­file, man­pow­er must be sup­ple­ment­ed with bet­ter use of in­tel to pre­vent prob­lems (and pick up con­victs) rather than plead­ing af­ter.

Gov­ern­ment’s oth­er tests in­clude the court rul­ing next Fri­day on UNC’s elec­tion pe­ti­tion on the Lengua/In­di­an Walk Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion re­sults. Al­so: No­vem­ber 21 pro­nounce­ment on UNC ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in-Ma­haraj’s le­gal chal­lenge to the ex­ten­sion of CoP Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s con­tract. Then fur­ther tests for one po­lit­i­cal side.