Be­tween the wa­ters of Ch­aguara­mas, the build­ings of Mal­oney and the fa­tal high­way ac­ci­dent in Ch­agua­nas, the post-Di­vali week pipped the oth­er none-too-nice events that oc­curred pre-Di­vali.

In­deed, yes­ter­day’s Fri­day the 13th date and ac­tiv­i­ties in all lo­ca­tions—Ch­aguara­mas body re­cov­er­ies, Mal­oney cur­fews and mo­tor­cy­clists’ deaths—con­veyed the neg­a­tiv­i­ty over­hang­ing it all and the trend­ing dis­cus­sions.

In what some say may have been the worst ma­rine in­ci­dent in­volv­ing T&T cit­i­zens—be­yond pi­rate vic­tims over re­cent years —last Sun­day’s boat­ing col­li­sion dis­as­ter has trig­gered many ques­tions and con­cerns. Thurs­day’s in­ter­view of sur­vivor Mal­ick Rud­der, soon af­ter the body of his friend Anil Ahy­ee was re­cov­ered, showed a youth in shock. Vic­tims, such as San Juan/Laven­tille Cor­po­ra­tion Health De­part­ment em­ploy­ee Ahy­ee, were av­er­age cit­i­zens seek­ing hol­i­day re­lax­ation that day.

Deputy chair­man Kwe­si An­toine, whose cor­po­ra­tion ex­pressed great sad­ness at the death of Ahy­ee, who worked there since 2006, is al­so in a tight po­si­tion re­gard­ing cur­few—cur­tailed Mal­oney: he has to en­sure his bas­ket­ball teams par­tic­i­pate in sched­uled tour­na­ments there.

If Gov­ern­ment’s voice has been low pro­file on the col­li­sion is­sue, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne’s re­mark about re­ceiv­ing plen­ty “licks” on so­cial me­dia, af­ter warn­ing about dan­gers as­so­ci­at­ed with boat­ing op­er­a­tions in To­co ahead of the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed To­ba­go Car­ni­val, con­firmed Gov­ern­ment’s skit­tish­ness about speak­ing. The ad­min­is­tra­tion knows well from the Paria divers’ deaths—where its ac­tivists pushed that mat­ter—how a gov­ern­ment is blamed in tragedies.

As is be­ing done in the Mal­oney lock­down, this is the first test of Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions law and ob­vi­ous­ly its ze­ro-tol­er­ance an­ti-crime plan. While Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar sent mixed mes­sages of “care” for Mal­oney, in­ject­ing pol­i­tics— blam­ing the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment for ne­glect­ing the area—Gov­ern­ment will have to roll with the punch­es. As it’s been do­ing.

Op­po­si­tion whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les’ list­ed mo­tion in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, ex­pressed con­cern over gov­er­nance of state en­ter­pris­es and state-con­trolled in­sti­tu­tions. This, af­ter up­heavals with some Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) board ap­point­ments and con­tin­ued new faces, in­clud­ing (lat­est) at Re­pub­lic Bank and Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings.

Where state-owned First Cit­i­zens is con­cerned, it’s con­firmed FCB’s un­der­tak­en a US$200 mil­lion part­ner­ship with the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank geared for as­sist­ing small/medi­um en­ter­pris­es and mid/low in­come mort­gages, in­ject­ing forex in­to the econ­o­my and cush­ion­ing the ef­fect of cer­tain trans­ac­tions of the past.

Else­where, it’s al­so ex­pect­ed that the No­vem­ber 30 eighth an­niver­sary of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery’s clo­sure will bring En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal’s promised an­nounce­ment on restart moves.

Fi­nal­i­sa­tion of process­es for Re­quest for Pro­pos­als is ex­pect­ed to be be­fore the Cab­i­net. Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said in­ter­est is high from many ar­eas, in­clud­ing In­dia, Eu­rope, Guyana, T&T’s Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies & Tech­nolo­gies and the Unit­ed States. A US com­pa­ny in­ter­est­ed in US main­stay diesel, toured the fa­cil­i­ty with US of­fi­cials re­cent­ly, it’s been con­firmed.

The US, ex­pect­ed to be a strong con­tender, has a US$200 bil­lion Sov­er­eign En­er­gy Fund for projects in the West­ern Hemi­sphere. Lo­cal in­ter­est al­so in­cludes eye­ing a con­sor­tium of part­ners han­dling dif­fer­ent re­fin­ery as­pects.

Mooni­lal’s sched­uled trip to Venezuela soon is al­so ex­pect­ed to be a fac­tor, since Venezuela— re­cent­ly send­ing oil equip­ment to the US for re­pairs—could be­come a re­fin­ery ri­val, though T&T has At­lantic LNG as a niche.

Re­fin­ery move­ment is par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant with Gov­ern­ment fac­ing the 2027 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion—a sit­u­a­tion where em­bat­tled Min­is­ter David Lee pos­es a chal­lenge for Gov­ern­ment’s pro­file. The PM’s record of cred­i­bil­i­ty is al­ready marred by flip-flop­ping. Lat­est: af­ter ini­tial­ly in­di­cat­ing the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions would ap­ply on­ly to UNC ar­eas since the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) didn’t want it, PNM-rep­re­sent­ed Mal­oney be­came the first, de­spite mul­ti­ple crimes oc­cur­ring in cer­tain UNC seats. Plus, her in­ac­tion on Lee af­ter she re­moved sim­i­lar­ly chal­lenged per­sons in her first term.

Amid Gov­ern­ment’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty as a whip­ping boy on many T&T is­sues, the ad­min­is­tra­tion has to hedge re­gard­ing the is­sue’s mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors. Lee’s one of UNC’s three deputy lead­ers. Hold­ing Ca­roni Cen­tral heart­land (in which cer­tain per­son­al­i­ties are in­ter­est­ed). Head­ing the crit­i­cal hous­ing port­fo­lio in 2027’s eco­nom­ic launch­pad of con­struc­tion plans. In an LG elec­tion year, when hous­ing promis­es re­quire de­liv­ery to en­hance Gov­ern­ment’s stock.

It’s ahead whether Tues­day’s Ship­ping Bill list­ed in the Sen­ate ex­tends to a so­lu­tion on the boat­ing col­li­sion. Or more is heard on Mal­oney. At least.