Ten years ago, I out­lined the three fun­da­men­tal prob­lems fac­ing T&T as: the need for eco­nom­ic mod­erni­sa­tion and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion; deep­en­ing so­cial de­cay spawn­ing myr­i­ad gen­er­a­tional prob­lems, in­clud­ing hor­ren­dous crime; and in­sti­tu­tion­al dys­func­tion, as the state fails in fun­da­men­tal oblig­a­tions and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to the cit­i­zen­ry.

But the Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion did vir­tu­al­ly noth­ing. For ten years, it was main­ly per­for­mance pol­i­tics: grand­stand­ing, pos­tur­ing, promis­ing. All the­atre. Per­form­ing in par­lia­ment and on po­lit­i­cal plat­forms. Who can for­get Colm Im­bert’s boast­ful bud­get speech­es or Row­ley’s thun­der­ing at Pig­got’s Cor­ner and else­where? All for ap­plause from par­ti­san au­di­ences. Per­for­mance pol­i­tics! While the de­cline in our econ­o­my, so­ci­ety and in­sti­tu­tions be­came en­trenched.

Thank­ful­ly, the peo­ple sent them pack­ing. Since then, un­der Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, im­por­tant steps have been made to­wards eco­nom­ic mod­erni­sa­tion and so­cial restora­tion. The jour­ney has be­gun. Pro­found change start­ed.

On the eco­nom­ic front, there is ar­tic­u­lat­ed com­mit­ment to di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion. Plans and tar­gets have been set for agri­cul­ture, trade, cul­ture, tourism and re­new­able en­er­gy; and we have a Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print to at­tract sig­nif­i­cant for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment. We al­so have im­proved oil and gas pro­duc­tion and new prospects with four bids for 26 blocks in the deep­wa­ter round, in­clud­ing a US$42.5 mil­lion pro­duc­tion shar­ing con­tract with Exxon­Mo­bil for Block TTUD-1.

Gov­ern­ment in ac­tion.

So­cial re­new­al is al­so un­der­way. Most out­stand­ing is crime re­duc­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly the mur­der rate and se­ri­ous of­fences.

Dur­ing Row­ley’s tenure, small T&T, with 1.4 mil­lion peo­ple, had the sixth-high­est crime rate in the world, high­er than New York City, with over eight mil­lion. Over 5,000 peo­ple were mur­dered in ten blood-soaked years!

Thank­ful­ly, we had the si­mul­ta­ne­ous ar­rival of a new Gov­ern­ment and a new Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, who have been work­ing to­geth­er to ar­rest crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. Their suc­cess will now be sup­port­ed by the stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion, which gives un­prece­dent­ed em­pow­er­ment to home­own­ers reg­u­lar­ly de­scribed as “sit­ting ducks” against in­vad­ing crim­i­nals. Al­so, as the prime min­is­ter says, our part­ner­ship with the Unit­ed States has dealt a sig­nif­i­cant blow to nar­co-traf­fick­ing and as­so­ci­at­ed crimes.

Oth­er sig­nif­i­cant so­cial re­gen­er­a­tive ac­tions in­clude deal­ing with the hor­ren­dous men­ace of noise pol­lu­tion, which has long been ev­i­dence of the low lev­el of civil­i­sa­tion we have in T&T. Such un­car­ing and in­sen­si­tiv­i­ty to the rights and needs of oth­ers, in­clud­ing chil­dren, the sick and el­der­ly! Many say there are lev­els of in­dis­ci­pline, amoral­i­ty and deca­dence here, high and low, that were ab­sent in colo­nial times. Con­sid­er the waste, mis­man­age­ment and cor­rup­tion at of­fi­cial lev­els since in­de­pen­dence, ac­com­pa­nied by de­clin­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and van­ish­ing ci­vil­i­ty on the part of the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion. Con­sid­er the law­less­ness on our roads.

“The coun­try has no or­der, it’s be­come a law­less dump,” says Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Very pro­found change is need­ed folks.

The so­cial de­cay is en­trenched. For ten years, I point­ed the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tions to the epi­demics of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, dys­func­tion­al fam­i­lies, child abuse, teenage preg­nan­cies, school hooli­gan­ism, cul­tur­al deca­dence and more.

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry has re­port­ed that be­tween 2022 and 2025, there were over 21,000 sus­pen­sions for bad be­hav­iour in schools in this na­tion. The new ad­min­is­tra­tion has had to place armed po­lice of­fi­cers at the 50 high-risk sec­ondary schools and po­lice pa­trols at 20 oth­ers. Ut­ter­ly alarm­ing!

It all points to the vol­canic un­der­bel­ly of the so­ci­ety, ger­mi­nat­ing con­di­tions and forces pro­duc­ing crime lev­els that have con­vulsed this coun­try to near ir­re­triev­abil­i­ty, and which will ex­plode again and again un­less we deal with the root caus­es of this de­cay­ing so­ci­ety.

“This is a dark and dark­en­ing na­tion, sym­bol­ised by a moth­er seen on video re­peat­ed­ly kick­ing her two-year-old child,” I wrote on East­er Sun­day 2024.

It was not an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent, as the re­ports on child abuse re­veal, in­clud­ing bru­tal penal­ties in­flict­ed on chil­dren by par­ents or care­givers.

Here’s a list from the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty: “Child’s hands burnt over stove­tops, lit cig­a­rettes put to the child’s skin re­peat­ed­ly, child’s body doused with boil­ing wa­ter; fin­gers struck with a ham­mer as pun­ish­ment; child locked away in an an­i­mal pen or oth­er such struc­ture out­side the fam­i­ly home; child locked in the home, fed very lit­tle and iso­lat­ed from rel­a­tives and friends for ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od; child sex­u­al­ly abused by adults in the home, even of­fered to oth­er adults for sex­u­al grat­i­fi­ca­tion in ex­change for mon­ey.”

Heav­ens! What hor­ror! Chil­dren liv­ing in hell! Any sur­prise many cre­ate hell when they grow up?! Crim­i­nol­o­gist Prof Ramesh De­osaran says, “Crim­i­nals don’t ap­pear from the sky overnight.” They are nur­tured in the very womb of your so­ci­ety.

In­deed. Since the in­cep­tion of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty in 2015, up to 5,700 cas­es of child abuse—phys­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal, sex­u­al—are re­port­ed every year. Every year! That’s al­most 60,000 re­port­ed cas­es in ten years. How many thou­sands more go un­re­port­ed? Sim­i­lar­ly, with do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, where po­lice records show 15,620 re­ports be­tween 2014 and 2022.

See our dark­ness, folks? The de­cay­ing im­men­si­ty? Will this con­tin­ue? You have said an em­phat­ic no. You round­ly re­ject­ed the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion in April this year and de­clared for all to hear: no more per­for­mance pol­i­tics in T&T. Pro­found change need­ed. It has start­ed.