I don't re­mem­ber the first time I felt it, but the feel­ing has fol­lowed me all my life: the al­most hyp­not­ic pull of watch­ing peo­ple play in a steel­band. Stand in any pa­n­yard and you will see it. The wild fa­cial ex­pres­sions, the bod­ies mov­ing with the rhythm, the in­tense con­cen­tra­tion that sud­den­ly breaks in­to a smile. The play­ers are not just mak­ing mu­sic; they are com­plete­ly im­mersed in it. There is some­thing in­her­ent­ly joy­ful about play­ing the steel­pan.

Every sea­son, fash­ion de­sign­ers launch col­lec­tions filled with cre­ativ­i­ty, crafts­man­ship, and vi­sion. The sil­hou­ettes are strong, the fab­rics are thought­ful, and the sto­ry­telling is com­pelling. Yet when it comes to sell­ing to buy­ers, the mo­men­tum stalls.

The con­struc­tion sec­tor is head­ing in­to Mon­day’s na­tion­al bud­get with con­trac­tors press­ing the Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress mil­lions of dol­lars in out­stand­ing pay­ments for com­plet­ed and cer­ti­fied work, warn­ing that pro­longed de­lays are putting busi­ness­es, work­ers and new projects un­der in­creas­ing pres­sure.

Every year, over the last four years, Gov­ern­ment ex­pen­di­ture has ex­ceed­ed rev­enue by sev­er­al bil­lion dol­lars. The forth­com­ing bud­get 2027 is not ex­pect­ed to be any dif­fer­ent. At a time when the coun­try con­tin­ues to face sig­nif­i­cant fis­cal con­straints, the man­ner in which pub­lic mon­ey is spent as­sumes even greater sig­nif­i­cance.

On Mon­day, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance will present the 2027 Na­tion­al Bud­get. There will be the usu­al fo­cus on the mea­sures an­nounced, the tax­es ad­just­ed, the in­cen­tives of­fered, the pro­grammes fund­ed and the projects promised. In our en­thu­si­asm to get to these mat­ters, we of­ten for­get to an­a­lyze the econ­o­my that the min­is­ter is ac­tu­al­ly bud­get­ing for.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s nat­ur­al gas liq­uids (NGL) pro­duc­tion in­creased for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year in 2025, ex­tend­ing a re­cov­ery from the low­est lev­el record­ed in the En­er­gy In­sti­tute’s 2015–2025 se­ries.

We are suck­ers for fraud­sters. They try to steal your heart, take your mon­ey, and use your iden­ti­ty for their ben­e­fit. They can op­er­ate alone or as part of an or­gan­i­sa­tion of crooks. Some­times they are close to you, like a friend or fam­i­ly mem­ber, or in In­dia or Nige­ria, with a give­away ac­cent. Why do we fall for their con­vinc­ing tac­tics? With new me­dia and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools, can we de­vel­op re­sis­tance to per­sua­sion?

The Caribbean Mu­sic Awards (CMA) on Sep­tem­ber 19 was a mem­o­rable oc­ca­sion for re­gion­al artistes, but it held a spe­cial mean­ing for de­sign­er Kambe Lovelace. The young de­sign­er got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to style singer and song­writer Shereese “Mela Caribe” Ed­mund, and to see two of his KAMBE The Brand pieces in the spot­light—on the red car­pet and at the af­ter par­ty.

Dana-Marie Smith’s ar­ti­cle, The Pro­cure­ment Bill 2026 and the Cost of Weak­ened Ac­count­abil­i­ty, ad­dress­es the amend­ments to sup­pli­er chal­lenges, ex­emp­tions and the cor­rec­tive pow­ers of the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion. An­oth­er au­di­ence must pay close at­ten­tion: the Named Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cer.

Se­nior lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) and fi­nan­cial econ­o­mist Dr Dave Seer­at­tan has high­light­ed sev­er­al pos­i­tive in­di­ca­tors in the do­mes­tic econ­o­my, while cau­tion­ing against ma­jor changes to the coun­try’s ex­change-rate regime as the gov­ern­ment seeks to ad­dress for­eign-ex­change chal­lenges.

De­spite chal­lenges across busi­ness seg­ments, Courts is bet­ting on the re­silience it has seen in the Trinidad and To­ba­go mar­ket since it opened in this coun­try 35 years ago as a fur­ni­ture, home ap­pli­ance and elec­tri­cal store.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go econ­o­my de­clined by 0.5 per cent in 2025 and is pre­dict­ed to de­cline again this year, by 0.2 per cent, ac­cord­ing to the World Bank Group’s Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean Eco­nom­ic Up­date.