As the Gov­ern­ment re­turns to Par­lia­ment to­day to seek a three-month ex­ten­sion of the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE), it does so against the back­drop of the Op­po­si­tion’s threat of le­gal ac­tion.

The na­tion is once again con­front­ed with the un­bear­able loss of a child. Twelve-year-old Mer­cedez Layne’s life has been vi­o­lent­ly cut short and an­oth­er griev­ing fam­i­ly has been left to nav­i­gate the un­end­ing void that fol­lows such bru­tal­i­ty.

When­ev­er a close ex­am­i­na­tion is done of the econ­o­my of Trinidad and To­ba­go — whether through cur­rent da­ta or pro­jec­tions — the con­clu­sion from econ­o­mists and busi­ness lead­ers is the same: It must be di­ver­si­fied be­yond its heavy de­pen­dence on the en­er­gy sec­tor.

The Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) con­tin­ues to in­flict great harm on the na­tion’s ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

Last Wednes­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go was elect­ed to the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (UN­SC) for two years, 2027–2028, by an over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty of votes. T&T there­by be­comes one of ten non-per­ma­nent mem­bers in ad­di­tion to the five per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tives: Chi­na, France, Rus­sia, the Unit­ed King­dom and the Unit­ed States. These mem­bers hold ve­to pow­er, mean­ing a sin­gle "no" vote from any of them can block a res­o­lu­tion even if it has ma­jor­i­ty sup­port.

The prayers launch­ing yes­ter­day’s Sec­ond Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pos­i­tive pro­jec­tions were in­struc­tive.

One year is a long time in pol­i­tics. It is even longer in gov­ern­ment. This week marks one year since Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last at­tend­ed a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, a de­vel­op­ment that has prompt­ed the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MATT) to seek talks with the Prime Min­is­ter re­gard­ing what it de­scribes as a lack of for­mal me­dia avail­abil­i­ty.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s elec­tion as one of the 10 non-per­ma­nent mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (UN­SC) is, with­out a doubt, a sig­nif­i­cant diplo­mat­ic mile­stone and a ma­jor for­eign pol­i­cy achieve­ment for T&T and the re­gion.

Yes­ter­day, many of our cit­i­zens ob­served the long­stand­ing tra­di­tion of plant­i­ng on Cor­pus Christi. There is a wide­ly held be­lief that any­thing plant­ed on this holy day will flour­ish.

Last Wednes­day, I lis­tened to plans by the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism for growth to US$2 bil­lion in ex­ports from T&T by 2027, and $5 bil­lion by 2030. Very am­bi­tious! They al­so had tar­gets to dou­ble the cur­rent tourism growth from 6% and a tar­get for in­vest­ment that was sec­tor-spe­cif­ic for US$3b by 2027, with a hefty tar­get of $9b by 2030. It was a plan to get the non-en­er­gy sec­tor to fill the breach caused by low en­er­gy pro­duc­tion and forex short­ages due to re­duced en­er­gy rev­enue.

To­day, as Trinidad and To­ba­go ob­serves the Feast of Cor­pus Christi — a sa­cred oc­ca­sion for the Ro­man Catholic and An­gli­can com­mu­ni­ties — we are re­mind­ed of the pro­found sig­nif­i­cance of the Eu­charist and the pres­ence of Je­sus Christ in Holy Com­mu­nion, which is cen­tral to the faith and spir­i­tu­al lives of many.

For decades, suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions have treat­ed pub­lic trans­porta­tion with a de­gree of lais­sez-faire ne­glect.