With the na­tion­al bud­get just days away, three Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters have out­lined dif­fer­ent pri­or­i­ties, with Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee hop­ing for enough mon­ey to build more homes, Phillip Alexan­der push­ing to meet the Gov­ern­ment's hous­ing tar­get, and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der putting the pro­tec­tion of lives ahead of his min­istry's fi­nan­cial al­lo­ca­tion.

A man be­lieved to be a Ja­maican na­tion­al was killed in Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day morn­ing, while an­oth­er man be­lieved to be his com­pa­tri­ot was de­tained by po­lice in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent.

An­tho­ny Daryl Bap­tiste of Don Av­enue, Va­len­cia, died on the spot when he lost con­trol of his ve­hi­cle, crashed in­to a kerb wall and then the perime­ter wall of an Evan­gel­i­cal Church along Old Va­len­cia Road, Va­len­cia, on Sat­ur­day evening.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is de­fend­ing po­lice over­time spend­ing, say­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice was not giv­en enough of­fi­cers and re­sources in the past to prop­er­ly car­ry out its du­ties.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA), tasked with in­de­pen­dent­ly scru­ti­n­is­ing po­lice shoot­ings, says it is of­ten learn­ing of the in­ci­dents through the news rather than re­ceiv­ing the re­ports it is legal­ly re­quired to get from of­fi­cials.

Po­lice and sol­diers can­not be de­ployed un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act un­til they are trained in hu­man rights, the use of force and con­flict de-es­ca­la­tion, rais­ing ques­tions about how soon the new crime-fight­ing pow­ers can be put in­to ef­fect.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has rub­bished claims by Op­po­si­tion MP and for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les that the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) may be fail­ing to ad­e­quate­ly treat the coun­try’s wa­ter be­cause of an in­abil­i­ty to pay sup­pli­ers of treat­ment chem­i­cals.

The rel­a­tives of peo­ple re­ceiv­ing treat­ment at the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency (A&E) De­part­ment of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC), Mt Hope, say they ful­ly agree with com­ments from po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front Mick­ela Pan­day, liken­ing con­di­tions at the unit to that of a “war­zone.”

For­mer En­er­gy Min­is­ter and Port-o- Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young is ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of pre­sid­ing over the col­lapse of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy sec­tor amid mount­ing un­cer­tain­ty over ma­jor in­dus­tri­al op­er­a­tions and job loss­es at Pro­man.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will be in To­ba­go on Tues­day for the grand open­ing of the new air­port ter­mi­nal. The open­ing is sched­uled for 1 pm and will be at­tend­ed by sev­er­al dig­ni­taries, in­clud­ing Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine. The air­port’s open­ing has been de­scribed as a gamechang­er for To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor, and comes less than two weeks be­fore the in­au­gur­al week­ly Toron­to-to-To­ba­go flight.

A pri­vate he­li­copter has joined the search in To­ba­go for two fish­er­men who went miss­ing on Fri­day. Rel­a­tives said David McLean, 26, of Low­lands and Buc­coo res­i­dent Kester Alexan­der left on a fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion aboard Preda­tor, a 24-foot pirogue with Yama­ha en­gines, reg­is­tra­tion TFT 2490, on Fri­day morn­ing. They were ex­pect­ed back at 5 pm the same day, but have not been seen since.

The Trinidad & To­ba­go Ag­gre­gate Pro­duc­ers Al­liance (TTA­PA) is hop­ing the wind­fall ex­pect­ed by the Gov­ern­ment from high en­er­gy prices and ex­pect­ed rev­enues from gas projects in 2027 is used well to help re­sus­ci­tate the sec­tor and stim­u­late the econ­o­my.