Ra­mona Ram­di­al

To­day, al­most 200,000 school chil­dren and their 15,000 teach­ers will be mak­ing their way to schools across the coun­try. The rush-hour traf­fic will al­so have re­turned with them.

About ten per cent of those stu­dents will re­ceive school sup­plies and book grants to­tal­ing $20 mil­lion. So about 26,000 ap­pli­ca­tions would not have been suc­cess­ful. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has al­so ad­vised prin­ci­pals to al­low stu­dents a two-week grace pe­ri­od to ac­quire the pre­scribed learn­ing ma­te­ri­als.

Dis­ad­van­taged par­ents won­der why they could not have re­ceived this sup­port ear­li­er.

Al­so of con­cern would have been the be­lat­ed and, in some cas­es, in­com­plete school re­pairs. Did the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry need to scram­ble to meet these com­mit­ments just as schools open? I hope and pray that all stu­dents can at­tend school reg­u­lar­ly to ac­cess the fu­ture of our na­tion in their “school bags” and “lap­tops”.

I’m not sure how many of those stu­dents would have ful­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed our 64th In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions, be­ing the her­ald of the end of their “Ja­va”. Still, there was quite a bit of com­men­tary on the new pa­rade venue, but much less on the in­clu­sion of the Air Guard fly­by.

Lat­er in the evening, the drone show was im­pres­sive, while the Trinidad Knight Rid­ers’ loss to the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors in a CPL match at the Queen’s Park Oval was not the gift that pa­tri­ot­ic crick­et fans had hoped for.

How­ev­er, the fire­works had al­ready start­ed in the wee hours from Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Face­book pro­file with her mes­sage to the “UNC fam­i­ly”.

A pho­to­graph of a UNC flag ac­com­pa­nied it. Many in­ter­pret­ed this In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage from the “proud leader” of the UNC as di­vi­sive.

Should a prime min­is­ter dis­play par­ti­san al­le­giance on In­de­pen­dence Day? Her oth­er mes­sage from the pre­vi­ous day al­so prompt­ed cit­i­zens to fact-check whether the British re­al­ly “left us a very pros­per­ous func­tion­ing coun­try in 1962”. I be­lieve the Prime Min­is­ter’s un­der­ly­ing mes­sage was that the “post-1962 In­de­pen­dence” PNM rule would have de­railed our na­tion­al progress. Par­tic­u­lar­ly in­trigu­ing was her fear of “the lead­er­ship of our par­ty” falling “in­to the hands of weak men and women”.

Who are these weak­lings, and how could a par­ty in gov­ern­ment be vul­ner­a­ble to them? Can the UNC be “hi­jacked by the lo­cal drug mafia and the fake eat-a-food elite,” as she claims hap­pened to the PNM?

She calls for the de­fence of the “UNC mem­ber­ship” with “stee­li­ness and sav­agery.”

It was just short of a war cry, but much more a re­minder of over­due UNC na­tex elec­tions. The cur­rent UNC Na­tex’s two-year term would have ex­pired in June. Will the UNC po­lit­i­cal leader un­veil an­oth­er “Star” team slate, or will she em­pow­er the UNC mem­ber­ship to choose for them­selves? Per­haps a Na­tion­al Con­gress will be called to de­fer the in­ter­nal elec­tions? Maybe the UNC na­tex feels that the PNM has been dec­i­mat­ed, and they might have scoffed at the at­ten­dance of for­mer PMs Ralph Gon­salves and Dr Kei­th Row­ley at a pre-In­de­pen­dence event presided over by PNM Po­lit­i­cal leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les. Are they gath­er­ing forces ahead of LGE 2027?

Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, as we know it, has been saved as the state is now the full own­er. The Hilton brand will re­main, but now on­ly through its man­age­ment and op­er­a­tions ser­vices. This arrange­ment has saved the jobs of more than 300 em­ploy­ees for at least the next six months. eTECK’s HotelTT As­set Man­age­ment Co Ltd is the new state com­pa­ny that owns the ho­tel and has en­tered in­to the Ho­tel Man­age­ment Agree­ment with Hilton. It is ex­pect­ed that ren­o­va­tions will now be com­plet­ed and that de­clin­ing oc­cu­pan­cy will be ad­dressed.

To sup­port this new state ven­ture, we should be see­ing the Hilton Ho­tel as the venue for more gov­ern­ment events and con­fer­ences.

I am in­ter­est­ed in whether there will be a new mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy to help con­firm the ven­ture’s prof­itabil­i­ty. Will do­mes­tic tourism be the dri­ver, or will the Hilton brand be re­de­ployed on the in­ter­na­tion­al cir­cuit? I was won­der­ing about the im­pli­ca­tions of a re­brand, or even of a lo­cal op­er­a­tor, be­fore this in­ter­ven­tion.

I was pleased to see our For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter, Sean Sobers, vis­it Cara­cas last week, es­pe­cial­ly since so many of our en­er­gy dreams for 2027 and be­yond orig­i­nate in Venezuela.

A re­lease from the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs and Cari­com in­di­cat­ed that the For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ters of both coun­tries “de­signed” a “roadmap for height­ened co­op­er­a­tion in pri­or­i­ty ar­eas” like trade, en­er­gy, food se­cu­ri­ty, and en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion.

There were no spe­cif­ic agree­ments signed, but this sig­nals a slight thaw in re­la­tions be­tween our na­tions.

When will we see our Prime Min­is­ter wel­comed in Cara­cas by Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez, as was ac­cord­ed to Bar­ba­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley a cou­ple of weeks ago? When will the “per­sona non gra­ta” sta­tus be lift­ed from our own PM?

No­tably, Pres­i­dent Ro­driguez has been meet­ing, greet­ing, and sign­ing, which in­di­cates that Venezuela is open for busi­ness. I won­der what the Venezue­lan peo­ple think about her moves. Has she brought hope? Is she more pop­u­lar than her pre­de­ces­sor? Is there still a move­ment that wants Maria Co­ri­na Macha­do? How long will Pres­i­dent Ro­driguez re­main in an in­ter­im ca­pac­i­ty? When will the next Venezue­lan pres­i­den­tial elec­tions be held?

How will the Re­pub­li­can Par­ty fare in the up­com­ing US midterm elec­tions? Could these events sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact our coun­try’s growth tra­jec­to­ry?