Ra­mona Ram­di­al

Car­ni­val 2026 is now his­to­ry and among the Mer­ry Mon­archs are: record-break­ing 12-time Road March King Machel Mon­tano; Ca­lyp­so Monarch Ter­ri Lyons; Panora­ma win­ners Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus; large Car­ni­val band win­ners The Lost Tribe; King of Car­ni­val Cur­tis Eu­stace; Queen of Car­ni­val Rox­anne Oma­lo and Chut­ney So­ca Monarch, Savi­ta Singh. These com­pe­ti­tions were not with­out bac­cha­nal: Is Machel un­beat­able? Was Savi­ta the favourite? Did TTT re­al­ly cen­sor de­fend­ing monarch Helon Fran­cis dur­ing Di­manche Gras? Was there an ul­te­ri­or mo­tive be­hind “we mut­ed Helon’s mic on TTT” dur­ing WACK ra­dio’s live cov­er­age?

Whether true or not, the Gov­ern­ment has been ac­cused of cen­sor­ship. I re­mem­ber for­mer PM Bas­deo Pan­day’s prob­lem with the fund­ing of al­leged an­ti-In­di­an or an­ti-UNC ca­lyp­soes as “pay­ing to be in­sult­ed.” It seems that TTT’s of­fi­cial po­si­tion is that the au­dio loss was due to a “Dante Sys­tem fail­ure.” Newest Min­is­ter Nicholas Mor­ris, with his Com­mu­ni­ca­tions port­fo­lio, should have an air­tight ex­pla­na­tion on the “au­dio drop.” Per­haps this can be dis­missed as an iso­lat­ed tech­ni­cal glitch but if more sim­i­lar mishaps oc­cur, the Op­po­si­tion will ex­ploit the cen­sor­ship nar­ra­tive.

Just be­fore the Car­ni­val week­end, I was sad­dened to see the video of a cou­ple gunned down in front of their very young daugh­ter in Cou­va. I hope that lit­tle girl re­ceives all the coun­selling and sup­port she needs to over­come this trau­mat­ic event. Could a ZOSO have pre­vent­ed her from be­com­ing an or­phan? A young man died af­ter be­ing stabbed dur­ing J’Ou­vert but oth­er than that, I gath­er that the TTPS did a cred­i­ble job in keep­ing the “break­ing away” short of law­break­ing.

Very few Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters and Op­po­si­tion MPs play­ing mas were iden­ti­fied by the me­dia this year. Be­sides those de­vout Hin­dus who would have been in­volved in Ma­hashiv­ra­tri ob­ser­vances in­to Car­ni­val Mon­day, it is un­usu­al. As our world-renowned na­tion­al fes­ti­val, Car­ni­val is a politi­cian’s op­por­tu­ni­ty to do in­ter­views, pose for pho­tos in their cos­tumes and min­gle with the cit­i­zen­ry. Very few took the op­por­tu­ni­ty. With $137 mil­lion spent on this year’s Car­ni­val and the IMF iden­ti­fy­ing our need to de­vel­op our “cre­ative in­dus­tries,” par­tic­i­pa­tion should be en­cour­aged as the Car­ni­val arts need to earn even more.

There are al­so cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly with younger chil­dren, who use the Car­ni­val week­end to seek al­ter­na­tive recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ties like go­ing to the beach.

I my­self vis­it­ed Mara­cas Bay dur­ing this pe­ri­od and was dis­ap­point­ed by the loss of sand­cas­tle build­ing and oth­er play space for chil­dren and even for oth­er­wise en­joy­ing the shore. Most of the sand­scape was tak­en over by chairs and um­brel­las which were NOT in use! There were al­so tents erect­ed for large groups which were most­ly un­used, al­so in spite of the throngs there. What hap­pened to the pre­vi­ous sys­tem of in­stalling beach chairs and um­brel­las on­ly when re­quest­ed? Can beach­go­ers bring their own chairs and um­brel­las? Some cit­i­zens com­plained to me about dif­fer­ent peo­ple de­mand­ing pay­ment at dif­fer­ent times for the same spot. Re­ceipts should be is­sued at a des­ig­nat­ed lo­ca­tion be­cause there are re­port­ed­ly hus­tlers and bul­lies im­per­son­at­ing rental of­fi­cials. These prac­tices could up­set tourists as well as cit­i­zens. I am cer­tain that the Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism, Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj, will be con­cerned.

T&T’s re­moval from the Eu­ro­pean Union’s list of non-co­op­er­a­tive tax ju­ris­dic­tions last week should be cel­e­brat­ed. The EU’s press re­lease cit­ed “sev­er­al years of sus­tained com­mit­ment, con­struc­tive di­a­logue and close co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the Min­istry of Fi­nance of T&T and Eu­ro­pean Union au­thor­i­ties.” I not­ed the years “2024” and the Ju­ly 2025 sign­ing of the OECD Mul­ti­lat­er­al Con­ven­tion on Mu­tu­al Ad­min­is­tra­tive As­sis­tance in Tax Mat­ters. We have been work­ing to­wards com­pli­ance since the days of the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship, when then-AG Anand Ram­lo­gan was deputy chair of CFATF.

Af­ter a decade, both the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion have con­tributed. As an Op­po­si­tion MP, I sup­port­ed the 2017 FAT­CA bill and I am hap­py that I par­tic­i­pat­ed in the process that has en­hanced our coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness rep­u­ta­tion. Who should get the cred­it? The Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship, PNM and UNC gov­ern­ments. Now we can fight over who gets the most cred­it. PM Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar could say it start­ed un­der one of her gov­ern­ments and was de­liv­ered in an­oth­er. It is now time to seek fund­ing and oth­er FDI from Eu­rope.

One Min­is­ter that should be ex­cused from miss­ing this year’s Car­ni­val was En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who at­tend­ed the Guyana En­er­gy Con­fer­ence & Sup­ply Chain Ex­po last week. He would have cham­pi­oned our po­si­tion as a valu­able strate­gic part­ner in en­er­gy due to our na­tion’s over 100 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in hy­dro­car­bon ex­trac­tion. He would have done much more than the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment in reach­ing out to en­er­gy in­ter­ests in Guyana and Suri­name. PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­par­ture for the Cari­com sum­mit in St Kitts to­day al­so sig­nals a next gear in her Gov­ern­ment’s more en­gag­ing ap­proach to re­gion­al heads. This bodes well. Could a make-up with Venezuela’s Del­cy Ro­driguez ad­min­is­tra­tion be on the hori­zon? We re­mem­ber that “per­for­mance beats ole talk” and it’s time for the gov­ern­ment to “gih dem.”

Such in­ter­na­tion­al lead­er­ship of pow­er­ful women re­minds me of the Women Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans of T&T’s Yes Lead­er­ship Pro­gramme’s 2nd March, 2026 dead­line for ap­pli­ca­tions. I en­cour­age our young women to stake their claim as the next gen­er­a­tion of fe­male lead­ers.