It is dis­con­cert­ing to the law-abid­ing cit­i­zens of this coun­try that cer­tain Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MPs in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, in their con­tri­bu­tions on the ZOSO Bill 2026, raised the is­sue of race on the disin­gen­u­ous ex­pla­na­tion that the Prime Min­is­ter, act­ing alone, could de­clare PNM ar­eas as zones of spe­cial op­er­a­tions and thus tar­get the Africans re­sid­ing in these ar­eas.

It is of in­ter­est to note that the Op­po­si­tion vot­ed against the bill in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and hence the Gov­ern­ment now needs the sup­port of at least four of the nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors to se­cure its suc­cess­ful pas­sage when it is de­bat­ed in the Sen­ate. And one PNM MP (Low­er House) in­di­cat­ed last week Fri­day that the Op­po­si­tion in­tend­ed to lob­by the “In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors to with­hold the re­quired sup­port for the bill to be­come law.”

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, at a sub­se­quent news con­fer­ence, rub­bished the sug­ges­tion by the Op­po­si­tion mem­bers that the Prime Min­is­ter, act­ing alone, could de­clare cer­tain ar­eas to tar­get the African race.

Min­is­ter Sturge point­ed out the fol­low­ing:

1. The bill clear­ly states that a de­c­la­ra­tion must be made by the Prime Min­is­ter, as Head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, af­ter meet­ing and con­sult­ing with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and Chief of De­fence Staff.

2. The mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil in­clude the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, Min­is­ter of Works, Jus­tice Min­is­ter, Min­is­ter of Law and Le­gal Af­fairs, and De­fence Min­is­ter.

Min­is­ter Sturge al­so point­ed out at that con­fer­ence, which re­ceived wide me­dia cov­er­age the fol­low­ing:

“The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, John Je­re­mie is a proud black man, the Min­is­ter of Works, Jear­lean John is a proud black woman, Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge is a proud black Man, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is a man of mixed African de­scent.”

He added that the Chief of De­fence Staff, the Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the Coast Guard, the Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the Air Guard, and the Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the Reg­i­ment are all of African de­scent.

Min­is­ter Sturge se­vere­ly crit­i­cised the Op­po­si­tion for play­ing the race card in an at­tempt to per­suade the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors to with­hold their sup­port for the bill.

And this brings us to the very ac­ri­mo­nious crit­i­cism of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar up­on all the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors on the is­sue of sup­port for the ZOSO Bill 2026. Her vo­cif­er­ous crit­i­cism of the sen­a­tors, when tak­en as a whole, was most un­for­tu­nate and was un­nec­es­sary.

For com­plete­ness sake, I quote what was pub­lished in the Ex­press is­sue on Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 21, 2026 and T&T Guardian Jan­u­ary 22, 2026 is­sue.

“Kam­la dou­bles down in crit­i­cis­ing In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors on ZOSO bill… bootlick­ers and brown-nosers.”

Un­der this bold head­line, An­na Ram­dass wrote on page 4 of the Dai­ly Ex­press Jan­u­ary 21, 2026, the fol­low­ing:

“Sev­er­al Op­po­si­tion mem­bers yes­ter­day took is­sue with com­ments made by Per­sad-Bisses­sar in which she said she would not be sur­prised if In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors failed to sup­port the ZOSO leg­is­la­tion, ar­gu­ing they were not tru­ly in­de­pen­dent but ap­point­ed by a Pres­i­dent who was a low-lev­el func­tionary.”

I see noth­ing so dam­ag­ing to the sen­a­tors’ in­tegri­ty with this por­tion of her com­ment, but she went on to say:

“The en­tire coun­try knows that these peo­ple were ap­point­ed be­cause they are bootlick­ers and brown-nosers… their hyp­o­crit­i­cal­ly pi­ous be­hav­iour does not fool any­one… they just use their po­si­tion to en­gage in self-pro­mo­tion, self-con­grat­u­la­tion and a step­ping stone to per­son­al busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties out­side Par­lia­ment… it is ob­served that these nine peo­ple, whose on­ly spe­cial abil­i­ty is bootlick­ing and self-pro­mo­tion on the lo­cal cock­tail and con­fer­ence cir­cuit, and who no one vot­ed for, can de­cide on leg­is­la­tion brought to Par­lia­ment by a Gov­ern­ment who was vot­ed for by the elec­torate… And the most egre­gious ones have ab­solute­ly no shame stand­ing in front of Par­lia­ment to de­fend their eat­ing ah food, yet they would not stand in front of the elec­torate and ask for a vote in Par­lia­ment.”

It is my con­sid­ered opin­ion that not all nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors are booth lick­ers and brown-nosers. The en­tire coun­try is quite aware that one sen­a­tor of the cur­rent crop is a PNM syco­phant and that there are two to three oth­ers who are more trib­al and parochial than na­tion­al in their think­ing.

Hav­ing said that, on re­flec­tion, I re­luc­tant­ly en­dorse the ac­ri­mo­nious and vo­cif­er­ous at­tack on the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors by the Prime Min­is­ter, in spite of the fact that not all nine are PNM syco­phants, trib­al and parochial, if there was a con­spir­a­cy not to sup­port the pas­sage of the bill and thus de­feat it be­com­ing law.

But as the de­bate now stands on the top­ic if: ac­ri­mo­nious/vo­cif­er­ous at­tack, con­tri­bu­tions by the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion, LATT, SALA, promi­nent lawyers and oth­ers. I am of the firm view that all the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors will think twice be­fore vot­ing against the bill. I am con­fi­dent that the Gov­ern­ment will get the sup­port for the pas­sage of this bill by the re­quired four, if not the en­tire nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors.

And for the un­in­formed Trin­bag­o­ni­ans:

The mean­ing of:

Bootlick­ers: Peo­ple who flat­ter some­one in au­thor­i­ty to gain per­son­al favours.

Brown-nosers: Peo­ple who try hard to please some­one in au­thor­i­ty to gain favours.

Syco­phant: Per­sons who flat­ter some­one im­por­tant to gain favours

Trib­al: Re­lat­ing to one’s kin and fam­i­lies

Parochial: Nar­row-mind­ed, not open to new ideas, con­cern on­ly with lo­cal area.