Ra­mona Ram­di­al

Our Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment has gone past its first 100 days in of­fice. This was the pe­ri­od to set a clear vi­sion and start walk­ing the talk. One of the UNC’s biggest cam­paign promis­es was mass job cre­ation, so the mass CEPEP, URP, and Reaf­foresta­tion Pro­gramme fir­ings ap­pear im­me­di­ate­ly in­con­sis­tent. Some con­sid­ered the move un­char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly cal­lous for a Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The call­ing of the State of Emer­gency ear­ly in the new Gov­ern­ment’s “hon­ey­moon” re­mind­ed the cit­i­zen­ry of the pre­vi­ous one called by the last Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment, which seems to con­firm that our pro­tec­tive ser­vices are a “one-trick pony.” Still, the Gov­ern­ment scored some quick wins with the re­peal of the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty, the ex­pan­sion of the Chil­dren’s Life Fund, the scrap­ping of the prop­er­ty tax and the de­mer­it points sys­tem, the “stand-your-ground” con­sul­ta­tions, the ex­tra week of school va­ca­tion, and the T&TEC rate freeze.