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Ra­mona Ram­di­al

Last week’s “Har­vest Su­per­moon” seemed to have her­ald­ed some un­usu­al oc­cur­rences. Ahead of to­day’s na­tion­al Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion (the first by a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Fi­nance Min­is­ter since cur­rent Cen­tral Bank of T&T Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai’s de­liv­ery in 2014), Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar “shuf­fled” min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with­out of­fi­cial­ly re­ar­rang­ing port­fo­lios. The Prime Min­is­ter had threat­ened to “buss the heads” of cer­tain mem­bers of her Gov­ern­ment in Au­gust. Did she de­liv­er on her warn­ing by reign­ing in the re­mit of Min­is­ters Rati­ram, Lee, Ben­jamin, Mooni­lal, Bo­doe, Smith, Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj, Watts, and Mo­hit? Con­verse­ly, those min­is­ters who have lev­elled up are Min­is­ters Padarath, Ho­sein, Alexan­der, Bap­tiste, and Swarats­ingh. Those with lighter loads tried to take the set­back in stride, but how can such not be in­ter­pret­ed, at least, as the di­min­ished con­fi­dence of their leader? The PM her­self as­sumed sev­er­al of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. Some would say that she is con­sol­i­dat­ing loy­al­ties ahead of the 2026 UNC Na­tex elec­tions, or even set­ting the stage for an ex­ec­u­tive pres­i­den­cy by the end of her term.

Was cli­mate change re­spon­si­ble for last week’s west­ern wa­ter­spout and tor­na­do? Did the strange weath­er pre­cip­i­tate the de­ci­sion to re-ar­rest Min­is­ter David Lee and busi­ness­man Hugh Leong Poi? Is Chief Jus­tice Archie clear­ing his desk be­fore he demits of­fice this law term? Per­haps we will see a lot more high-pro­file cas­es on the dock­et? Maybe promi­nent names such as Dana See­ta­hal, SC, Mar­cia-Ay­ers Cae­sar and An­dre Mon­teil will al­so be back in the head­lines soon.