September CoP performance review, PNM problems prevail

As it hap­pened, last Sat­ur­day’s Great Race 2026 win­ner, “Heat­wave,” was apt­ly named con­sid­er­ing El Ni­no’s 2026 scorcher weath­er—and po­lit­i­cal events, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

Re­cent del­uges, how­ev­er, pre­viewed the rainy La Ni­na con­di­tions (such as oc­curred in 2022) pro­ject­ed to en­ter by mid-2027 post-Ni­no. It’s prompt­ed queries to Gov­ern­ment on how such large amounts of wa­ter could be har­nessed for T&T’s use—es­pe­cial­ly with pub­lic de­bate de­vel­op­ing on Gov­ern­ment’s planned da­ta cen­tres, which re­quire much wa­ter for cool­ing. There’s been no re­ply from Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath on fu­ture wa­ter op­ti­mi­sa­tion plans. But Gov­ern­ment’s sched­ule for the last months of 2026 is fill­ing up. As is the Op­po­si­tion PNM’s fol­low­ing out­break of is­sues.

Im­me­di­ate­ly ahead: test­ing the new In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade venue, pub­lic ac­com­mo­da­tion and re­quired an­swers from Gov­ern­ment on cost, con­trac­tor, et al. Sep­tem­ber Par­lia­ment re­sump­tion. State of Emer­gency (SoE) con­clu­sion. Post-SoE plans, whether in­volv­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions zones. A slew of le­gal mat­ters. Bud­get 2027’s liveli­hood theme and pack­age for 2027 promised land. Re­ac­tion. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar head­ing to the No­vem­ber Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in An­tigua.