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During Tuesday’s Senate debate on the 2026 Finance Bill, independent Senator Dr. Marlene Attzs has drawn policymakers’ attention to underaddressed risks stemming from the legislation’s wide-ranging package of increased fines, higher fees, stiffer penalties, and expanded compliance mandates. While she concedes that many individual provisions in the bill, which amends more than 20 separate existing laws, are justifiable on their own merits, Attzs argues that the cumulative impact of rolling out dozens of new obligations at once risks placing unbearable additional strain on households already struggling with cost-of-living pressures and small businesses operating on thin margins.

Attzs emphasized that ordinary citizens and economic actors do not experience public policy in isolated chunks; they feel the combined weight of every new tax, surcharge, filing requirement, and compliance rule layered on top of existing obligations. “Every new requirement may appear manageable when considered alone, but when stacked one atop another, they create a cumulative burden that ripples through every part of the economy, raising business operating costs, housing costs, and ultimately the final prices consumers pay,” she explained.

To illustrate her point, Attzs pointed to Clause 30 of the bill, which raises licence fees and penalties under the Spirits and Spirit Compounds Act. Cost increases imposed at early stages of supply chains do not stay confined to regulated entities, she noted, instead passing through wholesale and retail markets to land on end consumers. She further warned that policymakers often fail to distinguish between the legal incidence of a new charge, which falls on the entity legally required to remit payment, and its economic incidence, which often shifts to the most vulnerable groups that lack the bargaining power to absorb extra costs.

Beyond cumulative cost concerns, Attzs also questioned the core logic behind widespread penalty increases across sectors including gambling, tobacco, pesticides, and forestry. While she acknowledged the Finance Minister’s argument that penalties must be substantial enough to deter unlawful activity, she pushed back on the assumption that harsher sanctions alone automatically translate to higher compliance rates. Effective regulatory systems, she argued, rest on three equally important pillars: public education, accessible facilitation for regulated actors, and consistent enforcement. Stiffer penalties will not improve outcomes if compliance pathways are convoluted, public information is scarce, and regulatory agencies lack the resources to carry out consistent, fair enforcement. In that scenario, penalty increases exist only on paper, she said.

Attzs highlighted Clause 15 as a key example of this gap: the provision doubles the maximum penalty for unapproved copra product manufacturing from $4,000 to $8,000, drawing public concern over impacts on small-scale producers of homemade coconut oil and vinegar. While Attzs agreed that regulatory product standards are necessary, she pointed out that most producers affected by this change are not large corporations with in-house compliance teams and legal counsel. They are often cottage industry operators, rural households, women-led micro-enterprises, and people working to supplement low household incomes.

She pressed the government to outline what support measures will be put in place to help these small-scale operators transition into formal compliance with regulatory requirements. “If we are increasing penalties for non-compliance, we have an obligation to build accessible pathways to compliance at the same time, especially for groups with limited resources and limited familiarity with complex regulatory processes,” Attzs said.

Closing her remarks, Attzs posed a core question for legislators: “Are we trying to build a culture of compliance, or are we trying to impose a culture of punishment?” Effective legislation, she argued, requires more than just larger fines and harsher sanctions. It depends on capable, resourced institutions, clear and accessible regulations, public trust, and practical support to help stakeholders meet requirements. To that end, she proposed targeted adjustments including phased implementation of new rules, widespread public education campaigns, warning notices for first-time minor offenders, and graduated penalties that align with the severity of the violation. These measures, she said, would foster long-term compliance rather than simply imposing disproportionate punishment on the most vulnerable.

During a heated Senate debate yesterday, Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo has robustly defended controversial increases to legal penalties outlined in the new Finance Bill, framing the tougher measures as a non-negotiable safeguard for public welfare rather than an overreach of government power.

Tancoo pushed back against opposition criticism, arguing that the current, overly lenient fines have devolved into little more than a trivial operational cost for repeat violators who flout industry and safety regulations. “A weak fine essentially tells offenders that they can break the law, pay a negligible sum, and go right back to business as usual,” he stated during proceedings. “This administration will not enable lawlessness.”

Taking direct aim at the opposition People’s National Movement (PNM), Tancoo claimed the party’s longstanding comfort with unregulated practices made its opposition to the new penalty structure entirely predictable. “When they come here to argue against consequences for breaking the law, no one should be surprised,” he said. “This mindset appears to be rooted in the very veins of the PNM. They have come to this parliament only to drum up sympathy for a position that puts convenience before public safety.”

To underscore the stakes of weak regulatory enforcement, Tancoo pointed to decades of deadly contaminated product incidents around the world, opening with a 2011 Associated Press report that linked antifreeze-tainted vinegar to 11 deaths and over 120 illnesses in China. He noted that similar fatal events involving unsafe, unregulated products ranging from counterfeit vinegar to locally produced illicit spirit “babash” have been recorded across more than 30 countries, spanning every inhabited continent from North America to Southeast Asia. The full list of affected nations includes Brazil, Australia, Cambodia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Kuwait, Laos, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, and the United States.

“When products are manufactured, distilled, transported or sold without proper regulatory standards, the consequences stretch far beyond simple financial losses,” Tancoo emphasized. “People can get sick. People can lose their lives. It is the government’s fundamental duty to guard against those real-world dangers.”

The minister argued that any legitimate product market requires clear legal standards, meaningful accountability, and proportionate consequences for rule-breakers. He challenged the opposition to justify their stance to the families of people who have been killed or harmed by unsafe, unlicensed production practices. “When the Opposition makes light of distilling without a licence, let them explain that to the families of persons who have been injured or who have died from unsafe alcohol and unsafe practices,” he said.

Tancoo extended the same safety argument to the new penalties for violations of the Motor Launches Act, specifically calling out the opposition for dismissing overloading of passenger vessels as a minor offense. “They spoke about party boats as though passenger safety is any little thing. But overloading a vessel is not any little thing. Operating without proper safety equipment is not any little thing,” he said.

Carrying passengers beyond a vessel’s legal capacity, he noted, carries a constant risk of catastrophic tragedy, and it is the sitting government, not the opposition, that is left to confront grieving families when disaster strikes. “When a vessel is overloaded and tragedy strikes, it is not the Opposition who must face the grieving family. It is not the Opposition who must look into the eyes of a mother, a father, a child, a spouse, and explain why basic safety rules were treated as an inconvenience,” he said.

He further highlighted that unlicensed, non-compliant operation often voids insurance coverage, leaving victim families with no path to fair compensation after an incident. Tancoo stressed that no responsible government can wait for mass casualties to act, arguing that allowing weak fines to become a routine cost of cutting corners amounts to sacrificing public safety for private convenience. “No serious government can say that the life of a passenger is worth less than the convenience of an operator. No government that cares about people can allow this status quo to stand,” he said.

Closing his address, Tancoo made a direct appeal to Independent senators to throw their support behind the legislation, urging them to back measures explicitly designed to protect the nation’s citizens. He also issued a public challenge to opposition members, expressing confidence that patriotic, right-minded members of the public will ultimately support the bill’s public safety goals.

A brewing political firestorm in Trinidad and Tobago has taken center stage this week, after ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) Member of Parliament for Laventille West Kareem Marcelle made explosive remarks accusing the United National Congress (UNC)-led government of weaponizing the PNM party label as a racial slur targeting Afro-Trinidadians. Speaking at a public PNM gathering held at the Laventille Community Community Centre on Thursday night, Marcelle doubled down on scathing criticism of the ruling administration, claiming that government officials use the phrase “PNM people” as a modern-day racial slur, equating it to the anti-Black N-word in public discourse, particularly on social media.

Marcelle went on to allege that the current UNC government holds overt hostility toward Black Trinidadians and residents of working-class districts historically aligned with the PNM, including Beetham, Sea Lots, Maloney, Arima and Carenage. He issued a direct challenge to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, calling for an early national election and claiming PNM supporters are fully prepared to oust the UNC and elevate opposition leader Pennelope Beckles to the office of prime minister. The incendiary remarks drew immediate cheers from the PNM supporters in attendance, but sparked widespread debate across the nation’s political landscape.

In the aftermath of the speech, Marcelle has stood firmly by his comments, pushing back against claims that his words were intended to stoke racial division. Speaking to reporters outside Parliament, locally known as the Red House, in Port of Spain on the following day, Marcelle clarified that his criticism was aimed exclusively at the current UNC government leadership, not at private UNC supporters or any specific ethnic group. He argued that his remarks were a direct response to a pattern of disparaging and discriminatory behavior by UNC officials toward PNM-aligned constituencies.

To back his claims, Marcelle cited multiple past incidents: a recent incident where a UNC minister referred to PNM attendees at a San Juan candlelight vigil as “vagrants” and “rats in white jerseys”; a deeply disrespectful comment made by a sitting UNC minister toward former PNM legislator Camille Robinson-Regis as she mourned the death of a former colleague and her children in a house fire 18 months prior; and the trivialization of the fatal shooting of 9-year-old J’Layna Armstrong in Belmont, when government officials framed the tragedy as a problem exclusive to PNM-held districts. Marcelle argued that online commentators have deliberately misrepresented his words to paint him as racially divisive, and that any reasonable observer would understand his remarks targeted government policy and rhetoric, not a racial group.

Now, opposition leader Pennelope Beckles has stepped forward to publicly defend Marcelle, arguing that his comments have been widely misinterpreted by critics and that he was only giving voice to long-simmering frustration among his Laventille West constituents. Beckles emphasized that Marcelle’s remarks reflected the on-the-ground sentiment of residents in the constituency, many of whom have lost jobs through government-led work programs including CEPEP, URP and the national reforestation initiative, and who overwhelmingly feel the current government has abandoned their communities.

Beckles also reaffirmed the PNM’s long-standing core commitment to multiracial solidarity, a principle that has anchored the party since its founding 70 years ago. She added that the opposition’s broader criticism of the UNC extends far beyond PNM-held constituencies, noting that the ruling party has failed to deliver on the vast majority of campaign promises it made ahead of taking office, broken promises that have negatively impacted voters across every district in Trinidad and Tobago, regardless of which party holds the seat.