Carib Scope

标签： Trinidad and Tobago

特立尼达和多巴哥

  • Contractor loses $90m claim against THA

    Contractor loses $90m claim against THA

    After nearly two decades of unresolved disagreement over a major Tobago road construction project, a Trinidad and Tobago High Court judge has delivered a definitive ruling, throwing out a contractor’s $90 million-plus damages claim against the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) and ordering the firm to cover the public body’s legal costs.

    The claim was brought by Raghunath Singh and Company Ltd, which was awarded the contract for the L’Anse Fourmi-Charlotteville Road Project back in May 2002 through the Central Tenders Board. The original corrected contract value was set at $34.7 million, excluding value-added tax, with an 18-month timeline for completion. What was meant to be a year-and-a-half project stretched out significantly due to multiple reported delays, and the contractor ultimately fully exited the construction site in March 2007.

    That August, the project’s supervising firm Lee Young & Partners issued a Certificate of Provisional Acceptance and certified a final closing payment of just over $1 million. For eight years after this step, the contractor took no formal legal action, only submitting a self-described final account and claim to the THA in May 2015. It then waited another seven and a half years before launching formal court proceedings in November 2022.

    In its claim, the contractor argued that the extended delays were not its fault. It pinned responsibility on last-minute design changes ordered by authorities, severe weather events including 2004’s Hurricane Ivan and Tropical Storm Earl, unanticipated escalation in construction materials and labor costs, and additional compliance mandates imposed by the Environmental Management Authority. It demanded more than $27 million in special damages, over $53 million in accumulated interest, pushing the total claimed amount to over $90 million when VAT was included.

    Delivering his judgment this week, High Court Justice Frank Seepersad left no room for ambiguity, dismissing the entire claim and ordering Raghunath Singh and Company Ltd to pay $636,590.07 in legal fees to the THA.

    Justice Seepersad’s core finding was that the claim was statutorily barred under Trinidad and Tobago’s Limitation of Certain Actions Act, which requires all contractual dispute claims to be filed within a four-year window. He rejected the contractor’s argument that the THA’s failure to issue a formal Final Completion Certificate kept the claim legally active, noting that the law prioritizes timely, diligent action over inaction.

    “Contractual mechanisms requiring timely certification and the prompt resolution of disputes exist not merely for administrative convenience but because justice itself is best served when claims are advanced while the underlying facts remain capable of objective verification,” Justice Seepersad wrote in his ruling.

    Beyond the statutory limitation, the judge found that the contractor had failed to comply with multiple core procedural requirements laid out in the original construction contract. These included mandates to submit a draft final account statement shortly after project completion and to initiate binding arbitration when disputes first emerged during construction. He stressed that procedural requirements in large construction contracts are not meaningless technicalities, but foundational elements that ensure commercial certainty for all parties.

    “Commercial certainty is an indispensable feature of construction contracts,” he said. “Such contracts invariably contain carefully calibrated provisions governing certification, claims, variations, extensions of time and dispute resolution. Those mechanisms are not mere technicalities.”

    Justice Seepersad further noted that courts lack the authority to rewrite contractual agreements years after the original work was completed, or to override the terms that commercial parties freely agreed to when entering a contract. “Courts are not at liberty to reconstruct contractual relationships many years after the relevant events have occurred or to substitute broad notions of fairness for the bargain freely entered into by commercial parties. The judicial function is to enforce contracts according to their terms and not to relieve parties from the consequences of failing to invoke the procedures to which they agreed,” he added.

    The judge also highlighted that the agreement was a fixed-price contract with no clauses allowing for adjustments due to cost fluctuations, meaning the risk of any unexpected cost increases was explicitly borne by the contractor from the start. He added that the 15-year gap between the project’s completion and the filing of the claim makes a fair, reliable judicial review impossible: over time, witness memories fade, key project documents are lost or misplaced, and the original context of on-site decisions becomes impossible to accurately reconstruct.

    Representing the contracting firm were attorneys Peter Taylor, Egon Embrack and Nehanda Samuel, while the THA was represented by a legal team led by Senior Counsel Russell Martineau, with support from Dominique Martineau and Avionne Thomas.

  • ‘Teacher training, staffing key to success’

    ‘Teacher training, staffing key to success’

    A plan to bring back the Continuous Assessment Component (CAC) to Trinidad and Tobago’s primary education system has earned cautious backing from the nation’s largest teachers’ union and the national parent-teacher body, both of which warn that policy missteps that doomed the first iteration of the framework must be avoided for the initiative to deliver on its promises.

    The Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA) first vice president Adesh Dwarika shared the union’s position in a recent phone interview with local outlet the Express, following the release of a memorandum from Education Ministry Chief Education Officer Peter Smith that launched virtual public consultations with primary school principals, teachers, and parents of Standards Two and Three students on the planned CAC relaunch.

    Dwarika noted that TTUTA leadership held a meeting with Education Ministry officials several weeks prior to the consultation announcement, where Education Minister Dr Michael Dowlath confirmed the CAC would be returning to the national education system. The union had previously pushed for educator and administrator inclusion in consultation talks, a demand that has since been reflected in the ministry’s current outreach process.

    “TTUTA has no objection to the policy if it genuinely strengthens the education system, enhances teaching and learning experiences for students, and reduces unnecessary pressure on young learners,” Dwarika explained. “But we cannot ignore the mistakes that led to its cancellation the first time around, and we must address those flaws up front.”

    When CAC was first rolled out as part of the national Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA), it required teachers to deliver instruction in creative arts and a range of skill-based modules that many primary educators were not trained to teach, Dwarika said. A second critical flaw was the lack of standardized grading: assessments were scored independently at each school, leading to inconsistent, highly subjective results that undermined the credibility of the framework. The policy also created unmanageable additional workload for already stretched teaching staff, he added.

    To fix these longstanding issues, TTUTA has proposed several key reforms ahead of the relaunch. Dwarika recommended rolling out a system of centralized grading moderation modeled after the School Based Assessment (SBA) process used for Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations, which would create consistent, fair grading standards across all schools. The union has also proposed reducing the weight of the final high-stakes SEA examination to offset the added workload of continuous assessment, framing the adjustment as a way to balance formative evaluation with systemwide accountability.

    Dwarika emphasized that TTUTA’s demands are rooted in a commitment to improving outcomes for students and supporting educators, not opposing policy change. “We are not obstructionists. We want what is best for our students, who are our nation’s future, but we also need to protect our teachers from unfair emotional and physical burnout. Unreasonable burdens are the last thing any successful policy needs,” he said.

    Walter Stewart, president of the National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA), echoed TTUTA’s cautious support in a statement shared via WhatsApp with the Express. Stewart noted that the current SEA framework relies entirely on a single high-stakes examination that only captures a student’s performance on one specific day, under high-pressure conditions. While the SEA provides useful data on a student’s academic readiness, it fails to capture the full range of a child’s creativity, talent and long-term potential, he argued.

    “CAC will give us a more holistic portrait of a student’s achievement, growth and development over time, and will better highlight the skills and competencies that act as building blocks for long-term success,” Stewart said. Like TTUTA, Stewart stressed that the policy’s success hinges on three core prerequisites: clear national assessment standards, consistent and adequate teacher training, and transparent mechanisms to guarantee equity and fairness across all schools. Stewart added that the NPTA supports the framework because it centers student well-being, reduces unnecessary testing stress, and prioritizes meaningful learning over high-stakes performance.

    As of press time, the Express reports that Education Minister Dr Michael Dowlath has not responded to requests for comment on the associations’ positions.

    The current push to bring back CAC comes seven years after the policy was scrapped by the then-government in 2016. In April of that year, then Education Minister Anthony Garcia announced that the cohort of students sitting SEA that May would be the last to complete the CAC component. The cabinet’s decision followed a five-week national public consultation on education reform held earlier that year, which collected feedback through in-person public forums and online surveys. Consultation respondents widely criticized the original CAC as a poorly planned framework that placed unfair, undue stress on teachers, students and families, leading to its swift disbandment.

  • AMAZING AAMIR

    AMAZING AAMIR

    At just 10 years old, Aamir Khan received a life-shattering diagnosis: an aggressive form of brain cancer called medulloblastoma. What followed was a grueling years-long battle that included multiple invasive surgeries, repeated stays in intensive care, and a full year of debilitating radiation and chemotherapy treatments. In April 2018, after months of intense treatment at Trinidad’s Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Khan walked out of the hospital, ringing the traditional end-of-treatment bell to mark that he was officially cancer-free.

    Before his diagnosis, Khan was an active young athlete, competing in track and field for his primary school and playing cricket with the Harvard Cricket Club. The cancer and its treatments left him with lasting side effects: limited mobility, impaired short-term memory, partial hearing loss, a squint, and a persistent limp. But within days of his release, the 15-year-old had only one goal: to return to the classroom and finish the education he had been forced to pause.

    Determined to pick up where he left off, Khan restarted his primary education at Standard Three. Even with significant memory challenges that made studying far harder for him than his peers, he earned straight A grades in his first year back, advancing to Standard Four and moving steadily toward his goal of sitting the Secondary Entrance Examination (SEA) to secure a spot at his top-choice secondary school, Trinity College East. In 2021, with support from his three younger siblings who helped him prepare, Khan sat for the SEA. He not only completed the exam — he finished ahead of schedule — and earned admission to Trinity College East, fulfilling his long-held dream.

    Six years after he entered secondary school, Khan’s educational journey hit another obstacle: he developed severe seizures in Form Three that forced doctors to advise him against continuing in-person classes. Refusing to let his dream of graduation die, Khan and his mother Adita Khan made a new plan: Adita would step in to homeschool him, while he continued pursuing his education part-time through the A+ Tuition Academy, working through one subject at a time to avoid overtaxing his impaired memory.

    On Monday, six years after he first enrolled at Trinity College East, Khan walked across the school’s graduation stage as an honored member of the graduating class. The school extended a special invitation to Khan to participate in the ceremony, recognizing his years of grit and determination in the face of overwhelming obstacles.

    Now 19, Khan is still working toward his next milestone: earning his full Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC). He already passed English last year and completed the Principles of Business exam this year, with mathematics planned for next year. His progress is slow, shaped by ongoing health challenges: he still attends regular cancer monitoring clinics, requires frequent blood tests to manage abnormal sodium levels and blood counts, and his short-term memory impairment makes studying a constant struggle. There are good days and bad days, and Khan sometimes feels discouraged by how long it takes him to reach his goals — but he remains committed to finishing what he started.

    In an interview with the Express following his graduation, a smiling Khan shared that the ceremony marked his first ever graduation, and he had been looking forward to the milestone for months. For Adita, her son’s journey has been nothing short of a miracle. “My son was on death’s bed. He went to hell and back. He had many challenges, but he beat them all,” she said. The family now shares Aamir’s story to inspire other children and parents navigating similar health and educational struggles.

    Speaking directly to young people facing learning and health challenges of their own, Khan offered a message of resilience: “I would tell children who are facing similar challenges, in my case and academically, to never give up even if you haven’t succeeded. Get back up and try again and again — because the moment you stop, then you’ve failed.” With a strong support system of family and friends surrounding him, Khan continues to push forward, turning what many would see as insurmountable odds into a series of hard-won victories.

  • T&T home to 186 gangs

    T&T home to 186 gangs

    A 2026 report compiled by the United Kingdom Home Office has laid bare the full scope of gang-related organized crime across Trinidad and Tobago, offering granular data on gang activity, violence trends, and systemic challenges facing the Caribbean nation’s law enforcement institutions.

    Prepared as a reference for UK immigration and asylum decision-makers and published earlier in June 2026, the Country Policy and Information Note (CPIN) documents that at least 186 distinct gangs, with an approximate total membership of 1,750, currently operate across the twin-island nation. Data analyzed in the report links these criminal networks to 43.7 percent of all homicides recorded in 2024, with gang-related killings accounting for roughly one-third of all murders nationwide in 2025.

    The report draws on conflict mapping data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) to show that a staggering 57 percent of Trinidad and Tobago’s total population lived within close proximity of gang-related violent incidents between January and September 2024. While gang activity is most heavily concentrated in the capital Port of Spain and the densely populated East-West Corridor, the assessment confirms criminal groups have established a presence in communities across both islands. High-risk areas explicitly named in the report include Laventille, Morvant, Sea Lots, Beetham, Tunapuna, Arima, Diego Martin, Chaguanas, and San Fernando, with the vast majority of gang-related homicides occurring in populated population centers in northwestern Trinidad.

    Two large criminal networks – the Muslims gang and Rasta City gang – are identified as the dominant gang groupings in the country. Other notable active groups include Sixx, Seven, Resistance, Anybody Gets It (ABG), Tyson, and the Boombay Gang. The report notes that while most smaller gangs operate as affiliates of these larger, established organizations, security agencies have recorded a steady rise in independent splinter gangs and autonomous criminal networks across the region in recent years. Gangs in Trinidad and Tobago engage in a wide range of illicit activities, the report confirms, including drug trafficking, illegal firearms smuggling, contract killings, kidnappings for ransom, extortion, human trafficking, armed robbery, unregulated illegal quarrying, and financial fraud. The assessment also highlights that transnational Venezuelan criminal organizations, including the well-documented Tren de Aragua and Evander groups, operate in partnership with local gang networks across the nation.

    On the topic of gang recruitment, the report outlines that criminal groups systematically target vulnerable young people between the ages of 12 and 16, with recruitment activity documented inside primary and secondary schools as well as within the country’s prison system. Contrary to common assumptions about gang demographics, the report notes that women hold full membership in many local gangs, and in some cases occupy senior leadership positions. In many marginalized communities, gangs maintain social control and public loyalty by providing informal financial support, mediating local disputes, and connecting residents to informal employment opportunities – a dynamic that has helped them embed themselves in community life. The assessment also echoes longstanding public concerns over allegations that state-funded public contracts have been awarded to individuals with proven ties to organized criminal groups.

    The CPIN assessment was published months after the government of Trinidad and Tobago declared a national state of emergency to address rising gang violence on December 30, 2024. Early outcomes from the emergency crackdown have shown measurable reductions in violence: the report records that more than 4,000 people were arrested and roughly 1,600 people were charged with criminal offenses during the emergency period. Clashes between rival gangs and targeted attacks on civilians dropped by 44 percent during the first eight months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, and the national overall homicide rate also declined sharply, falling from 45.7 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2024 to 27 per 100,000 in 2025. Even with this progress, however, gangs still remained responsible for approximately one out of every three murders recorded in 2025.

    The report also documents rapid gang expansion on the smaller island of Tobago, where the total number of active gangs has grown from just 3 in 2009 to 28 as of 2022. Many Trinidad and Tobago-based gangs have also established cross-border connections with other criminal organizations across the Caribbean, enabling broader transnational criminal activity, the assessment adds.

    In its concluding findings, the UK Home Office report acknowledges that state institutions in Trinidad and Tobago remain fully operational and are able to provide protection to citizens in most circumstances. However, it highlights persistent systemic challenges that continue to undermine efforts to curb gang activity: widespread witness intimidation, public sector corruption, chronic resource constraints for law enforcement, and eroded public confidence in policing and judicial institutions. The report identifies police officers, prison staff, prosecutors, judges, and private business owners as among the most common targets for gang intimidation and retaliatory violence.

  • Relative: He wasn’t much of a threat

    Relative: He wasn’t much of a threat

    A fatal police shooting of a 38-year-old mentally ill man in San Juan has sparked deep grief and serious questions from his family, who say they called law enforcement to get him life-saving medical help, not a death sentence. Abraham Hackette, a longtime outpatient at St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital, was shot and killed by officers on the evening of June 22 following a chaotic confrontation that left one police officer injured. What has intensified the family’s pain is the gaping mismatch between their account of the call for help and the official narrative released by police, alongside unanswered queries about why less-lethal force options were not used to subdue Hackette.

    Hackette’s surviving sister, who requested anonymity to protect her family’s privacy, told local outlet the Express that the encounter began as a desperate plea for help. On Monday afternoon, Hackette became severely agitated during a mental health episode, armed himself with knives, and confronted a family member. Their mother, fearing for the safety of everyone in the home and neighborhood, placed an emergency call to police, asking officers to assist in transporting Hackette to the psychiatric hospital for care. The sister explained that their mother expected officers would sedate Hackette and move him to receive treatment, never anticipating the situation would end in her youngest brother’s death.

    This was not Hackette’s first acute mental health crisis, his sister confirmed. The youngest of five siblings, Hackette had a history of mental illness that required institutional care: a previous episode that led to an assault on a relative resulted in his arrest, a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation at St Ann’s, and eventual discharge with ongoing medication to manage his condition. The sister emphasized that the entire family only wanted to get Hackette help on the day of the shooting, and no one foresaw the violence that would unfold. “Because he was having an episode. No one expected this to escalate to what happened,” she told reporters.

    Official police reports lay out a different sequence of events. Just before 7 p.m. on June 22, two officers — WPC Nakhid and PC David Noel — responded to the disturbance call at Farroe Terrace, where the Hackette family lives. Upon arrival, the officers found Hackette, armed with two knives, being chased by a group of local men. He ran onto Saddle Road near Concord Road, where PC Noel exited his marked patrol vehicle and ordered Hackette to drop his weapons. When Hackette ignored the command and lunged at Noel, slashing the officer’s left hand and right arm.

    Hackette then fled east along Concord Road, with both officers in pursuit, shouting repeated orders for him to surrender. During the chase, he attempted to attack PC Noel a second time, prompting the officer to fire one warning shot in Hackette’s direction. Hackette evaded officers by jumping a wall and hiding in dense brush near the San Juan River. While the injured PC Noel was transported to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC) in Mt Hope for treatment, additional units from the San Juan CID and North Eastern Division Task Force launched a large-scale manhunt for Hackette.

    Around 7:30 p.m., search teams spotted Hackette holding a 12-inch knife in a bushy trail near the river. Police say Hackette ignored multiple demands to drop his weapon, shouted “Ah go kill allyuh” (I will kill all of you), and continued advancing toward officers. Officers opened fire, striking Hackette multiple times. He was rushed to EWMSC in a police vehicle but was pronounced dead on arrival. PC Noel, the injured officer, was treated at the same hospital and remained in stable condition as of the family’s interview. Crime scene investigators later processed multiple locations connected to the incident and collected evidence for the ongoing investigation.

    In the days after the shooting, the Hackette family says they have received almost no information from police about the details of the encounter, leaving them to grapple with grief and suspicion. Hackette’s sister questioned the use of deadly force against her brother, noting that he was a small man who did not pose an unavoidable lethal threat, even armed. Most pointedly, she asked why officers did not deploy less-lethal tools such as Tasers or pepper spray that could have disabled Hackette without killing him, even if officers felt threatened. “Why didn’t they try to shoot him in his foot or something to disable him and disarm him? The whole thing just doesn’t sit right with me,” she said, adding that she has little confidence that an internal investigation will yield accountability or answers for her family. The shooting has left the entire family traumatized, she added, and they are still struggling to process how a request for medical help ended in a young man’s death.

    As a public service, the story included a resource note for community members facing mental health crisis: anyone experiencing a mental health emergency can contact the Ministry of Health’s free 24-hour National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 800-COPE (2673).

  • US and T&T security forces complete training at Teteron

    US and T&T security forces complete training at Teteron

    A four-day joint Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) training exchange between national security forces of the United States and Trinidad and Tobago has successfully concluded at Teteron Barracks in Chaguaramas, marking another milestone in the two countries’ deepening defense and security partnership. The exercise brought together service members from the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force (TTDF) alongside representatives from multiple local interagency partners, who participated in rigorous, real-world simulated trauma exercises designed to build practical frontline skills. According to an official social media statement shared by the U.S. Embassy in Port of Spain, the drills centered on three core, life-saving competencies: rapid casualty assessment, on-site trauma treatment, and coordinated casualty evacuation under combat-like conditions. The training program was co-led by two instructors: a U.S. Special Operations combat medic and a TTDF Special Operations soldier who had previously completed the same TCCC training through bilateral cooperation. In its official comment on the exercise, the U.S. Embassy noted that the exchange exemplifies how the longstanding military partnership between the two nations is creating durable, self-sustaining training capacity within Trinidad and Tobago’s domestic security forces. The conclusion of the medical exchange comes as Trinidad and Tobago advances expanded security cooperation with the U.S. to address persistent transnational criminal threats, particularly drug trafficking along the country’s coastline. In remarks delivered earlier this week to local media outlet the Express, Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar outlined upcoming enhancements to the bilateral security partnership, noting that the U.S. will deliver additional patrol vessels to Trinidad and Tobago in the coming months to boost border protection capabilities. She also confirmed that U.S. military and intelligence personnel will increase their on-ground presence in the country to support local law enforcement and security agencies’ ongoing anti-crime operations. Persad-Bissessar disclosed that a contingent of U.S. Navy SEALs— the U.S. Navy’s elite special operations force, trained for high-stakes maritime and land-based missions—is already on the ground in Trinidad and Tobago handling advance logistics for a larger upcoming deployment of SEAL teams. These special operations personnel will provide specialized training and operational support to the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard and TTDF, focusing on three core priorities: strengthening border surveillance, disrupting illegal drug shipments, and shoring up the country’s internal security. The Prime Minister explained that expanded cooperation comes amid incremental progress in curbing drug flows into Trinidad and Tobago from South America, but persistent threats remain in vulnerable coastal regions. She identified the southern, southwestern, and central coastlines of Trinidad as persistent hotspots for illicit smuggling activity, with the stretch from Caroni to Marabella posing particular challenges. The dense mangrove ecosystems and informal squatter settlements that line this coastline make it easy for smuggling operations to go undetected, she noted, adding that these squatter communities are heavily infiltrated by transnational criminal networks and local gangs that facilitate the drug trade. This expanded security partnership reflects the U.S.’s ongoing commitment to supporting Caribbean nations in countering transnational organized crime, which has been identified as a core shared priority for regional stability.

  • Joshua’s father held

    Joshua’s father held

    A grieving Trinidadian father, Christopher Samaroo, whose son Joshua was killed in a police-involved shooting earlier this year, has been taken into custody under national emergency regulations after voluntarily contacting police to clear up misrepresented comments he made in a public radio interview.

    Joshua Samaroo died on January 20 following a confrontation with law enforcement officers in St Augustine. Following his death, Joshua’s common-law wife Kaia Sealy has been hit with multiple criminal charges, including manslaughter, three counts of shooting with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and additional related offenses. On Father’s Day, Christopher Samaroo joined an i95.5FM radio program to talk about his months-long experience of grief after losing his son. The discussion also included Ronald “Crab” Cabrera, who was still mourning the murder of his 12-year-old daughter Mercedez Layne.

    During the emotional interview, Samaroo opened up about his frustration with the circumstances of his son’s shooting and shared that he had little confidence that the ongoing legal process would deliver a fair outcome. Some of his critical remarks directed at law enforcement were clipped and shared widely across social media, cutting out key surrounding context from the full conversation. The radio program’s host intervened shortly after Samaroo made the comments in question, and only the truncated segment was circulated online.

    Sensing growing concern over the misrepresented clips, Samaroo chose to voluntarily meet with police to clarify what he actually said, accompanied by his defense attorney Aaron Lewis. According to Lewis, the pair first arrived at Port of Spain’s Central Police Station around 5:30 p.m. on the day of the arrest, where Samaroo spent 40 minutes answering officers’ questions about the circulating statements. Lewis said Central Police Station officers told the pair they had no reports filed against Samaroo connected to the comments and no existing investigation into his remarks.

    After leaving Central Police Station, Samaroo and Lewis received word from family members that a specialized police unit had visited the family’s Maraval home to look for Samaroo. The pair then traveled to Maraval Police Station to follow up, but officers there claimed to have no information about any warrant for Samaroo or any visit to his residence. They then moved on to St Clair Police Station, where officers from the Criminal Investigations Department approached Samaroo and informed him he was officially the target of an investigation.

    Samaroo was formally cautioned and detained under Regulation 11 of the country’s Emergency Powers Regulations, the legal provision outlined in Legal Notice No 40. This regulation bans any action intended to sway public opinion in a way that could harm public safety, as well as any possession of materials or actions that support such an effort.

    Lewis decried the arrest as a deeply unfair and unfortunate outcome, emphasizing that his client’s full remarks had been deliberately twisted and stripped of context online. “His words were twisted in the manner in which they were presented. He made a report concerning what he actually said, and what was circulated was cut short and does not reflect the entirety of his statement,” Lewis told local outlet the Express just minutes after Samaroo was taken into custody.

    The attorney added that the arrest has worsened the severe emotional distress Samaroo has already endured since his son’s death. “To be cautioned and arrested for something like that, taking into consideration what he is going through with the loss of his son, is traumatic,” Lewis said. He noted that while Samaroo had braced for the possibility of police action, the actual experience of being taken into custody was far more overwhelming, particularly amid the ongoing state of emergency that grants authorities expanded power. “It is a serious matter,” Lewis added.

    As of the night of the arrest, law enforcement officials had not released any public details about the specific allegations against Samaroo or the full scope of the investigation. Before he was detained, Samaroo himself had pushed back against the misrepresented clips, confirming that the online version cut off key portions of his full remarks. “That is not totally what I said. They caught me halfway through. The whole thing was missing parts,” he said, adding that the circulating snippets failed to capture the full context of his comments about his son’s death and his grief.

  • US Navy SEALs to help fight crime

    US Navy SEALs to help fight crime

    During a phone interview with local outlet the Express while visiting the United States, Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has outlined a sweeping expansion of bilateral security cooperation with Washington, aimed at tightening border control, curbing drug trafficking, and dismantling organized crime across the twin-island nation.

    Persad-Bissessar, who is in the U.S. to attend the funeral of her brother-in-law Michael L Ahamad and will return to Trinidad and Tobago tomorrow, with Works and Infrastructure Minister Jearlean John serving as acting Prime Minister in her absence, emphasized that the current government has reversed the security failures of the previous People’s National Movement (PNM) administration. She claimed that under her leadership, national borders are now more tightly controlled, additional Coast Guard vessels patrol territorial waters daily, and the national coastal radar system is fully operational – a stark contrast to conditions under the former government, which she accuses of having left borders porous for criminal networks.

    The Prime Minister confirmed that in the coming months, Trinidad and Tobago will receive additional maritime patrol vessels from the United States to boost coastal security. Beyond equipment support, U.S. military and intelligence agencies are ramping up their on-the-ground presence to support local anti-crime operations. Currently, advance elements of U.S. Navy SEAL teams are already in the country coordinating logistics for a larger upcoming deployment. As the U.S. military’s elite special operations force, named for their capability to operate across sea, air and land domains, these SEAL personnel will provide specialized training and operational support to the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard and Defence Force, focusing on border protection, drug interdiction, and internal security operations.

    While official data received regularly by the National Security Council, which Persad-Bissessar chairs, shows a measurable drop in serious violent crime across the country, and the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) has successfully disrupted multiple gang operations, the Prime Minister acknowledged that persistent security challenges remain. Drug shipments originating in South America continue to flow into the country through unpatrolled coastal areas of southern, southwestern, and central Trinidad. The coastline stretching from Caroni to Marabella, particularly its dense mangrove regions and informal squatter settlements, remains a high-risk smuggling corridor. Persad-Bissessar noted that these squatter communities are deeply infiltrated by criminal gangs, creating safe havens for illicit activity. Beyond transnational drug trafficking, the nation is also grappling with rising petty crime committed by non-gang-affiliated ordinary citizens, alongside ongoing issues of financial fraud and domestic violence. She explained that decades of unpunished lawbreaking have eroded social norms, leading some normally law-abiding residents to commit minor offenses, creating a gradual slide toward broader lawlessness.

    In a surprising endorsement, Persad-Bissessar awarded Police Commissioner Allister Guevarro an “A” grade for his performance over his first year leading the TTPS, noting his progress in targeting entrenched criminal groups while acknowledging that fully dismantling long-established community gangs will require years of sustained effort.

    On countering transnational financial crime, Persad-Bissessar highlighted critical intelligence support from U.S. agencies, which have identified individuals, business owners, and banking employees linked to cartel drug trafficking and money laundering operations who have moved billions of U.S. dollars out of the country illicitly for years. U.S. authorities have already begun punitive action against these networks, restricting their access to U.S. territory and the American financial system. The U.S. is also supporting upgrades to both physical and digital security infrastructure at Trinidad and Tobago’s major airports and seaports to strengthen border screening.

    Persad-Bissessar criticized the former PNM administration for rejecting the full package of U.S. security assistance that was already available to them, accusing the previous government of intentionally leaving borders and ports open to allow traffickers to flood the country with illegal narcotics and weapons.

    Looking ahead, the government plans to expand its holistic anti-crime strategy with new legislative measures and increased human resources. To crack down on white-collar crime and the financial networks backing drug trafficking and gang activity, the government is actively recruiting new staff for the understaffed Inland Revenue division, which previously operated at only 25% of its authorized workforce. The division is also receiving upgrades to its tax administration technology, boosting the state’s ability to monitor and investigate illicit financial activity.

  • THA wants $4.12 billion for 2026-2027 budget

    THA wants $4.12 billion for 2026-2027 budget

    In a formal presentation delivered to the Assembly Chamber in Scarborough on Tuesday, Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Finance Secretary Petal-Ann Roberts unveiled the body’s requested $4.12 billion expenditure budget for the 2027 fiscal year, which runs from October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027. Framed under the guiding theme “Results Based Governance, A Pathway to Prosperity”, the budget proposal breaks down total requested spending into two core buckets: $3.03 billion allocated to ongoing recurrent operations, and $1.09 billion earmarked for targeted development programming, including a $43.35 million line item for the Community-Based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme (CEPEP).

    Roberts noted that the total request is calculated as a 6.6% share of Trinidad and Tobago’s projected $62.16 billion national budget for the period — a proportional allocation equal to just $6.60 of every $100 in national planned spending, matching the THA’s share in the current 2026 fiscal cycle. A line-by-line breakdown of the recurrent expenditure budget reveals that the Division of Health and Wellness has secured the largest single allocation, requesting $1.03 billion to support public health services across the island. Other major allocations include $519.60 million for the Division of Education, Skills and Innovation, $343.99 million for the Division of Public Infrastructure and Transportation, $193.28 million for the Division of Tourism, Antiquities and Creative Industries, and $181.94 million for the Office of the Chief Secretary, with all recurrent expenditure line items summing exactly to the $3.03 billion total.

    Breaking down the components of recurrent spending, Roberts reported that $805.52 million is allocated to personnel costs, $935.57 million covers goods and services, $67.95 million supports minor equipment purchases, and $1.22 billion goes toward current transfers and subsidies for public services.

    In a key policy shift, the budget restructures two long-running public employment and community development programs. The existing Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) will be rebranded and relocated as a new initiative under the Division of Public Infrastructure and Transportation, renamed the Programme for Infrastructure Upgrade in Urban and Rural Communities (IUURC), with an allocated $91.9 million in 2027 funding. Meanwhile, CEPEP has been realigned to the Division of Food Security, where its workforce will be leveraged to support growth and transformation of the island’s food production sector, retaining its $43.35 million approved budget.

    Beyond spending allocations, Roberts used the budget presentation to call attention to a long-standing fiscal dispute between the THA and the central national government. She pointed out that the THA’s officially recorded total annual tax revenue of $220.5 million, collected via existing national revenue and tax administration systems, significantly undercounts the actual tax revenue generated by economic activity within Tobago. A large share of revenue generated locally in Tobago is currently collected by tax authorities based in Trinidad, a practice that Roberts says violates Section 49 of the THA Act 40 of 1996, the legislation governing the autonomous body’s authority.

    Roberts emphasized that the only permanent solution to this decades-long fiscal inequity is the full completion of the Tobago internal self-government project, which would strengthen the THA’s legislative and enforcement authority to manage its own revenue streams in line with existing legal mandates.

  • Family pleads for help after fire

    Family pleads for help after fire

    A devastating fast-moving blaze has left a family of six displaced and with no personal possessions after destroying their two-storey residence in La Romaine, Trinidad and Tobago, this Sunday, prompting a public call for urgent assistance to help the group rebuild their lives. The inferno quickly tore through the mixed wood-and-concrete home located on Lucky Street Extension, overwhelming desperate, immediate efforts by nearby neighbors to contain the fire and save the property before emergency crews arrived.

    The home housed two family groups across its floors: Aaliyah Small, 25, shared the ground floor with her mother Alisha Mohammed, while Mohammed’s 35-year-old sister Derecia Christopher, Christopher’s three young children, and Christopher’s fiancé lived in the upper-level apartment. According to the family’s timeline, Christopher and her household locked their upper floor and left the property around 7:30 a.m. on the day of the fire. Roughly two hours later, Mohammed and Small, who were on the ground floor, noticed unusual noise coming from the empty upper apartment. Upon investigation, they discovered the space was already engulfed in flames.

    Neighbors spotted thick smoke and bright flames billowing from the structure almost immediately, and rushed across to help the family evacuate and battle the blaze, but the fire spread too quickly through the building’s wooden framing. Small recalled the chaotic scene when local media visited the fire-ravaged site the following day, saying “I ran outside when I saw smoke at the top of the house, the roof was engulfed in flames. Everything started to collapse inside the house. The neighbours came across and tried to help us. They even wet the dogs to protect them from the heat. We tried to move the car out of harm’s way, but we couldn’t get it out in time.”

    Preliminary investigations into the cause of the fire point to an electrical fault as the most likely source, though official probes are still ongoing to confirm the origin. Remarkably, the entire family escaped the disaster without injury: all residents who had been on the property got out safely before the structure collapsed, and the upper-floor household was already out when the fire broke out, a fact local officials have highlighted as a small blessing amid the tragedy.

    Local Government Councillor Raven Ramsawak was among the first officials to respond to the family after the fire, visiting the site to deliver immediate emergency aid including non-perishable food, bottled water, and other basic necessities, while also arranging temporary shelter for the displaced family. Speaking to reporters, Ramsawak emphasized that while the material loss was total, the outcome could have been far worse, noting “Thankfully, no one was hurt nor did anyone lose a loved one. Those who were home escaped without injury. Those in the upper floor were not at home, and we’re grateful for that as the fire started near the electrical wires, which quickly spread onto the roof that became engulfed in the flames.”

    To expand support beyond emergency aid, Ramsawak has shared a formal appeal for public donations via his official Facebook page, outlining exactly what the family needs to get through the coming weeks. The requested items include both cooked and uncooked food, general groceries, clothing for adults and children (two five-year-olds and one ten-year-old), basic over-the-counter medication, and sanitary products. Members of the public who wish to donate or offer any other form of assistance can contact Ramsawak’s office at 320-0325, or reach family members directly at 731-7259 (Small) and 334-5582 (Christopher).

    Photographs from the scene show Small pulling a single damaged bicycle from the charred rubble of the home — the only personal item the family has managed to recover from the blaze, underscoring the total loss the group has suffered.