Opposition calls on PM to address SoE when Parliament resumes Friday

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Whip in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Mar­vin Gon­za­les is de­mand­ing that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar tell the coun­try whether the State of Emer­gency (SoE) will be ex­tend­ed when both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment re­sume on Fri­day.

Of­fi­cials con­firmed yes­ter­day that Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er an ad­dress in the House at Fri­day’s re­sump­tion of Par­lia­ment, al­though it is un­clear whether she will ad­dress the SoE.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Gon­za­les and PNM Sen­ate leader Dr Amery Browne called on the Gov­ern­ment to ex­plain its plans to tack­le crime.

Gon­za­les said, “It is high time that the Prime Min­is­ter lev­els with cit­i­zens whether the SoE will be ex­tend­ed or not. The PM must im­me­di­ate­ly re­move this failed con­sti­tu­tion­al al­ba­tross from around cit­i­zens’ necks!”

The House and Sen­ate hold si­mul­ta­ne­ous sit­tings from 1.30 pm on Fri­day, re­sum­ing work af­ter a two-month Par­lia­ment re­cess.

The SoE, which be­gan in March for three months, was ex­tend­ed in June for a fur­ther three months. It is ex­pect­ed to end next Thurs­day (Sep­tem­ber 17).

Un­der law, an SoE can be ex­tend­ed af­ter a first three-month pe­ri­od, for an­oth­er three months by sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty—Gov­ern­ment votes on­ly—in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Any ex­ten­sion af­ter that six-month to­tal re­quires the sup­port of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors for a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty vote.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne about whether the SoE will be ex­tend­ed; or, if not, whether the SoE will halt and the Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill may be pre­sent­ed lat­er in Par­lia­ment.

How­ev­er, nei­ther min­is­ter re­spond­ed up to press time.

The Gov­ern­ment held a cau­cus on Mon­day to fi­nalise plans in­clud­ing for re­sump­tion of Par­lia­ment and Bud­get 2027 prepa­ra­tions.

Agen­das for both the Sen­ate and House start with Ur­gent Ques­tions to Min­is­ters fol­lowed by Oral Ques­tions to Min­is­ters.

A sub­se­quent sec­tion caters for State­ments by Min­is­ters.

Gon­za­les said, “The Prime Min­is­ter must use the seg­ment on the House’s agen­da for Min­is­ters’ state­ments to tell the coun­try that she and her Gov­ern­ment have failed, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress SoE was on­ly used as a weapon against those they per­ceive as their op­po­nents!

“The PM must tell cit­i­zens who was charged for plot­ting to kill se­nior law en­force­ment of­fi­cers and Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters, how many peo­ple were charged un­der the An­ti-Gang Act, etc and give a com­pre­hen­sive ac­count on what was re­al­ly achieved with the SoE, and then she must apol­o­gise for this con­sti­tu­tion­al dis­as­ter that she has per­pet­u­at­ed on T&T’s cit­i­zens. And that was just one.”

Gon­za­les added, “If the SoE isn’t ex­tend­ed, Gov­ern­ment must al­so tell the coun­try what is its crime plan to se­cure the pub­lic al­ready suf­fer­ing un­der this UNC’s mis­man­age­ment start­ing day one of their tenure. You can’t doubt the suf­fer­ing; look at the thou­sands of job­less peo­ple and the flat econ­o­my!”

Browne added, “This UNC Gov­ern­ment is hell-bent on avoid­ing me­dia scruti­ny and is al­ler­gic to pub­lic ac­count­abil­i­ty and they pre­fer to leave the pop­u­la­tion guess­ing and un­cer­tain un­til the last minute about what comes next with re­gard to the SoE.

“That is a clear sign of a regime with­out a crime plan – just bluff­ing and in­sult­ing their way through the Par­lia­men­tary term.”

Free­dom of In­fo bill in Sen­ate; Pub­lic Health bill in House

The Sen­ate and House will each sit in their South and North cham­bers re­spec­tive­ly on Fri­day.

The Sen­ate's agen­da in­cludes three ques­tions for re­ply by Min­is­ters and 54 re­ports to be pre­sent­ed.

Sen­a­tors will de­bate the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Amend­ment Bill. This re­moves the re­quire­ment for the pub­li­ca­tion in a dai­ly news­pa­per cir­cu­lat­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go of a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty’s an­nu­al pub­lic state­ments. It will be re­placed with a re­quire­ment for those state­ments to be pub­lished ei­ther in a dai­ly news­pa­per cir­cu­lat­ing lo­cal­ly or on a pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble web­site.

Al­so ex­pect­ed is de­bate on a mo­tion on amend­ments made in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions Bill, which re­stores suc­ces­sor and col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights from the Petrotrin re­fin­ery to the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) at Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing.

The House agen­da in­cludes nine ques­tions for Min­is­ters and de­bate on the Pub­lic Health (Amend­ment) (No. 2) Bill, 2026.