National Security Council to decide fate of SoE today

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) will meet to­day to de­ter­mine the fu­ture of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), which is due to ex­pire on Sep­tem­ber 17, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­firmed.

Speak­ing with re­porters out­side the Hall of Jus­tice in Pot-of-Spain fol­low­ing the open­ing of the 2026/2027 Law Term yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clined to say whether the Gov­ern­ment would seek a fur­ther ex­ten­sion of the emer­gency mea­sures or al­low them to lapse.

“We will have a meet­ing of the coun­cil on Thurs­day, and we’ll let you know there­after,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

When asked di­rect­ly if the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to seek an­oth­er ex­ten­sion, she replied: “We will let you know af­ter Thurs­day.”

Any move to ex­tend the cur­rent SoE be­yond Sep­tem­ber 17 would take the emer­gency mea­sures past the Con­sti­tu­tion’s cu­mu­la­tive six-month ex­ten­sion lim­it and re­quire a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty in both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment.

The cur­rent SoE came in­to ef­fect on March 3 and was first ex­tend­ed by three months af­ter ap­proval in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on March 13. A sec­ond three-month ex­ten­sion was ap­proved by Par­lia­ment on June 10, with the mo­tion pass­ing 28-12.

Un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, a SoE may be ex­tend­ed by pe­ri­ods of up to three months with a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, pro­vid­ed the com­bined ex­ten­sions do not ex­ceed six months. Any ex­ten­sion be­yond that thresh­old re­quires the sup­port of three-fifths of all mem­bers of both the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate.

While the Gov­ern­ment has the nec­es­sary num­bers in the Low­er House, it does not com­mand a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty in the Sen­ate and would need the sup­port of at least three Op­po­si­tion or In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors to se­cure a fur­ther ex­ten­sion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­knowl­edged that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­mains a con­cern but main­tained that the SoE had pro­duced pos­i­tive re­sults, cit­ing a de­cline in crime fig­ures.

“We con­tin­ue to be con­cerned. It is very clear that the crime stats are down. Any­body with eyes will see. The num­bers are down, down, down in every re­gard, in every di­vi­sion,” she said.

Asked whether she con­sid­ered the SoE a suc­cess, the Prime Min­is­ter replied: “I think it has been very suc­cess­ful. Maybe it’s not the best thing to do, but it was very suc­cess­ful.

“And when you watch your num­bers, the num­bers are very clear. Num­bers don’t lie.”

The cur­rent SoE is the sec­ond im­posed since the UNC re­turned to of­fice in 2025.

The first was de­clared on Ju­ly 18, 2025, and re­mained in ef­fect un­til Jan­u­ary 31, 2026, fol­low­ing two ex­ten­sions. A sec­ond SoE was de­clared just over a month lat­er, on March 3.

Po­lice posts to open with­in weeks

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the new po­lice posts promised by the Gov­ern­ment should be op­er­a­tional with­in weeks.

Asked when the fa­cil­i­ties would open, she said: “Soon. I have to go and open the air­port to To­ba­go. I have to open those things. Soon, soon, soon.”

Pressed for a more pre­cise time­line, she added: “A mat­ter of weeks.”

SoE TIME­LINE

Ju­ly 18, 2025: The UNC Gov­ern­ment’s first State of Emer­gency is de­clared.

Ju­ly 28, 2025: Par­lia­ment ap­proves the first three-month ex­ten­sion of the SoE, with 39 MPs vot­ing in favour and none against.

Oc­to­ber 31, 2025: Par­lia­ment ap­proves a sec­ond three-month ex­ten­sion, by a vote of 27-12.

Jan­u­ary 31, 2026: The first SoE comes to an end.

March 3, 2026: The UNC Gov­ern­ment’s sec­ond SoE takes ef­fect.

March 13, 2026: Par­lia­ment ap­proves the first three-month ex­ten­sion of the sec­ond SoE.

June 10, 2026: Par­lia­ment ap­proves a sec­ond three-month ex­ten­sion, by a vote of 28-12.

Sep­tem­ber 17, 2026: The cur­rent ex­ten­sion ex­pires.