PM: National Security Council to decide on future of State of Emergency

SOURCE: Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion (CMC)

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) will meet Thurs­day to de­cide on the next step re­gard­ing the Srate of Emer­gency (SoE), which is sched­uled to ex­pire on Sep­tem­ber 17.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who con­firmed the meet­ing while speak­ing to re­porters out­side the Hall of Jus­tice in Port of Spain fol­low­ing the open­ing of the 2026/2027 Law Term on Wednes­day, did not in­di­cate whether the Gov­ern­ment would seek an­oth­er ex­ten­sion or al­low the emer­gency mea­sures to end.

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

Asked specif­i­cal­ly whether an­oth­er ex­ten­sion was be­ing con­sid­ered, she said: “We will let you know af­ter Thurs­day.”

The cur­rent SoE took ef­fect on March 3 and has al­ready been ex­tend­ed twice.

The first three-month ex­ten­sion was ap­proved by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on March 13, while a sec­ond three-month ex­ten­sion was ap­proved by Par­lia­ment on June 10 in a 28-12 vote.

A fur­ther ex­ten­sion be­yond Sep­tem­ber 17 would go be­yond the Con­sti­tu­tion’s six-month cu­mu­la­tive lim­it for ex­ten­sions and would re­quire a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty in both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment.

Un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, a state of emer­gency can be ex­tend­ed for pe­ri­ods of up to three months by a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, pro­vid­ed the to­tal ex­ten­sions do not ex­ceed six months.

Any ex­ten­sion be­yond six months re­quires the sup­port of three-fifths of all mem­bers of both the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate.

Al­though the Gov­ern­ment has the num­bers to se­cure the re­quired vote in the Low­er House, it does not have a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty in the Sen­ate and would need the sup­port of at least three Op­po­si­tion or In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­mained a con­cern but point­ed to a de­cline in crime sta­tis­tics dur­ing the pe­ri­od of the SoE.

“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 suc­cess­ful, the Prime Min­is­ter said: “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 emer­gency is the sec­ond SoE de­clared since the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress re­turned to of­fice in 2025.

The first was de­clared on Ju­ly 18, 2025, and re­mained in ef­fect un­til Jan­u­ary 31, 2026, af­ter two ex­ten­sions.

A sec­ond SoE was de­clared on March 3, just over a month af­ter the first one end­ed.

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar says new po­lice posts promised by the Gov­ern­ment should be­come 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 spe­cif­ic time­frame, she said it would be “a mat­ter of weeks”. —PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC)