For the past 14 months, Trinidad and To­ba­go has op­er­at­ed un­der suc­ces­sive States of Emer­gency (SoEs). Cit­i­zens ac­cept­ed re­stric­tions on move­ment and ex­pand­ed po­lice pow­ers be­cause they were told ex­tra­or­di­nary mea­sures were nec­es­sary to con­front an ex­tra­or­di­nary crime wave. Yet, the dead­ly events of the past week­end serve as a sober­ing re­minder that emer­gency pow­ers alone can­not de­liv­er last­ing pub­lic safe­ty.

Ques­tions con­tin­ue to sur­round the Gov­ern­ment's pro­posed da­ta cen­tre projects, in­clud­ing their suit­abil­i­ty for Trinidad and To­ba­go, their po­ten­tial ben­e­fits and the chal­lenges they may cre­ate. Yet be­fore these is­sues can be ful­ly as­sessed, a more fun­da­men­tal con­cern must be ad­dressed: the ap­par­ent lack of pub­lic in­for­ma­tion and con­sul­ta­tion sur­round­ing these ini­tia­tives.

The Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO), the coun­try’s pri­ma­ry agency for col­lect­ing and pub­lish­ing so­cial and eco­nom­ic da­ta, has long faced crit­i­cism over the qual­i­ty, avail­abil­i­ty and time­li­ness of its sta­tis­tics. The agency has con­sis­tent­ly ar­gued that it lacks the le­gal au­thor­i­ty to com­pel pub­lic and pri­vate en­ti­ties to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion prompt­ly, lim­it­ing its abil­i­ty to de­liv­er com­pre­hen­sive and up-to-date da­ta.

There are mo­ments in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions when pol­i­tics must give way to hu­man­i­ty. The re­cent ex­change of let­ters be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Venezuela’s Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez is one such mo­ment and should be wel­comed as an en­cour­ag­ing step to­ward re­pair­ing a re­la­tion­ship that has been strained in re­cent months.

Last Fri­day, the Gov­ern­ment signed three Mem­o­ran­da of Un­der­stand­ing (MoUs), two of which seek to es­tab­lish frame­works for the de­vel­op­ment of large-scale da­ta cen­tres and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) in­fra­struc­ture in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Whilst walk­ing through the streets of Barcelona re­cent­ly, I sud­den­ly be­gan to feel light­head­ed and con­fused. A se­vere throb­bing headache came on with­out warn­ing. My skin felt as though it were on fire, yet I was not sweat­ing. At first, I won­dered whether I had en­joyed one glass too many of Ca­va or the tapas I had eat­en sim­ply dis­agreed with me. Then it dawned on me. My body was re­act­ing to the in­tense heat and hu­mid­i­ty. I was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the clas­sic warn­ing signs of an im­pend­ing heat stroke.

In the con­stant pur­suit of po­lit­i­cal pow­er, eco­nom­ic growth, tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ment and sci­en­tif­ic achieve­ment, con­cern for the most vul­ner­a­ble mem­bers of so­ci­ety of­ten re­ceives far less at­ten­tion than it de­serves. Yet, the way a na­tion treats those left be­hind re­mains one of the clear­est mea­sures of its hu­man­i­ty.

The in­creas­ing­ly hos­tile pos­ture emerg­ing from Wash­ing­ton to­ward the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) has pre­sent­ed the Gov­ern­ment with a del­i­cate for­eign pol­i­cy chal­lenge.

The con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the fi­nanc­ing of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters has once again thrust cam­paign fi­nanc­ing in­to the na­tion­al spot­light.

There are some in our so­ci­ety who re­main colo­nialised but are un­aware of this en­slave­ment. Our so­ci­ety has his­tor­i­cal an­tecedents that in­clude In­dia, Chi­na, Africa and Eu­rope. It is there­fore dif­fi­cult to con­ceive why on­ly the West­ern Eu­ro­pean world­view is ac­cept­ed as the on­ly truth.

One pos­si­ble pos­i­tive out­come of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fund­ing of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's (PNM) Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters and its ad­join­ing com­mer­cial com­plex is that it could open the door to mean­ing­ful in­quiries in­to decades of al­le­ga­tions that politi­cians, pub­lic of­fi­cials and or­gan­i­sa­tions have amassed ex­tra­or­di­nary wealth over rel­a­tive­ly short pe­ri­ods.

Busi­ness in­vest­ment de­ci­sions are long-term and based on as­sump­tions about the en­vi­ron­ment in which com­pa­nies op­er­ate. These in­clude cus­tomer be­hav­iour, com­peti­tors, tech­nol­o­gy and gov­ern­ment poli­cies re­flect­ed in laws and reg­u­la­tions. While busi­ness­es un­der­stand risk, it is mea­sur­able. When those as­sump­tions change, com­pa­nies must adapt, change their busi­ness mod­els or leave the mar­ket.