Conclusion: The Verdict on Year One
Twelve months in, the UNC administration has delivered targeted relief and real legislative wins alongside troubling authoritarian and isolationist instincts. The next four years will determine whether the manifesto becomes a record or a regret.
The Brief
- Genuine wins: 10% wage increase, pension tax relief, Children's Life Fund expansion, Couva Children's Hospital reopening, 18,000 laptops for Form 1 pupils, EU and FATF blacklist removals, US$1bn bond oversubscribed.
- Open wounds: 50,000 jobs unmet at 15,000; Auditor General's qualified opinion on $36.56bn in unverified revenue; collapsed ZOSO Bill; nurses on 2013 salaries; Eversley murder; Samaroo killing; Brent Thomas apology.
- Foreign policy gains came at the cost of CARICOM relationships and the deaths of two Trinidadian fishermen.
- Campaign finance transparency remains absent; the rhetoric directed at Independent Senators, the Energy Chamber, and the President sets a corrosive precedent.
- Real test ahead: settle disputes with essential workers, enact transparent campaign finance laws, restrain emergency powers, and protect citizens rather than sacrificing them.
As the United National Congress administration crosses the threshold of its first full year in power, my review reveals a government operating in a perpetual state of triage, combined with troubling authoritarian and isolationist instincts. The electorate's demand for change in April 2025 was met with a flurry of legislative and fiscal activity that has altered the relationship between the citizen and the state, but not always for the better.
Economically, the "T&T First" agenda redirected real capital back into the hands of working people through 10% wage increases, property tax halts, and pension tax relief. The expansion of the Children's Life Fund to cover life-limiting illnesses stands out as a genuine act of empathetic governance. The reopening of the Couva Children's Hospital, the delivery of 18,000 laptops to Form 1 pupils, and the rollout of AI-assisted digital textbooks are deliverables this government can credibly point to. Internationally, the country has been removed from both the EU tax blacklist and the FATF blacklist, and a US$1 billion bond was oversubscribed 2.5 times. These are not small things.
But these wins are overshadowed by the brutal realities the past year has surfaced. The Auditor General's April 2026 report flagged $36.56 billion in unverified tax revenue and $1.59 billion in unsupported expenditure on the 2025 Public Accounts, alongside $5.4 billion in off-budget Waterfront financing. The promised 50,000 jobs has been delivered at around 15,000. WASA's El Socorro crisis in April 2026 left over 200,000 residents without water. School maxi taxi operators' months of unpaid invoices culminated in disrupted service for rural pupils. The Energy Chamber and the manufacturing sector have been unsettled by direct attacks from the PM and a proposed 76% gas price hike. Petrotrin restart talks remain a hope, not a delivery.
The murder of Acting Cpl Anuska Eversley inside her own station on April 19, 2026, the dramatic collapse of the ZOSO legislation on January 27, the constant shielding of information by Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander, and the normalisation of vigilante justice championed by the PM's own "empty the clip" rhetoric paint a grim picture of a state losing its grip on law and order. The Roger Alexander prison-visits investigation and the Brent Thomas apology – which exposed a "gross abuse of power" by the previous administration – sit alongside fresh High Court rulings ordering over $4 million in compensation to the families of five men unlawfully killed by police in 2018. Some of this is inherited; all of it now rests on the new government's shoulders.
The relationship with essential workers is fractured. Nurses, represented by the TTNNA, have halted extra-duty work amid inflammatory accusations of an $80,000 overtime "racket" from state health officials like Dr Tim Gopeesingh. Health Minister Dr Lackram Bodoe's "no crisis" framing has only deepened the standoff.
Internationally, the diplomatic preservation of the Dragon Gas project – though now on a much shorter, US-controlled leash – proves this government is capable of sophisticated manoeuvring. That gain is contradicted by a broader, reckless geopolitical strategy. The Trump-inspired "T&T First" doctrine has fractured CARICOM, invited heavy US military operations to our shores including the G/ATOR radar in Tobago and the USS Gerald R. Ford strike group, and resulted in the deaths of Trinidadian fishermen Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo on October 14, 2025 – deaths now subject to Burnley v. United States in a Massachusetts federal court. The mass deportation order against Venezuelan migrants and the deadly-force standing order against unidentified vessels echo Amnesty International's serious concerns about non-refoulement violations.
The complete lack of campaign finance transparency leaves us all questioning who funded the foreign-consultant-driven political machinery that brought this government to power, and what favours are now owed. The PM's October 2025 attack on the PNM, her January 2026 description of Independent Senators as "boot lickers and brown nosers", and the related characterisation of the President of the Republic as a "low-level PNM functionary" set a tone that is incompatible with the dignity of high office.
The first year of this administration has been a dizzying combination of targeted economic relief, stringent but failing security measures, and deeply polarising geopolitical shifts. As the Prime Minister pleads with citizens to hold on and believe "brighter days are ahead", and as the natural succession question begins to surface – Deputy Political Leader Jearlean John has visibly stepped further into the spotlight – the real test of the remaining four years will be whether this government can settle its disputes with essential healthcare workers, enact transparent campaign finance laws, restrain its enthusiasm for emergency powers, and protect its citizens rather than sacrificing them on the altar of foreign appeasement.
The mandate was unequivocal. The next four years will determine whether the manifesto becomes a record or a regret.