Shiny Plaques and Empty Shacks: The Great PNM "Pappy-Show" of 2025
Look, if ribbon-cutting was an Olympic sport, Trinidad and Tobago would take gold every single time. Trini's like a fete too much in this country, but the PNM really took the cake before stepping out of office. They gave us wine, cheese, and red-carpet calypso to celebrate a new hospital and a shiny airport terminal, yet here we are in late 2026, and if you get sick or want to fly, you still out of luck.
Let's stop the mamaguy for a minute: you can’t heal sick people with a fancy speech, and you can’t fly an airplane through an empty concrete wall.
What the public actually witnessed back in March 2025 wasn’t the delivery of critical public goods. It was a massive, expensive victory lap for "practical completions" that left citizens holding the bag . Now that the tabanca has set in, the harsh reality is clear: neither facility is fully operational.
The PoSGH Central Block: Staged for the Cameras
The current administration has pulled back the curtain on the $1.3 billion Port of Spain General Hospital Central Block, and it has a real Rowley mamapoule look . Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar didn't hold back, calling the grand opening a straight-up charade and a "con job".
And she's not wrong. While the politicians were wining and dining, the building was still very much an active, dusty construction site . Worse yet, allegations have surfaced that medical equipment and furniture were literally shuffled between facilities and staged on a single floor just to look good for the cameras . It was all smoke and mirrors. Today, the Ministry of Health is still waiting on technical reports just to figure out when it will be safe to let a single real patient inside
ANR Robinson Airport: All Hype, No Flights
Over in Tobago, the state-of-the-art terminal was hyped as a massive "game-changer" for tourism . Yet, well over a year after its grand party, commercial passengers are still stuck using the cramped old setup.
The truth is, the terminal wasn’t even handed over to the Airport Authority until June 2026 . Now, millions more of tax dollars are being spent just to build basic arrival and departure lounges and fix customs and immigration bottlenecks . Chief Secretary Farley Augustine recently mentioned the space might finally open by October 2026 proving the PNM's lavish celebration was entirely premature.
The Financial Hangover: Wine and Cheese on Borrowed Time
But let’s look at the real kick in the teeth. It’s one thing to celebrate an empty shell; it’s another to use the last set of pennies in the national purse to fund the fete.
The PNM didn’t just open these incomplete sites, they threw lavish, red-carpet commissioning galas complete with top-tier catering, expensive sound systems, custom staging, and heavy security. While everyday citizens are fighting for basic medication at health centers and dealing with a brutal foreign exchange crisis, our leaders were popping corks and eating fine cheese.
And they did this while the country is technically bankrupt. T&T debt-to-GDP ratio has climbed into a dangerous zone , it's foreign exchange reserves are heavily propped up by borrowed money , and the government even had to roll out a desperate 0.25% Total Asset Tax just to squeeze extra revenue out of local financial institutions.
When a country is implementing emergency taxes to stay afloat, throwing a massive public fete for an airport that has zero commercial passengers is the definition of harden. They spent millions of taxpayers' dollars to buy themselves a pre-election PR campaign, leaving the state to scrape the bottom of the barrel just to pay the remaining contractor bills.
The Bottom Line: Propaganda Over People
There is a massive difference between finishing a concrete shell and actually running a public service. A hospital needs working doctors, sterile wards, and tested equipment. An airport needs customs officers, baggage scanners, and cleared flight paths.
The PNM didn't wait for functionality because functionality doesn't make for a good pre-election photo-op. By throwing massive celebrations for unfinished projects, the political directorate treats the tax-paying public like audience members in a theater of distraction.
Trinidad and Tobago needs fewer wine-and-cheese commissioning parties and more actual, functioning services. Until these buildings are treating patients and flying passengers, those shiny commemorative plaques are just expensive tombstones for public accountability.
Sarge