Opposition questions and condemns old Coat of Arms extension

Op­po­si­tion fig­ures Ran­dall Mitchell and Stu­art Young are ques­tion­ing the gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to al­low the for­mer Coat of Arms of Trinidad and To­ba­go to re­main in use un­til 2031, rais­ing con­cerns about trans­paren­cy and the treat­ment of the steel­pan.

For­mer cul­ture min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell, in a Face­book post, asked what jus­ti­fi­ca­tion ex­ists for ex­tend­ing the use of the old em­blem and whether the de­ci­sion car­ries any fi­nan­cial cost.

He al­so ques­tioned why the gov­ern­ment would sup­port the in­clu­sion of the steel­pan on the Coat of Arms in Par­lia­ment but now al­low the for­mer ver­sion to con­tin­ue.

Mitchell said the de­ci­sion was made with­out pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion or ex­pla­na­tion, adding that the pub­lic de­serves an­swers.

In a sep­a­rate Face­book post, Stu­art Young al­so crit­i­cised the de­ci­sion.

"In yet an­oth­er strike on our Na­tion­al in­stru­ment, the Steel­pan, this UNC gov­ern­ment has in the dark and with­out any trans­paren­cy is­sued an Or­der de­lay­ing the adop­tion of the Steel­pan on­to our Coat of Arms," Young wrote.

He said that since May 2025, the UNC has in­struct­ed the can­cel­la­tion of spon­sor­ship for many steel­pan bands through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go, de­scrib­ing it as "a cal­cu­lat­ed pol­i­cy be­ing ex­e­cut­ed against pan and all of its pos­i­tives".

Young said the de­ci­sion should be viewed along­side what he de­scribed as re­cent pol­i­cy ac­tions af­fect­ing Car­ni­val, in­clud­ing the can­cel­la­tion of venues with­out con­sul­ta­tion, the de­nial of spon­sor­ship, and in­creased al­co­hol prices.

"I con­demn these de­ci­sions and ac­tions of the UNC and say with­out fear of con­tra­dic­tion that our sweet pan and our car­ni­val cul­ture will sur­vive as it is a move­ment of the peo­ple for the peo­ple," he wrote.

The gov­ern­ment has ex­tend­ed the pe­ri­od dur­ing which the for­mer Coat of Arms of Trinidad and To­ba­go may be used, push­ing the dead­line to Jan­u­ary 2, 2031.

The or­der ex­tend­ing the use of the for­mer em­blem was dat­ed De­cem­ber 18, 2025, and signed by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der.

When the amend­ment was pro­claimed in Jan­u­ary 2025, it pro­vid­ed that the for­mer Coat of Arms could on­ly be used un­til Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, af­ter which the new de­sign was to take full ef­fect.

The de­ci­sion to change the na­tion­al sym­bol was first an­nounced by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Au­gust 18, 2024, dur­ing a spe­cial PNM con­ven­tion at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my of the Per­form­ing Arts. The re­design re­placed the three ships as­so­ci­at­ed with Christo­pher Colum­bus with a gold steel­pan and pan sticks, re­flect­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go's na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

The Na­tion­al Em­blems of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Reg­u­la­tion) (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025 was unan­i­mous­ly passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Jan­u­ary 13, 2025.

In June this year, the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go sus­pend­ed the roll­out of its 2025 se­ries $100 poly­mer ban­knote af­ter the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance di­rect­ed that pro­duc­tion of notes bear­ing the re­vised Coat of Arms be halt­ed.