‘Too much burden on Kamla’

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed has giv­en Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an 80 per cent rat­ing for her first year in of­fice, de­scrib­ing her lead­er­ship of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) as “out­stand­ing” and re­silient.

How­ev­er, he has warned that the rest of her Cab­i­net must tran­si­tion from “ac­tors” to “ac­tion­ers” to meet the Gov­ern­ment’s man­date, say­ing they are ul­ti­mate­ly putting too much of the bur­den on her. He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar and just eight Cab­i­net mem­bers are cur­rent­ly “car­ry­ing” the Gov­ern­ment, ar­gu­ing that the per­for­mance of the re­main­ing “non-per­form­ers” has dragged the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s over­all rat­ing down to 66.25 per cent.

In a de­tailed as­sess­ment of the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion’s per­for­mance on the an­niver­sary of the par­ty’s first year in of­fice fol­low­ing vic­to­ry at the polls on April 28 last year, Mo­hammed said the Prime Min­is­ter has dis­tin­guished her­self through what he called a more ma­ture and adap­tive lead­er­ship style com­pared to her pre­vi­ous tenure. (See page 19)

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was as­sessed across sev­en cri­te­ria: ad­just­ment to of­fice; un­der­stand­ing of ex­ist­ing do­mes­tic and for­eign con­di­tions; lead­er­ship ap­proach, style and tech­niques; ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to cit­i­zens and the me­dia; man­age­ment of the Cab­i­net; rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go; and ful­fil­ment of her man­date.

He not­ed that she has shift­ed “more to­wards macro man­ag­ing than mi­cro man­ag­ing,” while still main­tain­ing a firm grip on key lega­cy projects in ar­eas such as en­er­gy, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment and for­eign pol­i­cy.

“She is out­stand­ing in her re­solve and re­silience,” Mo­hammed told Guardian Me­dia, adding that the Prime Min­is­ter “re­mains true to her­self, con­sis­tent in her in­ten­tions,” while recog­nis­ing that gov­er­nance “is not lin­ear.”

He fur­ther cred­it­ed her with demon­strat­ing “strong adap­tive lead­er­ship qual­i­ties, which are re­quired in cur­rent do­mes­tic, re­gion­al and glob­al cir­cum­stances,” not­ing that her po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence and un­der­stand­ing of glob­al volatil­i­ty have shaped her ap­proach to gov­er­nance.

Ac­cord­ing to the an­a­lyst, one of the Prime Min­is­ter’s strengths has been her ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and re­la­tion­ship with both the pub­lic and the me­dia.

“She is re­spon­sive to me­dia, whether via tele­phone or in per­son, and has not dis­missed the me­dia in a dis­parag­ing man­ner,” Mo­hammed said, adding that she has built a con­nec­tion with cit­i­zens where “peo­ple be­lieve that she can solve prob­lems, re­new hope and ex­pec­ta­tions across the so­ci­ety.”

He al­so high­light­ed her con­sis­tent mes­sag­ing, point­ing to her re­peat­ed com­mit­ment to “peace, se­cu­ri­ty and pros­per­i­ty,” while ac­knowl­edg­ing that achiev­ing those goals will take time.

“Bet­ter days are com­ing, no doubt,” Mo­hammed said, echo­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s cen­tral mes­sage at its Re­port to the Na­tion on Sat­ur­day in Cou­va, but cau­tion­ing that “the bridge to those bet­ter days must be up­held by col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

De­spite the strong rat­ing for the Prime Min­is­ter, Mo­hammed made it clear that her per­for­mance stands in con­trast to that of sev­er­al mem­bers of her Cab­i­net.

“I still see a Prime Min­is­ter, sup­port­ed by a few, car­ry­ing the weight and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the whole Gov­ern­ment,” he said, warn­ing that she con­tin­ues to shoul­der “the bur­den of weak and un­der­per­form­ing min­is­ters.”

He ar­gued that while Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pro­vid­ed the vi­sion and lead­er­ship, min­is­ters have not uni­form­ly risen to the lev­el re­quired to de­liv­er on that agen­da.

“At this stage, if min­is­ters don’t un­der­stand that they must de­liv­er, she has a coun­try to run, re­align, redi­rect, re-en­er­gise and re­turn to prof­itabil­i­ty,” he stat­ed.

Mo­hammed point­ed to what he de­scribed as a dis­con­nect be­tween min­is­ters and the pub­lic, sug­gest­ing that some have failed to ap­pre­ci­ate the re­la­tion­ship the Prime Min­is­ter has cul­ti­vat­ed with cit­i­zens over the years.

“Min­is­ters seem to not ful­ly un­der­stand this; this is a prob­lem,” he said, adding that some sup­port­ers have be­come “alien­at­ed by min­is­te­r­i­al be­hav­iours.”

He al­so raised con­cerns about what he char­ac­terised as a sense of en­ti­tle­ment among some of­fice­hold­ers, warn­ing against any per­cep­tion that loy­al­ty to the Prime Min­is­ter equates to “own­er­ship” of her po­lit­i­cal cap­i­tal.

“That is not a flaw of the Prime Min­is­ter. This is an aris­ing is­sue,” he not­ed.

His most point­ed crit­i­cism came in a call for a fun­da­men­tal shift in how the Gov­ern­ment op­er­ates.

“The Prime Min­is­ter and Gov­ern­ment re­quire more ac­tion­ers than ac­tors in or­der to achieve the full man­date,” Mo­hammed said, ar­gu­ing that tan­gi­ble de­liv­ery, not rhetoric, will de­ter­mine whether the ad­min­is­tra­tion suc­ceeds with­in its five-year tenure. He added that such a shift is crit­i­cal not just for achiev­ing pol­i­cy goals, but for main­tain­ing po­lit­i­cal sup­port over the full term.

“This will re­sult in not on­ly at­tain­ing pow­er but sus­tain­ing pow­er,” he stat­ed.

Mo­hammed’s broad­er eval­u­a­tion of the Cab­i­net found sig­nif­i­cant in­con­sis­ten­cies in per­for­mance. While he ac­knowl­edged that “sev­er­al min­is­ters have set­tled in­to of­fice and hit the ground run­ning,” he said oth­ers re­main in­ef­fec­tive or dis­en­gaged.

The po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst said on­ly eight out of the 26 Cab­i­net mem­bers are per­form­ing.

Guardian Me­dia asked Mo­hammed to name the eight but he on­ly re­vealed his “top three” min­is­ters: Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John, Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie.

“Jear­lean has hit the ground run­ning. She has adapt­ed more than just as a min­is­ter. She has im­ple­ment­ed her project man­age­ment skill set, and she has brought in­to this gov­ern­ment the years of pub­lic ser­vice that she would have had,” he said.

“She has re­mained ground­ed with her con­stituents, but not on­ly con­stituents, al­so the peo­ple out­side of con­stituents, across the coun­try. And she’s done some­thing that is al­so very ev­i­dent. It shows she’s not on­ly stuck to just UNC, she’s gone na­tion­al.”

On Min­is­ter Ameen, Mo­hammed said, “Khadi­jah Ameen was al­ways an ac­tivist. She tran­si­tioned from ac­tivism in­to na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive, in­to lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tion, for­mer chair­man of the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion in Tu­na­puna, went on to be an ad­vi­sor to a min­is­ter, went on as MP. One of the things about Khadi­jah Ameen that has re­mained true to her, which is very au­then­tic, is that she’s re­lat­able.”

As it per­tains to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Mo­hammed said, “I think he’s a very im­por­tant as­set to the Gov­ern­ment. You need a se­nior coun­sel that has the ex­pe­ri­ence in the law. His aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions, his ex­pe­ri­ence, it is wide-rang­ing. Be­cause he served be­fore in an­oth­er ad­min­is­tra­tion, he un­der­stands what is re­quired in this re­gard.

“He comes across as a bad cop. He comes across as know­ing how to han­dle that bad cop role. He un­der­stands the law, and he al­so un­der­stands the ills of gov­er­nance, the flaws in gov­er­nance, the eth­i­cal process­es of gov­er­nance. And you can see he’s a no-non­sense man.”

How­ev­er, Mo­hammed is of the firm view that “oth­ers are strug­gling to find their foot­ing in their roles and have be­come for­get­table.”

He al­so iden­ti­fied gaps in com­mu­ni­ca­tion and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, not­ing that some min­is­ters are re­spon­sive and en­gaged, while oth­ers “just don’t an­swer, re­spond, as­sist or prac­tice any sense of em­pa­thy to the pop­u­la­tion.”

These dis­par­i­ties, he said, are al­so con­tribut­ing to frus­tra­tion among sup­port­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly ac­tivists who feel side­lined.

He stressed that gov­er­nance must be in­clu­sive and ground­ed in ser­vice.

“Gov­er­nance can­not be by mal­ice or bad mind, nor can it be by on­ly friend and fa­mil­ial ties,” he said.

Min­is­ters were eval­u­at­ed us­ing five cri­te­ria: ad­just­ment to of­fice (be­hav­iour­al); un­der­stand­ing of their port­fo­lio (op­er­a­tional); ac­cess to cit­i­zens; de­liv­ery of promis­es, in­clud­ing as­sis­tance pro­vid­ed; and de­liv­ery of ser­vices, in­clud­ing projects and oth­er tan­gi­ble out­puts.

Based on those five per­for­mance cri­te­ria, Mo­hammed con­clud­ed that their over­all per­for­mance amounts to 30.7 per cent.

De­spite these con­cerns, the re­port cred­its the ad­min­is­tra­tion with a num­ber of achieve­ments, in­clud­ing an “ex­cep­tion­al leg­isla­tive agen­da,” im­prove­ments in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty strate­gies, and “out­stand­ing strides” in the en­er­gy sec­tor and in­ter­na­tion­al po­si­tion­ing of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Mo­hammed al­so point­ed to progress in in­fra­struc­ture, wage ne­go­ti­a­tions and re­la­tions be­tween Gov­ern­ment and To­ba­go, while high­light­ing Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to ad­dress­ing na­tion­al chal­lenges.

How­ev­er, he said key ar­eas still re­quire ur­gent at­ten­tion, in­clud­ing eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, price reg­u­la­tion, de­lays in re­plac­ing ma­jor em­ploy­ment pro­grammes, in­clud­ing CEPEP and URP, and on­go­ing Cab­i­net leaks.

Over­all, the Gov­ern­ment re­ceived a score of 66.25 per cent af­ter its first year in of­fice.

For Mo­hammed, the suc­cess of the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion will de­pend on whether that gap can be closed, be­fore pub­lic pa­tience runs out.

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal An­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James is giv­ing the Gov­ern­ment a 6 out of 10 for its first year in of­fice.

He told Guardian Me­dia that while the Gov­ern­ment has ac­com­plished quite a few things in 12 months, he is dis­ap­point­ed with the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion on for­eign af­fairs mat­ters and the com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween min­is­ters and the pub­lic.

Un­like Mo­hammed, James said he can­not sep­a­rate the Prime Min­is­ter and her Cab­i­net as he be­lieves it is one en­ti­ty.

James said the Prime Min­is­ter stayed true to her word with the labour move­ment and has done a lot for work­ers in her first year, par­tic­u­lar­ly the grant­i­ng of 10 per cent pay ris­es to most pub­lic ser­vants.

“She won the elec­tion by treat­ing labour in the way that labour want­ed to be treat­ed. She gave them seats. She gave them 10%,” James said.

How­ev­er, James said he could on­ly give a 6 out of 10 due to her for­eign pol­i­cy and the con­duct of her min­is­ters.

“The Prime Min­is­ter shouldn’t have been align­ing her­self at every op­por­tu­ni­ty with the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion. She should not have dis­re­spect­ed Cari­com in the way that she has and con­tin­ues to do. She didn’t have to mud­dy the wa­ters where Venezuela is con­cerned. I think Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar has failed bad­ly on Cari­com. She has failed bad­ly on the align­ment with Trump.”

Asked how her min­is­ters per­formed in the last 12 months, James said, “I don’t know what they’re do­ing. I’m hear­ing a set of noise.”

He used the Hous­ing Min­istry as an ex­am­ple.

“Philip Ed­ward Alexan­der. He has ac­tu­al­ly tak­en over the min­istry from David Lee. And he’s the one ap­par­ent­ly, they have cho­sen to talk to the pub­lic. But gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, I can­not tell you what the min­is­ters of this Gov­ern­ment are do­ing. It’s al­most as if they’re still try­ing to find their feet,” he said.

“There’s no dis­cus­sion with the peo­ple. That’s one of the prob­lems. There’s no dis­cus­sion with the peo­ple about what they’re do­ing. When they have prob­lems, it’s al­most as if they alone have the an­swers to those prob­lems.”