Persad unfazed by Cabinet changes

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son

@guardian.co.tt

Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter and Skills Train­ing Min­is­ter Pro­fes­sor Prakash Per­sad says he is un­both­ered by the re­align­ment of Cab­i­net re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, which took ef­fect on Sep­tem­ber 30.

Un­der the changes, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the On-the-Job Train­ing Pro­gramme was moved from the Min­istry of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, head­ed by Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day at the Na­tion­al Train­ing Agency TVET ini­tia­tive at Rio Claro West Sec­ondary, Per­sad said, “We work as a team. So what­ev­er we’re work­ing on, we pass on to the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties. He will con­tin­ue.”

He said he would leave it to the min­is­ter now re­spon­si­ble for the role to re­view the work al­ready done and de­ter­mine how he wants to pro­ceed.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Nicholas Mor­ris de­scribed the col­lapse of the Op­po­si­tion’s wa­ter-sup­ply mo­tion as em­bar­rass­ing, while deny­ing claims of bias.

House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh ruled that Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les had com­mit­ted a pro­ce­dur­al er­ror by not ut­ter­ing the phrase, “I beg to move,” at the end of his pre­sen­ta­tion, re­sult­ing in the col­lapse of the mo­tion.

Mor­ris said, “I think yes­ter­day (Fri­day) was an em­bar­rass­ing sit­u­a­tion for the Op­po­si­tion, be­cause what has hap­pened yes­ter­day, we saw for the sec­ond time, the Op­po­si­tion has de­railed its own pri­vate mo­tion.”

Not­ing that Gon­za­les is an ex­pe­ri­enced mem­ber of par­lia­ment, he said the Gov­ern­ment was pre­pared to an­swer the wa­ter-sup­ply mo­tion, but par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure must be fol­lowed.

“So it’s re­al­ly em­bar­rass­ing that the Op­po­si­tion con­tin­ues to be in­com­pe­tent in their par­lia­men­tary du­ties. You know, and what is weird enough, you look at right be­fore the Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip stood to give his mo­tion to speak, he was ac­tu­al­ly bawl­ing across Sean Sobers, say­ing your time has ex­pired be­cause Sean Sober, as Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, was giv­ing a state­ment. And he was bawl­ing across, ‘Your time is up.’ And then he makes this great blun­der. I think it re­flects the Op­po­si­tion’s lack of com­mit­ment to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Com­ment­ing on claims of bias made by Gon­za­les, Mor­ris said there was none. “ There’s no bias be­cause if you look at the pro­ce­dure, Mr Gon­za­les got up, read his speech, then sat down. And right af­ter, Mr Im­bert stood up to sec­ond the mo­tion. But how could you sec­ond a mo­tion that has not been moved? So, there’s no bias.”

Mor­ris said he spent ten years as a par­lia­men­tary re­searcher be­fore be­com­ing a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. He said once the MP for Na­pari­ma made a sim­i­lar mis­take, and the then Speak­er did not al­low him to con­tin­ue.

“The Par­lia­ment as a whole has al­ways fol­lowed the stand­ing or­ders. And this wasn’t a rul­ing by the gov­ern­ment. I saw Mr Gon­za­les say­ing the Gov­ern­ment is try­ing to si­lence the Op­po­si­tion. The gov­ern­ment didn’t do that. If we can­not fol­low the pro­ce­dures of Par­lia­ment, then we can­not up­hold democ­ra­cy.”