Three get ORTT:

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Less than a year af­ter ad­min­is­ter­ing the oath of of­fice to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s top ju­di­cial of­fi­cer, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark will to­day stand along­side Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh and for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan as re­cip­i­ents of the na­tion’s high­est award, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT).

The trio were among 32 in­di­vid­u­als named yes­ter­day as re­cip­i­ents of na­tion­al awards ahead of to­day’s 50th Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions. Three or­gan­i­sa­tions were al­so recog­nised.

The ORTT is con­ferred on cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens who have ren­dered dis­tin­guished and out­stand­ing ser­vice to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Speak­ing briefly with Guardian Me­dia af­ter the an­nounce­ment, Mark said par­lia­men­tary du­ties were keep­ing him oc­cu­pied.

“I’m still in Par­lia­ment and will be on du­ty un­til 3 am,” he said, ex­press­ing grat­i­tude for the recog­ni­tion but de­clin­ing fur­ther com­ment be­cause of work com­mit­ments.

Mark, who was elect­ed Sen­ate Pres­i­dent un­der the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ad­min­is­tra­tion on May 23, 2025, has en­joyed a lengthy ca­reer in pol­i­tics and trade union­ism. He first en­tered Par­lia­ment as an Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor in 1990 and has since served in sev­er­al min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios, as well as Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Guardian Me­dia al­so sought com­ment from Boodoos­ingh through the Ju­di­cia­ry, but no re­sponse was re­ceived up to press time.

Boodoos­ingh was ad­mit­ted to the Bar on Oc­to­ber 30, 1992, and ap­point­ed a Supreme Court judge in 2007. Dur­ing his ju­di­cial ca­reer, he served in both the High Court and Court of Ap­peal and lec­tured at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School.

Ram­bachan, who re­cent­ly dis­closed he is bat­tling stage four can­cer, said he was sur­prised by the ho­n­our.

“I get an award? Wow! I have to pre­pare a state­ment,” he told Guardian Me­dia by tele­phone.

A long­stand­ing UNC mem­ber, Ram­bachan has served for decades in lo­cal gov­ern­ment and as a Cab­i­net min­is­ter.
He said he had been in­formed of the nom­i­na­tion and was “ex­pect­ing some­thing” but was un­sure whether it had been ap­proved. He opt­ed to re­serve fur­ther com­ment un­til to­day.

At the time of the in­ter­view, Ram­bachan was lead­ing pu­ja prayers on a Face­book livestream.

Six peo­ple re­ceived the Cha­co­nia Gold Medal, the na­tion’s sec­ond-high­est award.

They are epi­demi­ol­o­gist Dr Paul Elias Alexan­der, re­tired politi­cian Joseph Toney, Kesh­mani Dhani­ram-Go­sine, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist and ed­u­ca­tor Dr Maukesh Bas­deo, re­tired Jus­tice Al­lan Men­donça and en­tre­pre­neur-phil­an­thropist Ha­ji Churchill Azad Akaloo, who was ho­n­oured posthu­mous­ly.

Akaloo was recog­nised for trans­form­ing Sheik Lisha Ltd from a fam­i­ly busi­ness in­to a ma­jor Caribbean man­u­fac­tur­ing en­ter­prise.

For­mer broad­cast­er, mu­si­cian and pro­duc­er Sadhrud­din “Sadro” Mo­hammed and Emamool “Mamoo” Deen, cred­it­ed with help­ing to cre­ate dou­bles along­side his wife in Princes Town in the 1930s, al­so re­ceived posthu­mous Hum­ming­bird Gold Medals.

Two or­gan­i­sa­tions in­volved in search­ing for and re­cov­er­ing miss­ing per­sons were al­so recog­nised with Hum­ming­bird Gold Medals. Sham­sudeen Ayube and Val­lence Ramb­harat, lead­ers of sep­a­rate Hunters’ Search and Res­cue teams, were among the ten re­cip­i­ents in the cat­e­go­ry.

Ramb­harat de­scribed the award as a trib­ute to the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s vol­un­teers.

“I’m ho­n­oured to ac­cept the award on be­half of 42 mem­bers of the Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team,” he said.

“To me, it’s un­be­liev­able that an or­gan­i­sa­tion that start­ed six years ago could as­sem­ble 42 vol­un­teers who con­tin­ue to ded­i­cate their time to as­sist­ing fam­i­lies with miss­ing loved ones. The vol­ume of work we’ve done over the past six years is im­mense.”

Ramb­harat said the group has helped re­unite ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,000 peo­ple with their fam­i­lies and has ex­pand­ed its ac­tiv­i­ties to in­clude wildlife res­cue and com­mu­ni­ty out­reach pro­grammes.

“It has been a tremen­dous amount of ef­fec­tive work and I think the or­gan­i­sa­tion is now a house­hold name. Whether it’s a big prob­lem or a small prob­lem, peo­ple con­tact us, and it has been a great ex­pe­ri­ence to serve the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he added.

For­mer Trinidad Ex­press ed­i­tor-in-chief Omatie Ly­der was among four me­dia prac­ti­tion­ers award­ed the Cha­co­nia Medal Sil­ver. Al­so ho­n­oured were re­tired po­lit­i­cal ed­i­tor Ria Taitt, pho­tog­ra­ph­er An­drea De Sil­va and vet­er­an jour­nal­ist Jai Paras­ram.

In a What­sApp mes­sage, Ly­der said she was “tru­ly ho­n­oured” to ac­cept the award.

“While I ac­cept this award gra­cious­ly, serv­ing the pub­lic in­ter­est has al­ways been re­ward enough for me,” she said.

“Jour­nal­ism, at its best, is a pub­lic ser­vice, and for 43 years it has been my priv­i­lege to serve.”

She al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed Taitt, prais­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to po­lit­i­cal and par­lia­men­tary re­port­ing.

“Ria has brought a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence and knowl­edge to po­lit­i­cal and par­lia­men­tary re­port­ing, and her work has made an im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion to our un­der­stand­ing of pub­lic af­fairs,” Ly­der said.

Of­fer­ing words of en­cour­age­ment to jour­nal­ists, Ly­der added: “Con­tin­ue to serve the pub­lic in­ter­est fear­less­ly. Con­tin­ue to ask the dif­fi­cult ques­tions. Con­tin­ue to hold pow­er to ac­count. Above all, main­tain the high­est stan­dards of jour­nal­ism: ac­cu­ra­cy, fair­ness, in­de­pen­dence, in­tegri­ty and courage.

“The plat­forms may change. The busi­ness mod­els may change. The chal­lenges may change. But the pub­lic’s need for cred­i­ble, re­spon­si­ble jour­nal­ism does not.”

So­ca artiste De­stra Gar­cia was among three re­cip­i­ents of the Medal for the De­vel­op­ment of Women (Gold), recog­nised for her con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment and rep­re­sen­ta­tion of women through more than two decades in the mu­sic in­dus­try.