En­er­gy Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan says vet­er­an jour­nal­ist Kei­th Smith's "unique" style will be missed. The min­is­ter made the com­ment yes­ter­day as she ex­pressed con­do­lences to Smith's fam­i­ly. He died on Tues­day af­ter a bat­tle with prostate can­cer. The for­mer Ex­press ed­i­tor-at-large died at the age of 65 af­ter cel­e­brat­ing some 45 years in jour­nal­ism. Seep­er­sad-Bachan. who paid trib­ute to him while ad­dress­ing the in­au­gu­ra­tion of the Air Liq­uide air sep­a­ra­tion plant, Caribbean Dri­ve, Point Lisas, said:

"I will cer­tain­ly miss his en­ter­tain­ing and pen­e­trat­ing com­men­taries on na­tion­al is­sues.

MATT: He was an in­sti­tu­tion

The Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MATT), in a news re­lease, said it joined the rest of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in cel­e­brat­ing the life and mourn­ing the death of Kei­th Smith, who has left an in­deli­ble mark on lo­cal jour­nal­ism. The state­ment said: "Kei­th be­came a na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion who was trea­sured for his wit and his down-to-earth wis­dom.

"Over the years, he con­duct­ed in his col­umn a seem­ing­ly off­hand but shrewd and search­ing ex­am­i­na­tion of the threads that make up the fab­ric of every­day life in Trinidad and To­ba­go." It said Kei­th's col­umn was his most pop­u­lar work and his great­est achieve­ment but as an ed­i­tor he shared the mas­tery of his craft he had gained over four decades of ex­pe­ri­ence.