Gail Alexan­der

A re­con­sti­tut­ed Gov­ern­ment team en­ters the Sec­ond Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment to­day with changes to al­most half of its ar­eas in­clud­ing a new­ly-cre­at­ed Min­istry of Gen­der, Chil­dren and Youth Af­fairs, an In­for­ma­tion Min­istry and a dras­ti­cal­ly slashed port­fo­lio for Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er. Gov­ern­ment al­so moves on in its sec­ond year re­plac­ing four sen­a­tors-Sub­has Pan­day, broth­er of for­mer UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day, COP's Patrick Wat­son, Rudrawa­tee Nan Ram­goolam and Therese Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar an­nounced 16 changes with­in her team in an ad­dress to the na­tion last night, cli­max­ing a week­end of meet­ings on her Cab­i­net re­align­ment. "These changes, in which some min­is­ters will be re­as­signed to new re­spon­si­bil­ties, are by no means a re­flec­tion on their com­pe­tence, rather a more ef­fec­tive align­ment of com­pe­ten­cies to posts where they will be more ef­fec­tive," Per­sad- Bisses­sar said, speak­ing as the "CEO of the Cab­i­net." Changes in Gov­ern­ment now in­clude a hus­band-and-wife team. The new Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions is Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith, whose hus­band is Gary Grif­fith, the PM's Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ad­vis­er.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar's an­nounce­ment came de­spite an 11th hour bid by Part­ner­ship mem­ber, Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) yes­ter­day to halt port­fo­lio changes con­cern­ing sev­er­al of its mem­bers in Gov­ern­ment. COP's ex­ec­u­tive sum­moned a noon emer­gency meet­ing at COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an's El Do­ra­do of­fice yes­ter­day fol­low­ing re­ports that COP's Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan was be­ing shift­ed from En­er­gy Min­is­ter to Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and con­fir­ma­tion that COP Sen­a­tor Wat­son's ap­point­ment was be­ing re­voked.

By 3 pm, COP wrote Per­sad- Bisses­sar seek­ing "con­sul­ta­tion in the spir­it of of the Fyz­abad Uni­ty De­c­la­ra­tion" ahead of any pub­lic an­nounce­ment. COP's let­ter from par­ty chair­man Joseph Toney was de­liv­ered to the Diplo­mat­ic Res­i­dence at 5 pm by COP deputy leader Robert May­ers. How­ev­er, Per­sad- Bisses­sar sub­se­quent­ly an­nounced her Cab­i­net changes in an 8.30 pm ad­dress. Last Sat­ur­day, Per­sad- Bisses­sar held an nine-hour con­fer­ence on her reshuf­fle plans with Min­is­ters and Sen­a­tors at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's.

Per­sad- Bisses­sar met pri­vate­ly with cer­tain mem­bers, then met oth­ers in groups. She fi­nalised plans yes­ter­day ahead of to­day's cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the Sec­ond Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment. Last night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­knowl­edged Gov­ern­ment en­tered of­fice amid high ex­pec­ta­tions: "At the time of the for­ma­tion of my Cab­i­net, very few of my Min­is­ters had the ben­e­fit of serv­ing in Gov­ern­ment and in Cab­i­net or had done so a long time ago." Say­ing Gov­ern­ment is aware of the need to do bet­ter, Per­sad- Bisses­sar said: "We know our cit­i­zens ex­pect more ...It is in re­sponse to ful­fill­ing these ex­pec­ta­tions, that I have un­der­tak­en a re­view of port­fo­lios and have made cer­tain changes."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was al­so ob­vi­ous cer­tain Min­istries had re­spon­si­bil­i­ties which were not in keep­ing with their core busi­ness. This cre­at­ed du­pli­ca­tion and an in­ef­fi­cient use of both hu­man and ma­te­r­i­al re­sources. Re­plac­ing out­go­ing Sen­a­tors Pan­day, Wat­son, Ram­goolam and Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis in the Sen­ate are Ter­rence Baynes of To­ba­go, De­vant Ma­haraj, Nicole Dy­er- Grif­fith and Ver­na St Rose-Greaves.

The changes in­clude:

• St Rose-Greaves heads the new Gen­der, Chil­dren and Youth AF­fairs Min­istry formed from Plan­ning Min­istry's Gen­der as­pect and the Sport Min­istry's Youth seg­ment. Ra­mona Ram­di­al is Min­is­ter in the new min­istry

• Su­ruj Ram­bachan 's For­eign Af­fairs port­fo­lio ex­pand­ed by In­for­ma­tion, with Dy­er- Grif­fith as a Sen­a­tor/Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary.

• To­ba­go MP Del­mon Bak­er post­ed to Fi­nance to as­sist Win­ston Dook­er­an.

• En­er­gy Min­is­ter Seep­er­sad- Bachan shift­ed to Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and re­placed by ju­nior En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine.

• Health Min­is­ter Bap­tiste - Cor­nelis re­placed by San Juan MP/deputy House Speak­er, Dr Fuad Khan.

• Khan re­placed as deputy Speak­er by PP back­bencher, Jairam Seemu­n­gal.

• PP Sen­ate Leader Pan­day re­placed by Sen­a­tor (Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter) Em­manuel George.

• Min­is­ter in the OPM, Col­in Par­tap re­places Pan­day as Min­is­ter in Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

n Works Jack Warn­er re­tains re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for roads, bridges, drains, high­ways.

• New Sen­a­tor De­vant Ma­haraj han­dling Trans­port in­clud­ing CAL, the Port Au­thor­i­ty, Air­port Au­thor­i­ty, Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty, Air Trans­port Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty, the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, and Civ­il Avi­a­tion. To­ba­go air and sea bridges, wa­ter taxis, traf­fic man­age­ment and PH dri­vers is­sues.

• Ju­nior Labour Min­is­ter Rudy In­dars­ingh and Arts ju­nior Min­is­ter Nela Khan both shift­ed to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment as Min­is­ter and Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary re­spec­tive­ly, as­sist­ing Chan­dresh Shar­ma.

• NJAC Sen­a­tor Em­bau Mo­heni placed in Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism as­sist­ing Min­is­ter Win­ston Pe­ters.

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath who re­tains the port­fo­lio has re­ceived Forestry from Roodal Mooni­lal's Hous­ing Min­istry, and Ma­rine Af­fairs from Works.

Per­sad- Bisses­sar ac­knowl­edged fi­nal de­ci­sions as her re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. She said: "It is for this rea­son I try to be very care­ful in the de­ci­sions I make, some­times tak­ing a bit more time so to do. ...It is dif­fi­cult in gov­ern­ment to re­verse a de­ci­sion and as such one has to be ex­treme­ly cau­tious. "I have to the best of my abil­i­ty tried to achieve this in my de­ci­sions in­clud­ing the changes an­nounced. As Prime Min­is­ter, I have nev­er feared ad­mit­ting where I have erred. It is part of my de­sire to rec­og­nize the need for trans­paren­cy in gov­ern­ment and of be­ing hu­man...On­ly God doesn't make mis­takes." Per­sad- Bisses­sar thanked fel­low lead­ers for "the high lev­el of co­op­er­a­tion and un­der­stand­ing." Ap­point­ments of out­go­ing mem­bers will be re­voked to­day.

New Gov­ern­ment mem­bers will be sworn in at 10.30 am to­day by Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards at Knowsley, Queen's Park-three hours ahead of Par­lia­ment's cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing at the Red House.

PP of­fi­cials said Ram­goolam was of­fered a post­ing to New York as T&T's Con­sul Gen­er­al and Bap­tiste- Cor­nelis, a post­ing to Eu­rope. Sources said this "should be agree­able for both since Ram­goolam has rel­a­tives in NY and Cor­nelis' hus­band is from Bel­gium. They said Pan­day was of­fered a diplo­mat­ic post­ing when he met with the PM last Sat­ur­day. Pan­day re­port­ed­ly in­di­cat­ed he would re­turn to pri­vate prac­tice if he did not take the post­ing. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said prepa­ra­tions are un­der­way for the 2012 Bud­get.