Gail Alexan­der

Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) MP Anil Roberts has crit­i­cised fel­low MP Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan's con­cerns on her new ap­point­ment and has dis­agreed with his par­ty's con­cerns on the Cab­i­net reshuf­fle.How­ev­er, COP MP Prakash Ra­mad­har, who's con­test­ing COP's lead­er­ship against Roberts, and COP's Rodger Samuel have sup­port­ed the par­ty line on the is­sue.COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an says he is dis­ap­point­ed Seep­er­sad-Bachan was shift­ed.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan, who was shift­ed from En­er­gy to Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion, said Sun­day if she could have turned down the post, she would have. She said she had to be guid­ed by her par­ty and the coali­tion's in­ter­est.Dur­ing yes­ter­day's launch of the sec­ond ses­sion of the tenth Par­lia­ment, Seep­er­sad-Bachan was sub­dued in the Par­lia­ment cham­ber and did not speak to MPs on ei­ther side of her seat, or oth­ers.COP which met on Sun­day on the is­sue, in­clud­ing the re­moval of for­mer COP Sen­a­tor Patrick Wat­son from Gov­ern­ment, wrote the Prime Min­is­ter that day about its con­cerns, call­ing for a meet­ing in the spir­it of uni­ty.

Yes­ter­day COP chair­man Joseph Toney said COP was still await­ing a re­sponse.Dur­ing yes­ter­day's Red House re­cep­tion fol­low­ing the launch of the par­lia­men­tary term, COP leader Dook­er­an ad­mit­ted to dis­ap­point­ment on the Seep­er­sad-Bachan is­sue.But he re­peat­ed­ly de­clined to dis­cuss the par­ty's moves, say­ing: "What­ev­er was re­port­ed, I have noth­ing to say. Let me don't get in­to that."Speak­ing dur­ing the re­cep­tion, Seep­er­sad-Bachan said she was not giv­en a rea­son for the shift from En­er­gy.She added: "All I know is that Sat­ur­day night when I met with the PM she said they need­ed some­one bright and strong in Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and she felt I fit that role.

"If it was my per­son­al pref­er­ence alone I would not have ac­cept­ed but I have to take the coali­tion in­to con­sid­er­a­tion and this is why I had to be guid­ed by the par­ty and the coali­tion's in­ter­est."But my per­son­al pref­er­ence is not im­por­tant. We took an oath to serve T&T and I have to be so guid­ed."Seep­er­sad-Bachan said she looked for­ward to her new port­fo­lio. She said she in­tend­ed to talk to her pre­de­ces­sor, Nan Ram­goolam, to­day.She al­so said she wished new En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine the best. She said she had laid the foun­da­tion and T&T now had to look to the fruits of that labour.How­ev­er, her fel­low MP, Roberts, said his par­ty's con­cerns about the reshuf­fle were to­tal­ly un­found­ed.

He said: "Cer­tain mem­bers of my par­ty al­ways try to find some com­plaint. If my own port­fo­lio had to go for T&T's bet­ter­ment, so be it. "When you are called to serve, your de­sires are ir­rel­e­vant. I'm hap­py with the reshuf­fle."Be­fore we had a (COP) sen­a­tor with­out port­fo­lio, now we have one with port­fo­lio (NIcole Dy­er Grif­fith), so we have be­come stronger."Ra­mad­har, say­ing he was at one with the COP par­ty state­ment, com­mend­ed Seep­er­sad-Bachan for act­ing in the Part­ner­ship's in­ter­est. He added: "It was a very self­less thing and we recog­nise her sac­ri­fice. The Prime Min­is­ter has a de­ci­sion-mak­ing du­ty and we al­so re­spect that.

"Car­olyn has been put in­to a very im­por­tant min­istry. I think the Prime Min­is­ter act­ed wise­ly in putting a per­son of Car­olyn's com­pe­tence, ded­i­ca­tion and clar­i­ty of mind in this im­por­tant min­istry."MP Samuel said he thought COP's ex­ec­u­tive would have thought out its po­si­tion be­fore writ­ing the Prime Min­is­ter. He be­lieved the sit­u­a­tion "would work it­self out."COP vice chair­man Ver­non de Li­ma main­tained con­cerns, adding: "This jus­ti­fies my call for the leader to be out­side of the par­ty to speak about is­sues like this treat­ment of our peo­ple."What hap­pened to Car­olyn was un­fair. There was no con­sul­ta­tion among the par­ties."