Gail Alexan­der

For­mer Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) Sen­ate leader Sub­has Pan­day says he turned down Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's of­fer Sat­ur­day of a diplo­mat­ic post­ing to Toron­to as T&T's con­sul gen­er­al, in favour of re­turn­ing to pri­vate prac­tice.Re­turn­ing al­most im­me­di­ate­ly to his San Fer­nan­do law of­fice yes­ter­day, Pan­day spoke af­ter he was re­placed as PP's Sen­ate team leader by Sen­a­tor Em­manuel George.He was al­so re­placed as Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty by PP MP Col­in Par­tap, a per­son whom he men­tored in law.The change was among sev­er­al in­sti­tut­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter in her first Cab­i­net reshuf­fle."It's the Prime Min­is­ter's pre­rog­a­tive to make her changes and I re­main loy­al to the Prime Min­is­ter and the Gov­ern­ment. I know I con­duct­ed my­self with dig­ni­ty and in­tegri­ty, worked hard and strived to be fierce­ly hon­est in my stint in Gov­ern­ment," Pan­day added.Pan­day and oth­ers had met with the PM last Sat­ur­day on the port­fo­lio changes.

When of­fered a diplo­mat­ic post­ing that day, he said he asked for time to con­sid­er but in­di­cat­ed he opt­ed for pri­vate prac­tice since his wife was al­so an at­tor­ney.He said mi­grat­ing and re­turn­ing to T&T lat­er on took a toll on re-es­tab­lish­ing a pri­vate prac­tice.Up to Sun­day morn­ing, Pan­day re­alised that he was be­ing re­placed by George as Sen­ate team leader, but there had been some un­cer­tain­ty on whether he would re­main a ju­nior Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter.How­ev­er, news that he was off the team en­tire­ly was con­veyed to him around 5 pm that day.Yes­ter­day, Pan­day con­grat­u­lat­ed in­com­ing ju­nior Min­is­ter Par­tap, adding:

"When his fa­ther, for­mer MP Har­ry (Par­tap), and I were in Par­lia­ment years ago I en­cour­aged him to have Col­in study law. Col­in did his in­tern­ship at my law firm and I as­sist­ed in hav­ing him ad­mit­ted to the Bar so I will al­ways be avail­able to ren­der any help he needs."Pan­day said Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy was a man of in­tegri­ty and an up­right per­son.He is still, how­ev­er, try­ing to fath­om why he was axed from the team.Re­cent­ly dur­ing the Cab­i­net's To­ba­go re­treat, there had been con­cern about how some op­er­at­ed.He said when he asked if it in­clud­ed him, he was told it was not.He said he was nev­er ever told that any­one was un­hap­py with his per­for­mance.

He said he had nev­er com­mu­ni­cat­ed with his broth­er, UNC founder Bas­deo Pan­day, on Gov­ern­ment busi­ness.Pan­day added: "I al­ways walked a straight line, was spot­less­ly clean and worked long and hard lead­ing the team some­times in the Sen­ate un­til 3 am and I li­aised well with the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies I had to. I have no mon­ey to show for the pe­ri­od I worked in Gov­ern­ment."I want, how­ev­er, to thank the Prime Min­is­ter for the op­por­tu­ni­ty of the ex­pe­ri­ence," Pan­day added.He said many of his Cab­i­net col­leagues had called him to com­mis­er­ate and wish him well.