Yvonne Webb

Sports Min­is­ter Anil Roberts said Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan has no one but her­self to blame for her re­moval from En­er­gy to the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­istry, be­cause she sur­round­ed her­self with PNM ad­vi­sors, con­trary to ad­vice from him and oth­ers. Speak­ing on a joint Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) lead­er­ship meet­ing in Av­o­cat, Fyz­abad, on Mon­day night, Roberts de­fend­ed Seep­er­sad-Bachan's suc­ces­sor Kevin Ram­nar­ine, a for­mer ju­nior min­is­ter in her min­istry. Say­ing he had a de­tailed knowl­edge of the sit­u­a­tion, Roberts de­scribed Seep­er­sad-Bachan as a very in­tel­li­gent woman in the en­er­gy field and very qual­i­fied.

"How­ev­er, po­lit­i­cal­ly, she was very naive. It was not Min­is­ter Ram­nar­ine who un­der­mined Madam Seep­er­sad-Bachan. De­spite my protes­ta­tion over a four-month con­sis­tent pe­ri­od, she de­cid­ed to keep An­drew Jupiter as an ad­vi­sor." Roberts ex­plained. "An­drew Jupiter was a PNM ad­vi­sor to Ken Julien. She kept telling me Jupiter was friend­ly with her in 1988. "She kept on oth­ers like Frank Look Kin, PNM ad­vi­sor to Ken Julien, (and) she hired Cur­tis Williams (for­mer jour­nal­ist) to write her speech­es. "So who un­der­mine our Min­is­ter? It is the PNM who did it, and I am sor­ry she al­lowed the PNM to do it to her," Roberts said.

Speak­ing on crime and se­cu­ri­ty, an­oth­er can­di­date in the Ju­ly 3 elec­tion, Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har, said he agreed with the let­ter of dis­sat­is­fac­tion sent off to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar about Seep­er­sad-Bachan. Ra­mad­har said her re­moval was painful to the COP and to her, be­cause she had made a stel­lar con­tri­bu­tion. At­tor­ney Ver­non De Li­ma took um­brage with Robert's de­nounce­ment of PNM peo­ple, say­ing they were cit­i­zens too. He told Roberts he was out of place to chas­tise the PNM, when they were both for­mer mem­bers of that par­ty.