Richard Lord

New Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj moved in­to his new of­fice at Nicholas Tow­ers on In­de­pen­dence Square (south), Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. Ma­haraj was wel­comed by staff yes­ter­day, al­most two weeks af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced his ap­point­ment as min­is­ter. He said the build­ing was rent­ed by the for­mer Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment and the of­fice was pre­vi­ous­ly oc­cu­pied by the then Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Col­in Par­tap. Ma­haraj said the pro­posed con­struc­tion of a new air­port in cen­tral Trinidad and the re­gion­al fast fer­ry ser­vice were two of his pri­or­i­ty projects. He said he in­tend­ed to build on the work he start­ed at the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC). He said he want­ed to "en­sure the pub­lic has ac­cess to ef­fi­cient, re­li­able and af­ford­able pub­lic trans­port in all cor­ners of T&T."

Asked if he shared the frus­tra­tions of Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er over the de­lay in re­ceipt of their of­fi­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ties from the Prime Min­is­ter, Ma­haraj said:

"I don't have a sense of anx­i­ety and trep­i­da­tion be­cause I know the Of­fice of the PM is work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to have this done quick­ly and with care." He said he was con­fi­dent the time be­ing tak­en to pre­pare the sched­ule would be to the ben­e­fit of the coun­try as a whole. In re­sponse to an­oth­er ques­tion, Ma­haraj said there was no need for cit­i­zens to be wor­ried about the Gov­ern­ment as it was in good hands. He said cit­i­zens should see the re­align­ment of min­istries as a pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment.