Richard Lord

Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er has suf­fered heavy loss­es in Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's re­align­ment of port­fo­lios, while new Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj has con­trol of the big agen­cies un­der the for­mer Works and Trans­port Min­istry. The new sched­ule of min­is­ters port­fo­lio was ap­proved by Per­sad-Bisses­sar and sent to per­ma­nent sec­re­taries yes­ter­day. The sched­ule is ex­pect­ed to be sent to Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards to­day for ap­proval. Un­der the new sched­ule Warn­er has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for nine ar­eas. They are: Bridges; coastal ero­sion; drainage; her­itage build­ings; main­te­nance; and, roads and high­ways.

The sched­ule al­so lists the Pro­gramme for Up­grad­ing Roads Ef­fi­cien­cy (PURE). Warn­er has lost re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for 14 of the 16 state boards he had as Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port. He re­mains with the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nid­co) and the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MTS). Mean­while, Ma­haraj, who said he was sure the re­align­ment of port­fo­lios would be to the ben­e­fit of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for sev­er­al big state agen­cies, in­clud­ing Caribbean Air­lines, the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty, Air Trans­port Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty, PTSC, T&T Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty, air ser­vices agree­ments, traf­fic man­age­ment and ship­ping. The re­align­ment showed the ma­jor­i­ty of Warn­er's for­mer port­fo­lio went to Ma­haraj.

The Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) is now un­der Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma, while the Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (CEPEP) falls un­der Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal. New Min­is­ter of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment Ver­na St Rose-Greaves sched­ule in­cludes: Gen­der af­fairs; in­dus­tri­al schools; in­ter-dis­ci­pli­nary child de­vel­op­ment cen­tres; Princess Eliz­a­beth Home for Hand­i­capped Chil­dren; T&T As­so­ci­a­tion for Re­tard­ed Chil­dren; youth camps; and, youth groups. St Rose-Greaves has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for youth aca­d­e­m­ic train­ing. She has two boards: The Adop­tion Board and The Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty.