Gail Alexan­der

Gov­ern­ment's par­lia­men­tary team has been strength­ened with the ap­point­ment of vet­er­an politi­cian Gan­ga Singh as Sen­ate leader, re­plac­ing Em­manuel George. En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources Min­is­ter Singh took his Sen­ate place in the top seat on the Gov­ern­ment front bench yes­ter­day. George, who had led the Sen­ate team since 2011, was shift­ed three seats down. George re­placed Sub­has Pan­day as PP Sen­ate leader in the Ju­ly 2011 min­is­te­r­i­al re­align­ment. Now he has lost not on­ly his Sen­ate leader's post but al­so Pub­lic Util­i­ties to Nizam Baksh. George now has Jack Warn­er's for­mer Works and In­fra­struc­ture port­fo­lio. Singh and George are now "re­unit­ed"; they served to­geth­er in the 1995-2001 UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion when Singh was Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter and George was per­ma­nent sec­re­tary. The min­istry which Singh re­ceived-and shares with ju­nior min­is­ter Ra­mona Ram­di­al-in­cludes the En­vi­ron­ment di­vi­sion, for­mer­ly in Roodal Mooni­lal's Hous­ing and En­vi­ron­ment port­fo­lio. It al­so in­cludes wa­ter re­sources, which was in George's for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry. Singh, along with Mar­lene Coudray, Ja­mal Mo­hammed and Lar­ry Howai, yes­ter­day re­placed Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tors John Sandy, Ver­na St Rose-Greaves, Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith and Dan­ny Ma­haraj in the Sen­ate.

This fol­lowed last Fri­day's Cab­i­net re­align­ment, which has trans­formed the pro­file of the Per­sad-Bisses­sar team. Singh, in pol­i­tics for over 25 years, took up du­ty im­me­di­ate­ly yes­ter­day, ap­pear­ing quite com­fort­able in the role.

His first task was to state that Gov­ern­ment was able to an­swer on­ly one ques­tion on the agen­da, while the rest were de­ferred. Singh is ex­pect­ed to be the foil to the Op­po­si­tion PNM's en­er­getic tag team in the Sen­ate of Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, Faris Al-Rawi and Fitzger­ald Hinds. While the Con­gress of the Peo­ple's Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith was re­placed, the COP in­creased its Sen­ate num­bers with the ap­point­ment of Singh and Ja­mal Mo­hammed. Mo­hammed is a a mem­ber of the well known po­lit­i­cal clan, whose mem­bers have been known to sup­port the PNM, the UNC and the COP at var­i­ous times. Mo­hammed, who en­tered the Sen­ate two months ago as a tem­po­rary Sen­a­tor, now holds a key port­fo­lio where the PP's im­age is con­cerned. New Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj, who was shift­ed down­ward from Trans­port, said yes­ter­day he was con­cen­trat­ing on ful­fill­ing his pre­de­ces­sor Vas­ant Bharath's man­date: re­duc­ing food prices. Bharath was pro­mot­ed to the Trade, In­dus­try and In­vest­ment port­fo­lio, piv­otal in boost­ing the econ­o­my. He re­placed Stephen Cadiz, who moved a niche down to Tourism. Per­sad-Bisses­sar broad­ened and re­cast her for­mer 35-mem­ber team in­to a 40-mem­ber unit. This in­clud­ed shift­ing for­mer Min­is­ter in Cul­ture Nela Khan to Deputy House Speak­er.

Be­fore last Fri­day, the Cab­i­net had 27 se­nior min­is­ters. Though a num­ber of them re­main in place, the re­mod­elled Cab­i­net has 33, three of whom are women: Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan and new­bie Mar­lene Coudray. In the change, three new min­istries were cre­at­ed. They are Com­mu­ni­ca­tion (Ja­mal Mo­hammed), En­vi­ron­ment & Wa­ter Re­sources (Singh and Ram­di­al), Na­tion­al Di­ver­si­ty & So­cial In­te­gra­tion (Clifton De Coteau and Em­bau Mo­heni). In one of four min­is­te­r­i­al splits, the Prime Min­is­ter di­vid­ed the Min­istry of the Peo­ple/So­cial De­vel­op­ment be­tween in­cum­bent Glenn Ramd­hars­ingh and the new­ly de­mot­ed Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin.

Fazal Karim, who for­mer­ly head­ed Sci­ence, Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Techn­l­o­gy, now shares it with Ru­pert Grif­fith who is re­spon­si­ble for the Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy as­pect. The Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry, now prepar­ing for lo­cal gov­ern­ment polls next year, was al­so split be­tween for­mer For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan and for­mer min­is­ter in labour, Rudy In­dars­ingh. Chan­dresh Shar­ma now su­per­vis­es Caribbean Air­lines, the Port Au­thor­i­ty, Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty and the rest of the Trans­port port­fo­lio. Food Pro­duc­tion was split be­tween ex-Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj and for­mer deputy speak­er Jairam Seemu­n­gal who was pro­mot­ed to min­is­ter. For­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an was lat­er­al­ly shift­ed to For­eign Af­fairs, a high-pro­file po­si­tion, though not as much of a hot pota­to as Fi­nance. Al­though Dook­er­an had the as­sis­tance of Del­mon Bak­er be­fore, Dook­er­an's re­place­ment, Lar­ry Howai, will han­dle Fi­nance so­lo.