Gail Alexan­der

The PP ad­min­is­tra­tion's four new Sen­a­tors re­ceived a warm wel­come from sen­a­tors on all sides in the Up­per House yes­ter­day when they took up their po­si­tions dur­ing yes­ter­day's sit­ting. Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith de­clared va­cant the seats of for­mer PP Sen­a­tors John Sandy, Ver­na St Rose Greaves, Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith and Dan­ny Ma­haraj. Hamel-Smith then ad­min­is­tered the oath of of­fice to new Sen­a­tors Gan­ga Singh, Mar­lene Coudray, Ja­mal Mo­hammed and Lar­ry Howai. Singh is now the Gov­ern­ment's Up­per House leader, re­plac­ing Em­manuel George. Among the state­ments of wel­come, PP Sen­a­tor Mar­lene Coudray al­so re­ceived con­do­lences on the death of her daugh­ter Michelle from Sen­a­tors James Arm­strong (In­de­pen­dent), Faris Al-Rawi (Op­po­si­tion PNM) and Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit (PP Gov­ern­ment), who re­ferred to Coudray as her "sis­ter."

Al-Rawi, in his wel­come state­ments, said all the new mem­bers had been added suc­cess­ful­ly.

He said the ad­e­qua­cy and func­tion­al­i­ty of the new mem­bers might be con­tem­plat­ed in the con­text of the mo­tion un­der de­bate in yes­ter­day's ses­sion. He said Coudray was no stranger to him since she was a strong San Fer­nan­di­an. Al-Rawi al­so said he knew Singh when he had a "beau­ti­ful head of black hair." He not­ed Singh's hair was now sil­very, "though very dap­per still." He said Singh had been a Par­lia­men­tar­i­an for 12 years, both on the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion bench­es. "Some­times, I read his con­tri­bu­tions with de­light," Al Rawi added. He said some PP sen­a­tors. how­ev­er, had moved "so far." He said Sen­a­tor Vas­ant Bharath was fur­ther from him and Singh had re­placed George as Sen­ate leader.