ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

For­mer To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly chief sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis says he is ho­n­oured that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has con­fi­dence in him, af­ter he was ap­point­ed as a Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor yes­ter­day.

Den­nis will re­place Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing, who re­signed her sen­a­tor­ship on Wednes­day.

Her res­ig­na­tion came af­ter an in­ter­im pro­tec­tion or­der was grant­ed against her, af­ter her hus­band pe­ti­tioned the Fam­i­ly Court.

Leza­ma-Lee Sing, via a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to a so­cial me­dia blog­ger, sub­se­quent­ly dis­missed the al­le­ga­tions against her, say­ing she was “not ca­pa­ble of such hor­ren­dous acts.”

Yes­ter­day, Den­nis, who is al­so the leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, thanked the Prime Min­is­ter and mem­bers of the par­ty for their trust and sup­port.

Den­nis told Guardian Me­dia, via a What­sApp mes­sage, that he was grate­ful for the con­fi­dence placed in him by PM Row­ley. He said he was look­ing for­ward to work­ing with his PNM col­leagues in the Par­lia­ment to ad­dress the coun­try’s chal­lenges. He added he re­mains com­mit­ted to serv­ing the peo­ple.

Den­nis said, “I’m thank­ful to the PM and par­ty lead­er­ship for the con­fi­dence es­poused in me to serve in this ca­pac­i­ty at this time. I look for­ward to join­ing the oth­er wor­thy To­ba­go voic­es and my col­leagues by ex­ten­sion, as we con­tin­ue to pur­sue our coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment in a pe­ri­od of glob­al chal­lenges.

“Ser­vice is not new to me and I will con­tin­ue to be about the peo­ple’s busi­ness with the help of almighty God.”

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo would have of­fi­cial­ly is­sued the in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment to Den­nis on the ad­vice of Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley.

Den­nis is ex­pect­ed to be sworn in as a Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor dur­ing the next sit­ting of the Up­per House by the Sen­ate Pres­i­dent.

How­ev­er, Den­nis’ ap­point­ment did not sit well with every­one. Min­utes af­ter the news broke yes­ter­day morn­ing, af­ter it was post­ed on the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter’s Face­book page, Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Dr Faith B Yis­rael crit­i­cised the ap­point­ment and made some dis­parag­ing re­marks about Den­nis on so­cial me­dia.

Her com­ments were quick­ly con­demned by THA Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris. Mor­ris, in a post on so­cial me­dia, said of B Yis­rael: “Her dis­grace­ful rant clear­ly demon­strates that she is un­fit to hold pub­lic of­fice, much less the es­teemed po­si­tion of Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary.”

He urged her to up­hold high­er eth­i­cal stan­dards.

In re­sponse, Den­nis said B Yis­rael’s com­ments “doesn’t qual­i­fy to get his at­ten­tion.”

From fi­nance to pol­i­tics

Den­nis, orig­i­nal­ly from Buc­coo Point, To­ba­go, made his­to­ry at the age of 26 af­ter be­ing elect­ed as the youngest THA rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant elec­toral dis­trict in 2013.

His ca­reer be­gan in the fi­nan­cial sec­tor, where he worked at Bethel Cred­it Union and Re­pub­lic Bank be­fore tran­si­tion­ing in­to pol­i­tics.

Den­nis holds a Mas­ter of Sci­ence de­gree in Pub­lic Pol­i­cy and Man­age­ment from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don and a Busi­ness Man­age­ment Cer­tifi­cate from the As­so­ci­a­tion of Busi­ness Ex­ec­u­tives.

He be­came the youngest THA chief sec­re­tary on May 6, 2020, af­ter Kelvin Charles re­signed from the po­si­tion.

Be­fore that, he served as as­sis­tant sec­re­tary in var­i­ous THA di­vi­sions, be­gin­ning with the Di­vi­sion of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture from 2013 to 2017; the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary from Jan­u­ary 2017 to March 2020; and, the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment from April 1, 2020.

In 2022, he took over the lead­er­ship reins of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the PNM with the aim to re­build trust and strength­en the po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty af­ter its 14-1 de­feat in the De­cem­ber 6, 2021 THA elec­tions against the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots.