Fac­ing a whole new chap­ter ahead.

That’s how for­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Melis­sa Ramkissoon feels about the fact that she is not on­ly leav­ing her job at Petrotrin as the com­pa­ny changes, but she is al­so re­lin­quish­ing her po­si­tion as a sen­a­tor as the com­po­si­tion of the In­de­pen­dent bench changes al­so.

All at the same time.

“It’s a new sea­son for me—but I re­main pos­i­tive,” Ramkissoon said on Thurs­day af­ter sub­mit­ting her res­ig­na­tion from the In­de­pen­dent bench to Pres­i­dent’s House. She said she was ho­n­oured and grate­ful to have served.

Ramkissoon, a Petrotrin en­gi­neer at Trin­mar, is al­so al­ready packed and ready to leave when her sec­tion at Petrotrin clos­es by No­vem­ber 30.

She had lament­ed the re­fin­ery’s clo­sure when she spoke in the 2019 Bud­get de­bate, earn­ing crit­i­cism from Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat.

Ramkissoon the youngest In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor to be ap­point­ed—at age 28 in 2015—was among the sen­a­tors who re­signed af­ter Pres­i­dent’s House moved this week to change the In­de­pen­dent bench’s com­po­si­tion.

For­mer In­de­pen­dents were con­tact­ed via email on Mon­day on the change. Most of the nine In­de­pen­dents—in­clud­ing Ramkissoon—were re­moved. On­ly sen­a­tors Sophia Chote, Paul Richards and re­cent­ly ap­point­ed Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh were re­tained.

Tipped for the In­de­pen­dent bench are for­mer In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Viera, re­tired Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union pres­i­dent gen­er­al Joseph Re­my (who re­signed as CWU head in 2017), at­tor­ney Hazel Thomp­son-Ahye, Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture of­fi­cial De­oroop Teemul, econ­o­mist Am­ri­ta De­onar­ine and con­sul­tant Char­rise Seep­er­sad.

Some were ex­pect­ed to meet the Pres­i­dent to­day.

Ramkissoon said, “I was ap­point­ed an In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor, proud­ly rep­re­sent­ing the so­cial sec­tor of the oil­field work­ers and en­gi­neers. The ex­pe­ri­ence in the Sen­ate kin­dled the fire to fight for jus­tice and so­cio-eco­nom­i­cal hu­man rights. As an ap­point­ed mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, the po­si­tion was al­ways clear­ly known to be part-time and tem­po­rary. There­fore, the Pres­i­dent wish­es are re­spect­ed and ful­ly sup­port­ed. I strong­ly be­lieve all per­sons elect­ed or ap­point­ed to serve en­joy the con­scious vote in our democ­ra­cy and hold the best in­ter­est of the peo­ple of T&T. The world is evolv­ing and our peo­ple need stand to­geth­er to fight to save our core val­ues and rise above the fears we face.”

Ramkissoon par­tic­i­pat­ed in de­bate on 28 bills, laid 16 mo­tions and brought a mo­tion—to re­solve Cy­ber­crimes in T&T which was sup­port­ed by Gov­ern­ment.

“I thank the pub­lic, my fam­i­ly, my dear friends for their sup­port and prayers through my jour­ney in pub­lic life and spe­cial ac­knowl­edg­ment to my Petrotrin co-work­ers, fam­i­ly away from home. I have faith in the peo­ple of T&T,” she said.