Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has warned her min­is­ters against be­ing ar­ro­gant and aloof and to en­sure they serve the peo­ple or else the peo­ple would dis­miss the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment. Call­ing for hon­esty among the new Cab­i­net, Per­sad Bisses­sar in­struct­ed her 26-mem­ber team af­ter they took the oath of of­fice yes­ter­day at the Knowsley Build­ing, Port-of-Spain. She lat­er held her first Cab­i­net meet­ing with the team at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter. The 26-mem­ber Cab­i­net in­cludes 18 elect­ed MPs and six sen­a­tor min­is­ters.

Among the non-elect­ed mem­bers who are min­is­ters are econ­o­mist Mary King, for­mer UNC St Au­gus­tine MP Vas­ant Bharath, Brigadier John Sandy, for­mer UNC gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fazal Karim, UWI lec­tur­er Therese Cor­nelius and for­mer Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Em­manuel George. The 11 non-Cab­i­net min­is­ters in­clude a ma­jor­i­ty of new MPs. Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Lin­coln Dou­glas, ab­sent yes­ter­day, will be sworn in an­oth­er time. Per­sad-Bisses­sar's Cab­i­net does not have an In­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter. She said yes­ter­day that In­for­ma­tion would be re­tained in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, with "some­one there with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for so do­ing."

Wear­ing a bright or­ange suit, red and black plat­form shoes with red and gold jew­el­ry, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told the team: "Each day you are ex­pect­ed to del­e­gate all your en­er­gies to en­sure the peo­ple's needs are be­ing ad­dressed. All of us are held ac­count­able to the peo­ple. We ac­cept no medi­oc­rity... there must be no room for ar­ro­gance. "We have to be ever mind­ful that the na­tion is look­ing at us ex­pec­tant­ly," she said. "No one out there ex­pects ex­cus­es, they want re­sults...lead by ex­am­ple, fol­low and learn to lis­ten. As of now, each of us is on tri­al, we be­gin to be test­ed as of this mo­ment. "My cau­tion is this–nev­er be aloof, nev­er lose sight of the true pur­pose of the po­si­tion you hold, stay ground­ed, keep con­nect­ed with the peo­ple, earn their re­spect by the way you serve them." "The peo­ple are the Gov­ern­ment...take these words and frame them on your desk."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned her team against wear­ing par­ty sym­bols in the con­duct of busi­ness. She urged them to serve every per­son, re­gard­less of par­ty af­fil­i­a­tion. She said she had for­gone the coat of arms on a state car, us­ing the ve­hi­cle marked PM 1 in­stead. She said by this act she had kept her first promise. Per­sad- Bisses­sar called for hon­esty to be hall­mark of the Gov­ern­ment. She said she would be a leader who lis­tened and made de­ci­sions based on col­lab­o­ra­tion. She said there would be no room for per­son­al agen­das or ego and no op­por­tu­ni­ty for self-glo­ri­fi­ca­tion. "This is not about us, it's about the peo­ple... they have the pow­er to dis­miss us at any time," she said.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Brigadier John Sandy was cho­sen for Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty on mer­it, com­pe­tence and his calm per­son­al­i­ty, as well as his De­fence Force ex­pe­ri­ence. "He was a good fit," she added. She said Sandy's first job would be to pro­vide a ve­hi­cle and se­cu­ri­ty for for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning. She said Man­ning did not ask for se­cu­ri­ty. The Prime Min­is­ter said the House Speak­er would come from "out­side" the Cab­i­net. MP Dr Fuad Khan will be Deputy Speak­er. She said no de­ci­sion was made on the start of the Par­lia­ment, al­though June 14 had been re­port­ed. She said the Par­lia­ment staff was seek­ing more time.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said lo­cal gov­ern­ment polls would be held on time, by the Oc­to­ber dead­line. She al­so said Cor­nelius was cho­sen for Health be­cause of her hu­man re­source ex­pe­ri­ence. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said she would stay at the of­fi­cial res­i­dence from time to time and would open the build­ing to the chil­dren of the na­tion. "It will be­come the peo­ple's house for any­one who wish­es to vis­it," she added. She said Man­ning should be giv­en a de­cent time in which to va­cate the House. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Pres­i­dent de­clined the of­fer to stay there.

Jack Stays with FI­FA

Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er's Fi­fa post would not be af­fect­ed by his new job, he said yes­ter­day. Speak­ing af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed, Warn­er said he would prob­a­bly re­sign from Fi­fa com­mit­tees when he goes away next week. He said he would al­so keep the vice-pres­i­den­cy of TTFA. Warn­er said he would ex­plore us­ing the PBR one way in the morn­ing and one way in the evening. But he did not think the rapid rail project was a top pri­or­i­ty. He said all con­tracts signed with­in the last two months and af­ter the elec­tion would be re­viewed.