DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

As Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley pre­pares to leave of­fice, his fi­nal acts are un­der in­tense pub­lic scruti­ny. From ma­jor in­fra­struc­ture projects to leg­isla­tive de­ci­sions, his ad­min­is­tra­tion is mark­ing the “prac­ti­cal com­ple­tion” of key ini­tia­tives across var­i­ous sec­tors.

On Mon­day, Row­ley com­mis­sioned the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal’s Cen­tral Block—a 540-bed fa­cil­i­ty built at a cost $1.3 bil­lion. This is one of two ma­jor projects he pledged to com­plete be­fore step­ping down, with the new ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ter­mi­nal set to be his fi­nal act on Sat­ur­day, just one day be­fore his res­ig­na­tion takes ef­fect.

Dur­ing the com­mis­sion­ing of Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian Boule­vard on Feb­ru­ary 26, Row­ley out­lined his last days in of­fice, in­ter­twin­ing the late D’Abadie/O’Meara MP’s lega­cy with his own. Ac­knowl­edg­ing the on­go­ing de­mands of gov­er­nance, he ad­mit­ted: “Plan­ning and ex­e­cut­ing na­tion­al projects is like a con­vey­or belt that is loaded and op­er­at­ing be­cause as fast as you take off what comes to you at the end of the belt, an­oth­er one ap­pears.”

Be­yond grand open­ings—in­clud­ing the Grand Chemin Fish­ing Fa­cil­i­ty on Jan­u­ary 31—con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ed Row­ley’s de­ci­sion to hand over lead­er­ship to En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, a move fac­ing scruti­ny.

Dur­ing a Cab­i­net re­treat in To­ba­go, Row­ley re­vealed that a straw poll had been con­duct­ed, re­sult­ing in Young’s se­lec­tion over Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son.

Amid spec­u­la­tion of dis­con­tent with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings pub­licly af­firmed on Jan­u­ary 12 that Young—who was present at the time—had the par­ty’s full sup­port.

Row­ley is now the first T&T Prime Min­is­ter to vol­un­tar­i­ly re­sign with­out po­lit­i­cal pres­sure while per­son­al­ly over­see­ing his suc­ces­sor’s se­lec­tion.

While po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany, at­tor­ney Lar­ry Lal­la and for­mer House Speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed de­bat­ed the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of this tran­si­tion, the fi­nal de­ci­sion ul­ti­mate­ly rests with the Pres­i­dent.

While ex­perts weigh the le­gal­i­ty of Row­ley’s de­ci­sion, pub­lic crit­i­cism mount­ed over his ac­cep­tance of a salary in­crease for politi­cians, ju­di­cial of­fi­cers, and oth­er pub­lic ser­vants—clear­ing the way for him to re­ceive $1 mil­lion in back­pay.

“I have no fear of ac­cept­ing the rec­om­men­da­tions of the SRC (Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion) if that is to be my lega­cy,” Row­ley told re­porters on No­vem­ber 28. “I bare that cross with­out fear of ret­ri­bu­tion.”

Row­ley’s fi­nal days al­so saw him tak­ing a firm stance on re­gion­al crime. At the 48th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment in Bar­ba­dos, he pro­posed clas­si­fy­ing in­dis­crim­i­nate pub­lic shoot­ings as acts of ter­ror­ism.

On the na­tion­al front, he moved to strength­en se­cu­ri­ty by com­mis­sion­ing two out of four state-of-the-art port scan­ners at the Port of Port-of-Spain on Feb­ru­ary 25, with the re­main­ing two set for Point Lisas.

Months pri­or, on De­cem­ber 30, a State of Emer­gency was im­posed.

Eco­nom­i­cal­ly, with the Drag­on gas deal fac­ing un­cer­tain­ty un­der US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, then-act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Young an­nounced on Feb­ru­ary 27 that Oan­do PLC had been se­lect­ed as the pre­ferred bid­der for the Guaracara Re­fin­ery.

In leg­isla­tive mat­ters, Row­ley over­saw the re­moval of Christo­pher Colum­bus’ ships from the Coat of Arms. On Feb­ru­ary 24, the Pres­i­dent ap­proved re­plac­ing them with the steel­pan, mark­ing a his­toric shift in the coun­try’s na­tion­al sym­bols.

How­ev­er, he fell short of grant­i­ng To­ba­go full au­ton­o­my. On De­cem­ber 9, Par­lia­ment passed the To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment Bill 2021, but the re­quired three-fourths ma­jor­i­ty was not met for the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) Bill, 2020, ef­fec­tive­ly stalling To­ba­go’s push for greater in­de­pen­dence.

Did his fi­nal acts count?

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj said Row­ley’s fi­nal acts fo­cus on im­prov­ing na­tion­al well-be­ing.

He not­ed Row­ley’s lega­cy would be judged on how he man­aged the econ­o­my dur­ing glob­al crises, in­clud­ing trade wars and the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“Let’s be clear, we have had no one dis­missed or lose their jobs dur­ing the pe­ri­od of COVID, as well as the eco­nom­ic de­cline, es­pe­cial­ly with pub­lic of­fi­cials. We have to un­der­stand the geopol­i­tics of our so­ci­ety now. No one an­tic­i­pat­ed this lev­el of glob­al volatil­i­ty led by the US Pres­i­dent and his po­lit­i­cal pref­er­ences, but that does not take away the fact that we still need rev­enue to pay salaries and to keep jobs en­gaged in both the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors.”

An­oth­er sci­en­tist, Maukesh Bas­deo, ar­gued that Row­ley’s lega­cy is tied to the en­tire Gov­ern­ment.

“Well, it’s dif­fi­cult to say that you can sep­a­rate the poli­cies enun­ci­at­ed and put in­to ef­fect by Dr Row­ley as against what you call Cab­i­net. His­to­ry will be able to judge him clear­ly, and the lega­cy that he leaves will now fall square­ly on the shoul­ders of Min­is­ter Young. As he ral­lied over the last few months of this ex­ec­u­tive in of­fice, how the coun­try re­mem­bers Dr Row­ley will be clear­ly in­di­cat­ed in the gen­er­al elec­tion.”

On the ground, Tacarigua res­i­dent Bar­bara Yeates praised his ser­vice.

“At least he has left a lega­cy. He didn’t just sit there, gos­sip, and waste time, and when you look at his bank ac­count, it doesn’t have any­thing stat­ing that he steals.”

Barataria home­mak­er Emi­ly Roberts-Gib­son, how­ev­er, ques­tioned the tim­ing of his ac­tions.

“I think that he should have done it soon­er than lat­er… Be­cause why wait un­til you’re leav­ing? Why not do it as soon as you get in?”