SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Port-of-Spain South MP and at­tor­ney Kei­th Scot­land says “there is ab­solute­ly no is­sue” with him not be­ing giv­en a min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

He said he want­ed to put all ru­mours to rest that he was dis­pleased and up­set of not be­ing se­lect­ed as a mem­ber of Row­ley’s new Cab­i­net on Wednes­day.

In mak­ing his po­si­tion clear, Scot­land said he knows Row­ley runs a dis­ci­plined ship “and I am on that ship.”

Scot­land said the PM “has named his line-up” who he con­grat­u­lat­ed and urged the gos­sip mon­gers that there was no time for idle talk.

“Let us move on and get the work done. I don’t think there is any­thing that should dis­tract from that.”

Hours be­fore Row­ley pre­sent­ed his new Cab­i­net, a list with names and min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios sur­faced on so­cial me­dia.

Scot­land was named as “Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter” in that fake list.

He promised not to dis­ap­point the PM in car­ry­ing out his du­ties in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and as MP.

“I will put my shoul­ders to the wheel and get the work done. That is what we signed up for….to serve the peo­ple.”

With re­gards to ru­mours that he will be sworn in as Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs in two weeks’ time, Scot­land of­fered no com­ment on the is­sue.

“There is no such thing. I don’t know what is this fix­a­tion about min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ments. But there is no is­sue where that is con­cerned.”

Next Wednes­day, Scot­land said he would start fo­cus­ing “on the young minds” in his con­stituen­cy.

“I have al­ready start­ed and have my work plan to share with all the home­work cen­tres, which in­cludes dra­ma, math­e­mat­ics prob­lem solv­ing and writ­ing.”

Scot­land said while for­mer MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald served the con­stituen­cy with dis­tinc­tion for 13 years “and that must ac­count for some­thing. I must chart my own course, and in do­ing so, I have al­ready met with the peo­ple to gauge what are their con­cerns.”