Ali­cia Llanos

The ap­point­ment of Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke as a tem­po­rary UNC Sen­a­tor is not yet cer­tain.

This, de­spite the an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day by Duke and UNC's po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at the PSA's head of­fice on Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain. Duke said he had en­gaged in a "marathon" di­a­logue with UNC mem­bers Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Jack Warn­er and Roodal Mooni­lal tar­get­ing a "num­ber of is­sues per­ti­nent to the work­ing class," in­clud­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Bill which sought to re­place the Cus­toms and Ex­cise and the Board of In­land Rev­enue. He said the UNC had de­cid­ed to give him favourable con­sid­er­a­tions to serve as a sen­a­tor for one day to bring the PSA's fight against the TTRA bill in the Sen­ate.

Duke said he would be rep­re­sent­ing the PSA, not Wat­son Duke, and that he had no per­son­al in­ter­est in pol­i­tics but felt he was need­ed to bring the voice of the peo­ple straight to the high­est ech­e­lons of Gov­ern­ment. How­ev­er, the ap­point­ment of Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors, is done by the Pres­i­dent act­ing on the ad­vice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader. Con­tact­ed last night, Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day said he was not told any­thing about the UNC join­ing hands with PSA to fight the TTRA bill. When asked if he would con­sid­er ap­point­ing Duke as a tem­po­rary Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor, he said he had not been asked and had to be asked be­fore he could say any­thing. He quipped: "Have you for­got­ten, I am not in charge any­more."