Rachael Es­pinet

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day de­fend­ed her de­ci­sion to award politi­cians and for­mer Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment Win­ston Dook­er­an and Er­rol McLeod the na­tion's high­est award–the Or­der of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Speak­ing to mem­bers of the me­dia af­ter the Po­lice Ser­vice In­de­pen­dence Day func­tion at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing on St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that Dook­er­an is a long stand­ing politi­cian, an econ­o­mist, and McLeod is a ded­i­cat­ed labour leader, both of whom have con­tributed tremen­dous­ly to the na­tion.

Dook­er­an, the founder of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple and McLeod, a for­mer founder of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice, were key fig­ures in form­ing the coali­tion Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship which came in­to of­fice in 2010.

When asked about the crit­i­cisms she has re­ceived on so­cial me­dia about giv­ing two politi­cians the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, "There are some peo­ple al­ways on so­cial me­dia who find every­thing I do very odd. I think they are very de­serv­ing."

She stat­ed that as a long stand­ing econ­o­mist Dook­er­an has served in pub­lic life, in aca­d­e­m­ic life and at the Cen­tral Bank, and that he has giv­en back a lot to the coun­try.

"Mr Dook­er­an has served in pub­lic life, aca­d­e­m­ic life and at the Cen­tral Bank, he is a well known econ­o­mist and I think he is very de­serv­ing. He is no longer a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and that is im­por­tant to note," she said.

Ad­dress­ing McLeod's achieve­ments she said that McLeod, a for­mer pres­i­dent gen­er­al of Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union for 21 years, was a hard-work­ing trade union­ist who fought for the rights of work­ers. She al­so reaf­firmed that as an out­go­ing MP, and like Dook­er­an, he will not be con­test­ing this year's gen­er­al elec­tions on Sep­tem­ber 7.

"Min­is­ter McLeod is no longer an MP as well, and will not be an MP, as Dook­er­an will not be an MP. He too was a great trade union­ist in all the decades that he has served. He is well de­serv­ing of that or­der. One an econ­o­mist and one a per­son stand­ing up for the rights of work­ers; I think they are both well de­serv­ing," she said.

For­mer head of the pub­lic ser­vice Regi­nald Du­mas said yes­ter­day he was not dis­agree­ing with giv­ing Dook­er­an or McLeod the award, but there must be a re­form in the way that peo­ple are se­lect­ed for the na­tion­al awards.

He em­pha­sised that there should be an in­de­pen­dent process adopt­ed to en­sure that the award is a na­tion­al ho­n­our and not award­ed be­cause of nepo­tism.

"Peo­ple get awards, I re­gret to say, who do not de­serve awards, be­cause they have done some favour or ser­vice to the par­ty, or to the Prime Min­is­ter per­son­al­ly," Du­mas said.

Op­po­si­tion leader, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, said yes­ter­day that he had noth­ing to say about the awards and he will not com­ment on the awards.

About the award

The Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T was in­stalled as this coun­try's new high­est na­tion­al award 2008, re­plac­ing the Trin­i­ty Cross for Dis­tin­guished and Out­stand­ing Ser­vice to T&T. The name change arose af­ter com­plaints from Hin­du and Mus­lim re­li­gious lead­ers that it was not rep­re­sen­ta­tive of all faiths.

Some of the for­mer re­cip­i­ents of the Trin­i­ty Cross in­clude: Dr Rudranath Capildeo for his con­tri­bu­tion in the sphere of Sci­ence, Sir El­lis Clarke, QC who draft­ed the Con­sti­tu­tion of In­de­pen­dent T&T, Sir Solomon Ho­choy, the then Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al and Ex-Of­fi­cio of T&T, and Sir Hugh Wood­ing, for his con­tri­bu­tion to Jus­tice as he was the then Chief Jus­tice.

Last year for­mer prime min­is­ters Bas­deo Pan­day and Patrick Man­ning were of­fered the Or­der of T&T, but they both de­clined.

The Na­tion­al Awards Com­mit­tee is chaired by Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie.