Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan is no stranger to con­tro­ver­sy. While some of her col­leagues de­scribe her as a "no-non­sense and straight-for­ward per­son", oth­ers claim she is not a "peo­ple per­son". While the ju­ry is still out, one thing is cer­tain since com­ing in­to pub­lic life, Seep­er­sad-Bachan has been in the head­lines for a num­ber of is­sues.

As chair­man of the Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny (NP), Seep­er­sad-Bachan and her board were forced to jus­ti­fy the hir­ing of for­mer NP di­rec­tor, Ken Sood­hoo. Sood­hoo was fired from First Cit­i­zens' Mer­chant Bank as the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor in 1996, but ac­cord­ing to the chair­man, he was the best man suit­ed to head the project im­ple­men­ta­tion unit un­der her tenure.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan's po­lit­i­cal ca­reer has been no dif­fer­ent. The lat­est be­ing her out­burst on al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion lev­elled against the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) af­ter her name ap­peared on the par­ty's elec­toral list.

Last year, Seep­er­sad-Bachan did not mince words over her dis­ap­proval at be­ing shift­ed to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion, months af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed as the En­er­gy Min­is­ter. A Cab­i­net reshuf­fle by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar saw Seep­er­sad-Bachan be­ing moved to the low-pro­file min­istry.

And the San Fer­nan­do West MP has been forced to de­fend her­self af­ter her con­stituents have ac­cused her of "ne­glect" and "not be­ing a peo­ple per­son". She has now pub­licly turned on San Fer­nan­do May­or Mar­lene Coudray, call­ing for her re­moval fol­low­ing her de­ci­sion to switch po­lit­i­cal al­le­giances. This is af­ter the for­mer al­lies walked the length and breadth of the San Fer­nan­do West con­stituen­cy while on the cam­paign trail.

The ri­val­ry be­tween the two women be­came more ev­i­dent last week when Seep­er­sad-Bachan claimed that she was not aware that a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee was work­ing on a wa­ter­front plan for San Fer­nan­do.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan's ca­reer

1996

• Ap­point­ed NP's chair­man

1997

• Seep­er­sad-Bachan and her board came un­der fire for hir­ing Ken Sood­hoo to head NP's project im­ple­men­ta­tion unit. It was in 1996 Sood­hoo was fired as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of First Cit­i­zens' Mer­chant Bank

1999

• Seep­er­sad-Bachan ter­mi­nat­ed the con­tro­ver­sial Oropouche land deal po­ten­tial­ly ear­marked for a ser­vice sta­tion at St Mary's Vil­lage, Oropouche

• For­mer San Fer­nan­do May­or Ger­ard Fer­reira threat­ened to shut down the $7m Rush­worth Street ser­vice sta­tion, af­ter he said ap­proval was not grant­ed by the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion. Seep­er­sad-Bachan ad­mit­ted that fi­nal ap­proval was not ob­tained, al­though meet­ings were held with the cor­po­ra­tion

2000

• The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ob­ject­ed to Seep­er­sad-Bachan's el­i­gi­bil­i­ty to vote in San Fer­nan­do West on the grounds that she had moved to Val­sayn af­ter be­ing mar­ried and there­fore was no longer liv­ing in San Fer­nan­do. How­ev­er, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion dis­missed the is­sue, clear­ing the way for Seep­er­sad-Bachan to vote in the con­stituen­cy

2001

• Seep­er­sad-Bachan threat­ened le­gal ac­tion af­ter a let­ter, list­ing sev­er­al com­plaints from ag­griev­ed em­ploy­ees, was sent to Trinidad Guardian. The work­ers claimed fi­nan­cial and man­age­r­i­al mis­man­age­ment

2002

• Dogged by con­tro­ver­sy, the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion dis­missed the high-pro­file NP board that was led by Seep­er­sad-Bachan

• Seep­er­sad-Bachan ap­peared be­fore the Deyals­ingh Com­mis­sion of En­quiry af­ter she was ac­cused of vot­er padding in the 2000 gen­er­al elec­tions. How­ev­er, Seep­er­sad-Bachan was cleared of any wrong­do­ing

2006

• Ap­point­ed an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor un­der the UNC

• Seep­er­sad-Bachan and Sadiq Baksh, who was al­so a UNC sen­a­tor, were shift­ed to the end of the UNC bench in Par­lia­ment. The seat­ing change saw track star Ato Boldon and Dr Tim Gopeesingh be­ing sworn in as UNC sen­a­tors

• Seep­er­sad-Bachan and Baksh were axed dur­ing a UNC ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing at Rien­zi Com­plex on June 29

• Fol­low­ing the launch of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) in Sep­tem­ber, Seep­er­sad-Bachan re­signed from the UNC

2007

• Seep­er­sad–Bachan ap­point­ed a deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the COP

2010

• May 24 - Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan elect­ed as San Fer­nan­do West MP

• May 28 - ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs

2011

• May 13 - Seep­er­sad-Bachan ini­ti­at­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to claims by CDS Trans­port that NP ex­er­cised bias when it award­ed a $40 mil­lion con­tract for the lease of 20 trac­tor trucks to a garbage con­trac­tor in east Trinidad

• May 13 - Seep­er­sad–Bachan ac­cused COP mem­ber Anil Roberts of speak­ing "out of turn" on the Mary King is­sue. The for­mer plan­ning min­is­ter was fired from Cab­i­net, fol­low­ing the award of a $100,000 con­tract to Ix­anos, a com­pa­ny King owned with her hus­band, Prof St Clair King.

• May 20 - Seep­er­sad-Bachan re­cus­es her­self from the con­tro­ver­sial mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar trans­port con­tract. A min­istry of­fi­cial dis­closed that a rel­a­tive of Seep­er­sad-Bachan rents land from one of the ten­der­ers

• June - Fol­low­ing a Cab­i­net reshuf­fle, Seep­er­sad-Bachan was ap­point­ed as Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

2012

• Seep­er­sad-Bachan lev­elled al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion against the UNC af­ter her name ap­peared on the par­ty's re­vised in­ter­nal elec­tion list