Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said he is sat­is­fied with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's han­dling of the Cab­i­net reshuf­fle. He added that the Prime Min­is­ter has the full sup­port of the Cab­i­net, in­clud­ing her Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship mem­bers.

To­day, the Prime Min­is­ter will make pub­lic her Cab­i­net changes at a swear­ing in cer­e­mo­ny at Knowsley Build­ing, Port of Spain, be­gin­ning at 10.30 am. Mooni­lal, speak­ing with re­porters dur­ing a tour of Cir­cu­lar Dri­ve, Friend­ship Vil­lage, yes­ter­day laud­ed the Prime Min­is­ter for her ap­proach to the reshuf­fling process. "She en­gaged in dis­cus­sion with every sin­gle per­son, un­like for­mer lead­ers and so on. The Prime Min­is­ter didn't just call peo­ple to give the po­si­tion or tell to (them) clear their desk. She called and dis­cussed with every­one her in­ten­tion, her ob­jec­tives, her chal­lenges and I think every­body left feel­ing good that they were part and par­cel of the Prime Min­is­ter's de­ci­sion. It was pos­i­tive in that sense," Mooni­lal said.

While he said that the Prime Min­is­ter's Cab­i­net reshuf­fle was not fi­nalised on Sat­ur­day night at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, Mooni­lal as­sured, the process will be com­plet­ed in time for to­day's swear­ing in cer­e­mo­ny. "It is a mat­ter with­in the purview of the Prime Min­is­ter and we give her 100 per cent sup­port know­ing her ob­jec­tive to de­liv­er, to en­sure that goods and ser­vices reach the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. "There are still some mat­ters that the Prime Min­is­ter would be look­ing at, in terms of sched­ule and so on," Mooni­lal said. The Hous­ing Min­is­ter ex­tend­ed a warm wel­come to the new mem­bers tipped to be in­clud­ed in the Per­sad-Bisses­sar led-Cab­i­net.

"We want to wel­come those per­sons who would join the Cab­i­net and wish them all the best in their term in of­fice. We are con­vinced that this would be to the ben­e­fit of the Cab­i­net and we will de­liv­er the goods and ser­vices that we were vest­ed to do," he said. Mooni­lal de­scribed the mood at the Per­sad-Bisses­sar's meet­ing as "mixed". "Per­sons were in of­fice for one year and one is nev­er sure what is hap­pen­ing when these events oc­cur but, peo­ple were gen­er­al­ly very pleas­ant. There were ta­bles and peo­ple were sit­ting down and talk­ing and mak­ing jokes, en­joy­ing the mo­ment. "Many mem­bers, in­clud­ing my­self, were wait­ing be­cause the Prime Min­is­ter was speak­ing to mem­bers on a one-on-one ba­sis. There was com­raderie notwith­stand­ing the ob­vi­ous chal­lenges that the event posed," Mooni­lal said.

Mooni­lal de­clined to com­ment on me­dia re­ports which stat­ed that Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Win­ston Dook­er­an will be re­moved from his po­si­tion. "To­mor­row (to­day) we will have a clear and fi­nal pic­ture. I am not sure Mr Dook­er­an was af­fect­ed," he said. Mooni­lal's walk­a­bout was part of his month­ly meet-the-con­stituen­cy tour which he us­es to reach out to con­stituents and hear their com­plaints. He said one of the ma­jor prob­lems that Friend­ship Vil­lage res­i­dents face is poor drainage. Mooni­lal said while the rainy sea­son is al­ready up­on us, he will seek to have the drainage prob­lems in the area ad­dressed to pre­vent flood­ing.