Gail Alexan­der

Cab­i­net will make a de­ci­sion this week on an of­fi­cial fu­ner­al for late En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Symon de No­bri­ga said yes­ter­day.

He gave an up­date on the sit­u­a­tion as plan­ning for Khan’s farewell cer­e­monies be­gan mov­ing in­to high­er gear.

Khan, 63, died on April 17 at his Mo­ka, Mar­aval home.

Khan had tak­en the COVID 19 vac­cine four days ear­li­er. But his wife Lau­ra was quot­ed in the me­dia over the week­end say­ing an au­top­sy done the same day he died showed a cal­ci­fied cyst in his heart had curbed blood flow to the or­gan. She said doc­tors had told her it was “a mat­ter of time” for Khan, as blood was not reach­ing his heart, which was ex­treme­ly weak. He had been on blood thin­ners. Khan had had heart is­sues since 2016, fol­lowed by triple by­pass surgery in 2017.

Khan’s fam­i­ly had been wait­ing to fi­nalise fu­ner­al plans un­til the ar­rival of Khan’s daugh­ter Khara from over­seas. Sources said she ar­rived at the end of last week and is now in quar­an­tine for two weeks.

Yes­ter­day, De No­bri­ga said the mat­ter of an of­fi­cial fu­ner­al is now be­fore Cab­i­net, “And I’m sure there will be no one in Cab­i­net who won’t be in favour of this.”

He said arrange­ments will be worked out with the Khan fam­i­ly.

“And that will in­clude date, time, lo­ca­tion and oth­er things. An of­fi­cial state­ment will be made on the mat­ter ahead,” he said.

The fu­ner­al will be car­ried live on state me­dia TTT and is al­so ex­pect­ed to be trans­mit­ted on Zoom.

Oth­er of­fi­cials hint­ed that the fu­ner­al may be held at the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion in Port-of-Spain due to space con­sid­er­a­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly since fam­i­ly mem­bers, Gov­ern­ment mem­bers, en­er­gy sec­tor rep­re­sen­ta­tives and oth­er of­fi­cials will want to pay their re­spects to Khan.

Cur­rent COVID pro­to­cols lim­it gath­er­ings at places of wor­ship to 25 per cent. Pro­to­cols al­so in­clude lim­it­ing the num­ber of peo­ple at a grave­side to 10 and for wed­ding re­cep­tions to 10. The cathe­dral is be­ing seen as large enough to ac­com­mo­date - with­in the lim­it - all who may want to at­tend the church ser­vice.

Some Gov­ern­ment front­lin­ers have ex­pressed de­sire to at­tend Khan’s fu­ner­al. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is still un­der quar­an­tine and treat­ment for COVID-19. He’s ex­pect­ed to be test­ed again this week in the week­ly as­sess­ments that have been done. Khan was an An­gli­can and his wife is Pres­by­ter­ian.