Michelle Loubon

For­mer per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter San­dra Mar­chack says it was "a tremen­dous ho­n­our" to serve the Prime Min­is­ter and as­sist in craft­ing pol­i­cy is­sues for T&T. She said so dur­ing a re­tire­ment func­tion on Sat­ur­day in her ho­n­our at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's. Among those present at the func­tion in the "ti­tan's ho­n­our" were scores of par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, per­ma­nent sec­re­taries and spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests. Mar­chack joined the ser­vice on Au­gust 3–38 years ago. Mar­chack's watch would have en­com­passed Prime Min­is­ters Dr Er­ic Williams and his suc­ces­sor George Cham­bers, Cas­tara-born ANR Robin­son, Bas­deo Pan­day and Patrick Man­ning. Re­splen­dent in red, Mar­chack said: "I con­sid­er it a tremen­dous ho­n­our to serve the PM. It is a con­stant re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that re­quires un­der­stand­ing, pa­tience and con­sid­er­a­tion. "On pol­i­cy is­sues, I would ex­er­cise my judg­ment. I thank them for the faith and con­fi­dence they have placed in me."

Like a good Boy Scout, Mar­chack said she al­ways had to "be pre­pared."

Trade unions proved to be an acid test. "I would have to meet with unions... an­tic­i­pate the re­spons­es. My team and I would have to meet well be­hind mid­night. We had to be pre­pared for them. In 1997, a good strat­e­gy was to meet with them on a pub­lic hol­i­day," added Mar­chack.

Mar­chack thanked her men­tors–Mur­ray Kalloo, Os­bourne Ash­by and Hilton Cu­pid– for "teach­ing me about rec­ti­tude...and what was right and what was wrong in the Pub­lic Ser­vice." Out­side her work­ing hours, Mar­chack shared two vi­gnettes–Man­ning would po­lite­ly en­quire whether she had met the man of her dreams. Re­cent­ly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar gave her an Eid out­fit which "did not es­cape the pho­tog­ra­phers." Mar­chack did not for­get to thank those who had con­tributed to her suc­cess and her dri­ver, Lennox.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar lauds Mar­chack

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar paid glow­ing trib­ute to Mar­chack for her "in­valu­able as­sis­tance." Re­vert­ing to her swear­ing in May, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mem­bered get­ting a tele­phone call from Mar­chack which re­mind­ed her of­fi­cials from the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness (ODPM) were go­ing to meet with her over the flood­ing that had af­fect­ed Cen­tral and Diego Mar­tin. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "It is bit­ter sweet to say farewell to such a won­der­ful per­son. She gave in­valu­able as­sis­tance to me in May. She showed her ex­ten­sive knowl­edge of the ODPM." Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so laud­ed Mar­chack for "smooth­ing the tran­si­tion" from the for­mer Man­ning's ad­min­is­tra­tion to the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "She helped over tur­bu­lent tran­si­tion pe­ri­ods. She was about get­ting the job done well. She knew how to do it... when to do it... she was about get­ting the job done." Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­tin­ued paint­ing a por­trait of a pa­tri­ot, who had proven to be the con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al in the ex­e­cu­tion of her du­ties. "She led by ex­am­ple. She was de­vot­ed to du­ty. She took pride in her job. She is an ex­am­ple in the ser­vice of all those out­side." she said. Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mem­bered leav­ing the of­fice around 10 pm and saw a light in Mar­chack's of­fice. On a lighter note, she en­cour­aged Mar­chack to "shop till you drop... and trav­el and dis­cov­er the world."

Help­ing peo­ple

Seiz­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty, Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced a new youth-ori­ent­ed pol­i­cy had been in­tro­duced to as­sist youths in­volved in the hos­pi­tal­i­ty in­dus­try with ex­po­sure and train­ing. Among those se­lect­ed will be in­sti­tu­tions like the Trinidad and To­ba­go Hos­pi­tal­i­ty In­sti­tute at Ch­aguara­mas. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "Op­por­tu­ni­ties will now be pro­vid­ed for young peo­ple to gain valu­able prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence through par­tic­i­pa­tion in se­lect­ed events. "Stu­dents who are cur­rent­ly en­rolled in ap­proved cours­es in event plan­ning, event man­age­ment and hos­pi­tal­i­ty will be giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op their skills and fur­ther their ed­u­ca­tion."

She al­so said the pol­i­cy would in­clude tal­ent­ed young per­form­ers and artistes from schools and com­mu­ni­ties through­out T&T. "The learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence will be fur­ther en­hanced by oc­ca­sion­al­ly per­form­ing along­side lead­ing na­tion­al cul­tur­al icons." she said. She felt ex­po­sure to those events would en­able stu­dents to gain prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence in event plan­ning, man­age­ment, cater­ing, pro­to­col and hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

Cel­e­bra­tion time

Dur­ing the for­mal­i­ties, Mar­chack's col­leagues/per­ma­nent sec­re­taries, in­clud­ing Sharon Im­bert, Reynold Coop­er, Cheryl Black­man, Stephanie Lewis, Al­i­son Lewis and An­dre Le­ung Woo-Gabriel, laud­ed her stel­lar per­for­mance. En­ter­tain­ment in­clud­ed steel­band mu­sic from the Chi­nese En­sem­ble, a li­on dance and a rib-tick­ling mono­logue de­liv­ered by ac­tor Ray­mond Choo Kong. Choo Kong said: "They say Chi­nese peo­ple does be self­ish/But not this girl from be­hind the Ari­ma Di­al."