For­mer Min­is­ter of Sci­ence and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion in the Peo­ples Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, Fazal Karim, has died. It was an­nounced on Mon­day.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar wrote on Face­book, “Fazal will be re­mem­bered for the great strides he made in sev­er­al crit­i­cal spheres of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment par­tic­u­lar­ly in ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion. He was well loved and Trinidad and To­ba­go is in­deed poor­er to have lost a pa­tri­ot­ic son.”

MP for Ma­yaro Rush­ton Paray said, “Serv­ing along­side Mr. Karim dur­ing the 11th Par­lia­ment was a priv­i­lege, and his role as Min­is­ter of Sci­ence and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion in the Per­sad Bisses­sar Ad­min­is­tra­tion show­cased his un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to ad­vanc­ing ed­u­ca­tion.”