Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties and MP for Lopinot/Bon Air West Mar­vin Gon­za­les says it may not be in the best in­ter­est for MPs to wear two hats.

Gon­za­les made the com­ment dur­ing the PNM’s In­ter­nal Con­sti­tu­tion­al Con­sul­ta­tion in Bon Air on Sun­day.

He al­so be­lieves the $20,000 month­ly salary is too low for MPs, giv­en the work they have to do.

Gon­za­les ex­plained that most peo­ple com­plain that they don’t see their MPs or coun­cil­lors af­ter elec­tions but not­ed that with their sched­ule as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter, it’s dif­fi­cult.

“Is it pos­si­ble for an MP to walk every street and every cor­ner and every val­ley in five years in a con­stituen­cy, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en his role and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment?” Gon­za­les asked.

An­swer­ing his ques­tion, Gon­za­les said he has to at­tend sev­er­al Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tees of Par­lia­ment in ad­di­tion to the oth­er sev­er­al heavy re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

He ex­plained that as a Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter over­see­ing the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MTS), the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­pa­ny (T&TEC), the Wa­ter and Sewage Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), the Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Cor­po­ra­tion (TTPOST), Trinidad and To­ba­go Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny (SWM­COL), Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry and Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (TTMS), he al­so had to at­tend week­ly meet­ings of the Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pos­es Com­mit­tee and is al­so the chair of the Leg­isla­tive Re­view Com­mit­tee and oth­er sub-Com­mit­tees of the Cab­i­net.

“Of­ten­times, I ask my­self are my con­stituents served or bet­ter served, or their in­ter­est pro­tect­ed by me wear­ing two hats,” he said.

The Lopinot/Bon Air West MP said sev­er­al times he had plans to go in­to his con­stituen­cy and had to can­cel be­cause his ap­point­ment clashed with an­oth­er one of his du­ties as a min­is­ter.  

“These are things that I have to grap­ple with on a con­stant ba­sis,” he said. 

The MP told the au­di­ence, which had some of his col­leagues, that he does not be­lieve it is in the best in­ter­est of their con­stituents for Cab­i­net mem­bers to wear two hats. 

“I want to rec­om­mend, in a very, very pro­found way to this com­mit­tee, to look at the roles of mem­bers of par­lia­ment and the roles of min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment,” he said. 

Gon­za­les al­so be­lieves that a $20,000 month­ly salary is too low for full-time MPs, adding if the best is re­quired then they must be com­pen­sat­ed. 

“If not all of the CEOs of all the com­pa­nies that fall un­der my re­mit, I don’t know if any­thing about me as a min­is­ter of gov­ern­ment they would want ... in oth­er words, it’s go­ing to be a step down for them,” he ex­plained. 

Mean­while, Gon­za­les said for this coun­try to move for­ward and for no­tice­able change to take place, ser­vice com­mis­sions have to come to an end.

“The Gov­ern­ment takes the flack and crit­i­cism for every sin­gle thing and every­thing that goes wrong in this coun­try,” he said.

The MP said if this was the case, then Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, who he said are elect­ed, should have the pow­er to gov­ern ser­vice com­mis­sions.

“Let me use an ex­am­ple, the crime sit­u­a­tion in this coun­try, and every day you hear our de­trac­tors and some­times our sup­port­ers call­ing for the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to re­sign as though by re­plac­ing the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty there will be no crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he stat­ed.

Gon­za­les said if they are to be called up­on to deal with is­sues af­fect­ing cit­i­zens, Gov­ern­ment should have suf­fi­cient con­trol over all the in­sti­tu­tions that play a role in the lives of cit­i­zens.

The MP added that if Gov­ern­ment can­not hold the peo­ple in these en­ti­ties ac­count­able, set terms and con­di­tions and im­ple­ment con­se­quences for them fail­ing at their tasks, then Gov­ern­ment should not be blamed when things go wrong.

“It can­not be a po­lit­i­cal prob­lem for the elect­ed par­ty,” Gon­za­les sug­gest­ed.