DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein is de­fend­ing his min­istry’s ex­pen­di­ture on an event to dis­trib­ute li­cences to 36 new mar­riage of­fi­cers.

The cer­e­mo­ny, held at Stollmey­er’s Cas­tle, Port-of-Spain, fea­tured per­for­mances by vi­o­lin­ist Sachin Boodram and vo­cal­ist Bran­don Kissoon. At­ten­dees were al­so pro­vid­ed with boxed re­fresh­ments, in­clud­ing a cheese paste slid­er, a piece of fried chick­en wing, a slice of sweet­bread, a wrap, and a bev­er­age such as wa­ter or juice.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions about spend­ing on the event, Ho­sein said the per­form­ers were young, in­ex­pen­sive tal­ent to whom he want­ed to give op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“You re­alise I didn’t have big per­form­ers. I can give you the guar­an­tee, they’re very in­ex­pen­sive. As a young min­is­ter my­self, I was so hap­py when the Prime Min­is­ter gave me an op­por­tu­ni­ty. I want to al­so give young peo­ple an op­por­tu­ni­ty. What’s wrong with that?”

His com­ment came af­ter news broke that Gov­ern­ment min­istries and state en­ter­pris­es were im­ple­ment­ing mea­sures to curb spend­ing on events for the fes­tive sea­son.

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Bar­ry Padarath, told Guardian Me­dia on Sun­day that the plan forms part of a wider ef­fort to ex­er­cise fis­cal dis­ci­pline. He said while it was not an in­struc­tion, in­di­vid­ual min­is­ters were be­ing guid­ed by the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate.

Mean­while, on his re­cent Mid­dle East trip, Ho­sein said the Cab­i­net was yet to re­ceive the of­fi­cial re­port but not­ed strong in­vest­ment in­ter­est from Bahrain and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, par­tic­u­lar­ly in tech­nol­o­gy and fi­nan­cial ser­vices. He high­light­ed an agree­ment signed by Min­is­ter of Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence Do­minic Smith with the UAE on tech­nol­o­gy ini­tia­tives.

“Those are some ex­cit­ing times that we’re in. It’s quite a shame that the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment didn’t look at that part of the world. We have said, our Prime Min­is­ter has said, we are open for busi­ness, and we are quite open for busi­ness.”

He al­so dis­missed sug­ges­tions that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s dis­cus­sions were in­flu­enced by ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela, say­ing the coun­try’s sta­bil­i­ty and po­si­tion out­side the hur­ri­cane belt make it an ide­al Caribbean hub.

“When we hap­pen to have dis­cus­sions with these per­sons abroad, it wasn’t even a top­ic. Per­sons are in­ter­est­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We have quite a sta­ble econ­o­my. We have in­vest­ment-grade here. And what pois­es us very good in the Caribbean is that one, we’re un­der the hur­ri­cane belt. That’s your first point.

“Sec­ond­ly, in terms of the Caribbean, we can be the hub for the Caribbean in terms of in­vest­ment, fi­nan­cial cen­tres and so on. When they are sleep­ing, we are awake. And when we are awake, they are sleep­ing. So, there­fore, you have 24-hour trad­ing and cov­er­age right here in Port-of-Spain. And that is what this Gov­ern­ment in­tends to do go­ing for­ward.”

Ho­sein added that his min­istry plays a crit­i­cal role in fa­cil­i­tat­ing in­vest­ment through the com­pa­ny’s reg­istry, en­hanc­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Pressed fur­ther on geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions in­volv­ing Venezuela and the US, Ho­sein said those mat­ters fall out­side his port­fo­lio and should be ad­dressed by the Prime Min­is­ter. He al­so de­clined to com­ment on the “dou­ble-tap strike” con­tro­ver­sy, say­ing he would “stay in his lane.”