Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day paid trib­ute to late for­mer MPs Dr Emanuel Ho­sein and Mo­hammed Han­iff.

Ho­sein, a for­mer ULF MP from 1981 to 1986, be­came NAR’s Tu­na­puna MP from 1986 to 1991 and was al­so a NAR gov­ern­ment min­is­ter. He died in Au­gust.

Han­iff, a UNC MP then in op­po­si­tion, rep­re­sent­ed Princes Town from 1992 to 1995. He passed away in May.

Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans ob­served a minute’s si­lence for both.

Tu­na­puna MP Es­monde Forde laud­ed Ho­sein as a great ser­vant of T&T.

“His con­tri­bu­tions to pub­lic life and par­tic­u­lar­ly to cit­i­zens’ health and well-be­ing will for­ev­er be etched in the an­nals of our his­to­ry. He wasn’t just a pub­lic ser­vant, he was a cham­pi­on ad­vo­cate for progress for per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, which earned him the Cha­co­nia Medal (Gold) in 2022.

“He un­der­stood that ac­cess to qual­i­ty health­care wasn’t a priv­i­lege but a fun­da­men­tal right of every cit­i­zen,” Forde added, not­ing Ho­sein was ap­plaud­ed for his courage as a hostage in the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup and for tak­ing care of the wound­ed hostages and in­sur­gents alike.

Forde said, “His ded­i­ca­tion to his con­stituents, his re­spect for this Par­lia­ment, and his un­yield­ing be­lief in the pow­er of pub­lic ser­vice de­fined his ca­reer... Dr Ho­sein al­ways ex­em­pli­fied the qual­i­ties of a rep­re­sen­ta­tive who was both prin­ci­pled and com­pas­sion­ate. His warmth and self­less ser­vice brought light to this cham­ber even in the most chal­leng­ing times.”

St Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­jah Ameen not­ed Ho­sein took up health and gen­der eq­ui­ty chal­lenges with un­par­al­leled de­ter­mi­na­tion.

“Dur­ing his tenure, he strived to im­prove the health­care ser­vices and tru­ly cham­pi­oned the rights of vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties. He end­ed up with a lega­cy that was not about poli­cies on­ly but about peo­ple—tru­ly car­ing about them.

“Dr Ho­sein had an un­wa­ver­ing type of em­pa­thy that was very ev­i­dent in his per­son­al at­ten­tion to the dis­ad­van­taged—a re­flec­tion of his own be­lief in every cit­i­zen,” she said.

“His life was an ex­am­ple to all of us who are par­lia­men­tar­i­ans,” Ameen added.

House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George said Ho­sein was hailed a hero for his coura­geous act of brav­ery in sav­ing hostages’ lives.

“Dr Ho­sein was an out­stand­ing cit­i­zen, hu­man­i­tar­i­an and med­ical prac­ti­tion­er who served T&T with dis­tinc­tion. He played a piv­otal role in help­ing draft and pi­lot our do­mes­tic vi­o­lence leg­is­la­tion,” she added, not­ing his lead­er­ship of sev­er­al or­gan­i­sa­tions re­gard­ing the dif­fer­ent­ly abled.

“As a med­ical prac­ti­tion­er, Dr Ho­sein sought to im­prove the lives of oth­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who were un­able to af­ford med­ical care. He was a true man of the peo­ple, ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing so­ci­ety’s less for­tu­nate,” the House Speak­er said.

From dump truck op­er­a­tor to Par­lia­ment

Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Symon de No­bre­ga, in pay­ing trib­ute to Han­iff, said be­fore he served in Par­lia­ment he was a dump truck op­er­a­tor with the Works Min­istry.

“It’s from these some­what hum­ble be­gin­nings he forged his path in ser­vice to the na­tion. As an Op­po­si­tion mem­ber, he ad­vo­cat­ed on be­half of the maxi taxi dri­vers and con­tributed to the Maxi Taxi Reg­u­la­tions in Sep­tem­ber 1994. He al­so ad­vo­cat­ed for the PTSC’s staff,” he said.

Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath said Han­iff al­so served at the lo­cal gov­ern­ment lev­el with the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, where his en­dur­ing lega­cy re­mained as a colour­ful and af­fa­ble re­la­tion­ship with burgess­es.

Padarath said Han­iff’s son is now deputy cor­po­ra­tion chair­man.