Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The “new” Cab­i­net of Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young is the old Cab­i­net of for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley—and the same Cab­i­net with a mi­nor reshuf­fle can­not solve the prob­lems that they cre­at­ed, says Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day out­right dis­missed Young’s Cab­i­net in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse fol­low­ing mem­bers’ ap­point­ment at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s. The team was ap­point­ed five hours af­ter Young was sworn in as PM.

Along with Young’s ap­point­ment yes­ter­day morn­ing, Arou­ca Mal­oney MP/PNM la­dy vice chair­man Camille Robin­son-Reg­is was al­so sworn in as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, re­plac­ing Regi­nald Ar­mour.

Among the Cab­i­net ap­point­ments done yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, most of the 27-mem­ber team re­tained the port­fo­lios they held as mem­bers of the Row­ley cab­i­net, with just over a hand­ful of changes. Most sig­nif­i­cant­ly, for­mer Fi­nance Min­istry per­ma­nent sec­re­tary/UK High Com­mis­sion­er Vish­nu Dhan­paul was ap­point­ed at new Fi­nance Min­is­ter, re­plac­ing Colm Im­bert, who was named new Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter, and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, to which for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les was ap­point­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Dhan­paul was the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary for (for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm) Im­bert for years. It’s Dhan­paul’s ad­vice to Im­bert that has the coun­try in eco­nom­ic ru­in, he can’t sal­vage the mess be­cause he made it ... they have ac­tu­al­ly man­aged to re­place Im­bert with some­one worse.”

Claim­ing Dhan­paul wasn’t com­pe­tent, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­leged that his “on­ly achieve­ment in pub­lic life is fa­cil­i­tat­ing the PNM to award over $4 bil­lion dol­lars in fi­nanc­ing con­tracts” to a com­pa­ny with ties to a Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “Mar­vin can’t find wa­ter on a trop­i­cal is­land. He’s been one of the most in­com­pe­tent min­is­ters ever. Be­tween Mar­vin and Camille, safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty is done. This ‘new’ Cab­i­net is the same old Cab­i­net. It’s a joke.”

She added, “Make no mis­take, it is in­deed the same old failed Cab­i­net with a mi­nor reshuf­fle. It’s al­so a sig­nal that Mar­vin is your Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter for the next five years if the PNM wins up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions. That’s a fright­en­ing thought for cit­i­zens.

“Then they al­so threw out Adri­an Leonce from his Laven­tille East/Mor­vant seat but now make him a min­is­ter. They have no idea what they are do­ing,”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was al­ready an­tic­i­pat­ing the re­spons­es to the ap­point­ments.

“How­ev­er, I ex­pect the busi­ness cham­bers spokesper­sons and the eat-a-food fake elites to praise this reshuf­fle be­cause there is not a boot that ex­ists that they won’t lick for a dol­lar at the ex­pense of the av­er­age cit­i­zens. Of course, some peo­ple will be fooled. How­ev­er, the same cab­i­net with a mi­nor reshuf­fle can­not solve the prob­lems that they cre­at­ed.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­leged that Young re­tained the En­er­gy port­fo­lio “be­cause he is tied to Maduro ... Row­ley will flee the coun­try and Stu­art will have to fol­low him soon.”

She al­so re­in­forced her view that T&T’s democ­ra­cy was sub­vert­ed and sold to fi­nanciers, “… aid­ed and abet­ted by 20 cow­ard­ly PNM MPs who sold out their peo­ple and so they could con­tin­ue eat­ing a food. To­day, PNM Ju­das MPs col­lect­ed their 30 pieces of sil­ver …”