Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The new Cab­i­net of the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion will be sworn in­to of­fice at 4 pm to­day at the Pres­i­dent’s House.

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo will ad­min­is­ter the oath of of­fice to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and coali­tion mem­bers who will serve as gov­ern­ment min­is­ters.

Af­ter Thurs­day’s swear­ing-in Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar had said she would be head­ing to the par­ty’s head­quar­ters for a meet­ing to be­gin dis­cus­sions on putting her Cab­i­net in place. She said she had to speak to each per­son and see who was the best fit.

She said she ac­cept­ed re­sumes “from every­one” and spent Wednes­day night re­view­ing them.

Par­ty sources said meet­ings with some peo­ple were still to take place yes­ter­day. Oth­ers who had been spo­ken to pre­vi­ous­ly were told to “wait for a call.”

Some min­istries will be re­named, it is un­der­stood.

UNC of­fi­cials, who were in “silent mode” yes­ter­day, have not con­firmed any names for min­is­te­r­i­al po­si­tions, but on­ly said not all win­ning can­di­dates may be min­is­ters, as some are brand new.

Nor did they say if Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s up­com­ing Cab­i­net will be as large as her Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Cab­i­net of 2010, which con­sist­ed of 26 mem­bers.

How­ev­er, spec­u­la­tion from with­in the UNC, and even in the pub­lic, fo­cused on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of var­i­ous can­di­dates for cer­tain port­fo­lios in­clud­ing Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe (Health), De­vesh Ma­haraj (Jus­tice Min­istry), Jear­lean John (Hous­ing), Bar­ry Padarath (Pub­lic Util­i­ties or Works and Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter), En­er­gy Tran­si­tion spe­cial­ist Dr Randy Ra­mad­har-Singh (En­er­gy), Dr Roodal Mooni­lal (Works or Min­istry of De­fence), Dr Michael Dowlath (Ed­u­ca­tion), Clyder El­der (Labour), Khadi­jah Ameen (So­cial De­vel­op­ment or Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment), Michelle Ben­jamin (Youth De­vel­op­ment), Roger Alexan­der (Home Af­fairs Min­istry) and, Sad­dam Ho­sein (Le­gal Af­fairs).

Spec­u­la­tion is al­so on a for­mer well-known per­son­al­i­ty in the UNC for House Speak­er as well as Dr Rishad Seecher­an (deputy Speak­er) and Wade Mark (Sen­ate Pres­i­dent or am­bas­sador).

There has al­so been spec­u­la­tion about the Tourism port­fo­lio for ex-Sen­a­tor Dami­an Ly­der with San Fer­nan­do East can­di­date John “Makamil­ion” Al­i­bo­cus in Cul­ture, since he had linked the UNC with sev­er­al en­ter­tain­ers/in­flu­encers who sup­port­ed the par­ty and as­sist­ed in ex­pand­ing its out­reach to non-tra­di­tion­al UNC ar­eas.

Al­so tipped for the Sen­ate are for­mer min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine, front­line Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty leader Phillip Alexan­der and Con­gress of the Peo­ple leader Prakash Ra­mad­har. For­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste’s name was al­so men­tioned for Labour Min­istry.