Gail Alexan­der

New­ly-ap­point­ed Am­bas­sador to South Africa, for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Dr Lovell Fran­cis isn’t ap­pre­hen­sive about the new post he’s head­ing to where there has been vi­o­lence, protest and racial ten­sions re­cent­ly, and he’s look­ing for­ward to con­tact­ing T&T na­tion­als in South Africa.

Fran­cis is one of sev­er­al new am­bas­sadors ap­point­ed Tues­day to five over­seas mis­sions.

South Africa last month was seething with protests, loot­ing, van­dal­ism and racial ten­sions. Amid many COVID cas­es, un­rest was sparked by im­pris­on­ment of for­mer pres­i­dent Ja­cob Zu­ma, now fac­ing cor­rup­tion charges.

He was sacked as deputy pres­i­dent in 2005 on a $2 bil­lion arms deal cor­rup­tion case.

There were news videos show­ing some South African politi­cians in­cit­ing loot­ing and mur­der of cer­tain class­es.

The vi­o­lence was de­scribed as the worst since the coun­try’s apartheid days.

Fran­cis said Wednes­day, “I’m thank­ful to the Prime Min­is­ter and the na­tion for this ap­point­ment. I in­tend on pur­su­ing this job as I al­ways do my work. I’ve fol­lowed the sit­u­a­tion in South Africa. Its is­sues are mir­rored in many oth­er coun­tries placed un­der strain by COVID-19. How­ev­er, it’s an im­por­tant part­ner for T&T now and in fu­ture and I in­tend on seek­ing how the re­la­tion­ship can be strength­ened to our mu­tu­al ben­e­fit.”

“I don’t have any fear or con­cern about go­ing there, I’m not that kind of per­son. Faint­heart­ed isn’t my thing. I’ve heard the re­ports but I’m do­ing my own re­search, not go­ing with any pre-con­ceived no­tions. I don’t mind a chal­lenge. Re­mem­ber I was Moru­ga Table­land MP for five years!”

Fran­cis said he’d fol­lowed apartheid strug­gles and South Africa’s fight for free­dom had a per­son­al di­men­sion for him.

He re­mem­bered T&T peo­ple pick­et­ing out­side of the Queen Park Oval at one point when an in­ter­na­tion­al game with Eng­lish and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers was held.

“But it’s not my place to in­ter­fere in a place’s in­ter­nal pol­i­tics or say any­thing un­to­ward re­gard­ing a sit­u­a­tion or a Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion. My job is to seek to en­sure both coun­tries work to­geth­er, se­cure T&T’s in­ter­est and take it for­ward,” he said.

“I’d al­so be hap­py to con­tact T&T-born per­sons there or have busi­ness in­ter­ests there and try to build or strength­en re­la­tion­ships as well.’’

Many T&T cit­i­zens have rel­a­tives in South Africa. One per­son there, a doc­tor, told Guardian Me­dia they’d be hap­py to wel­come Fran­cis.

“The sit­u­a­tion has sta­bilised. While there are the odd protests, there’s a lull now.’’

Am­bas­sador to Venezuela Ed­mund Dil­lon didn’t an­swer calls re­gard­ing queries on how his back­ground in Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the De­fence Force will as­sist in se­cur­ing T&T’s in­ter­ests with Venezuela where key is­sues in­clude en­er­gy mat­ters as well as il­le­gal mi­grants and bor­der se­cu­ri­ty.

Dil­lon was Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter up to 2018 but was re­placed by Stu­art Young.

Dil­lon, who was shift­ed to Hous­ing, wasn’t part of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry’s Venezue­lan amnesty pro­gramme in 2019 fol­low­ing which Venezue­lans con­tin­ued to swarm to T&T il­le­gal­ly. Af­ter T&T’s lock­downs, some re­turned in Ju­ly. But many said they would re­turn when T&T’s econ­o­my re­opened or had left a rel­a­tive here to work.

For re­tired for­mer Fi­nance per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Vish­nu Dhan­paul, now new Am­bas­sador to the UK, this year will be the first in 25 years that Bud­get plan­ning will be mi­nus his in­put.

Look­ing to ex­pand­ing trade and con­sol­i­dat­ing T&T’s de­layed or planned joint ven­tures with Chi­na and Brazil re­spec­tive­ly will al­so be Am­bas­sadors Anal­isa Low and Ger­ard Greene.