Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has come to the de­fence of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar fol­low­ing crit­i­cism from Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les over her ab­sence from the Na­tion­al Day of Prayer, host­ed by the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion at Di­vali Na­gar.

Beck­les had ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that the Prime Min­is­ter did not at­tend the in­ter­faith ser­vice, which was held in place of the tra­di­tion­al In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade. She ar­gued that if the Gov­ern­ment had can­celled the long-stand­ing pa­rade in favour of a day of prayer, then Per­sad-Bisses­sar should have been present to lead the oc­ca­sion.

Speak­ing in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Padarath dis­missed Beck­les’ com­ments as po­lit­i­cal point-scor­ing. “I want to cau­tion the Op­po­si­tion Leader against us­ing re­li­gious oc­ca­sions to score cheap po­lit­i­cal points,” he said.

“The Prime Min­is­ter is about se­ri­ous busi­ness, get­ting the work of the na­tion done. I can as­sure you that even to­day, she has been in­volved in im­por­tant mat­ters of gov­er­nance and con­tin­ues to work to get Trinidad and To­ba­go back on track,” Padarath added.

The min­is­ter em­pha­sized that while the Prime Min­is­ter’s ab­sence was not­ed, it did not di­min­ish the sig­nif­i­cance of the event, which brought to­geth­er lead­ers and fol­low­ers from across the coun­try’s di­verse faith com­mu­ni­ties.

“It has been a busy day for all of us, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, who has been en­gaged in her own per­son­al re­flec­tions with her fam­i­ly and through her con­stituen­cy. The day isn’t over, and sev­er­al of us have ac­tiv­i­ties such as Ganesh Ut­sav and oth­er events with faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions.”

The Gov­ern­ment an­nounced the can­cel­la­tion of the an­nu­al mil­i­tary pa­rade and state-spon­sored fire­works, due to se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns. In­stead, it pro­posed a day of prayer and re­flec­tion.