Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says that For­mer Min­is­ter Franklin Khan rep­re­sent­ed the best of what Trinidad and To­ba­go could pro­duce. He says in him, we found the rare com­bi­na­tion of wis­dom, hu­mil­i­ty, in­tegri­ty, love for coun­try and grat­i­tude, all em­bod­ied in the one per­son who smiled through it all. The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Of­fice of The Prime Min­is­ter:

Mem­bers of the fam­i­ly of Frankie Khan, his col­leagues, his friends, fel­low cit­i­zens all, we gath­er to cel­e­brate the life of a smil­ing glad­i­a­tor, a gi­ant with a car­ing heart.

There have been very few times when, in the course of my lead­er­ship of this par­ty and coun­try, I have had cause to re­gret the of­fice I hold. To­day’s event is one such time, as it falls to me to say the nec­es­sary farewell to some­one who has not on­ly con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to this coun­try’s growth and de­vel­op­ment, but al­so to some­one who was my dear friend, and with whom I have shared some of my bright­est and dark­est po­lit­i­cal mo­ments.

Franklin Khan rep­re­sent­ed the best of what Trinidad and To­ba­go could pro­duce. In him we found the rare com­bi­na­tion of wis­dom, hu­mil­i­ty, in­tegri­ty, love for coun­try and grat­i­tude, all em­bod­ied in the one per­son who smiled through it all. And so, on be­half of a great­ly in­debt­ed par­ty and coun­try, I ex­tend sin­cer­est thanks to his fam­i­ly; to his de­vot­ed wife Lau­ra, his chil­dren Khara and Kheron, and his grand­chil­dren Brae­den, Amelia, and Liam whom he sim­ply adored. Es­pe­cial­ly to his grand­chil­dren, I say that while your ages might pre­vent you from grasp­ing ful­ly the enor­mi­ty of to­day’s event, know that your grand­fa­ther was a pil­lar of this coun­try’s growth, and will for­ev­er serve as an in­spi­ra­tion to all of us who are called to serve at any lev­el.

Your grand­fa­ther be­lieved that in all of us, there ex­ists the ca­pac­i­ty for great courage, re­silience, a will­ing­ness to love all peo­ple, and to ex­tend to them their God-giv­en rights to dig­ni­ty and re­spect. And it’s be­cause he saw the best in all of us, even as we con­tin­ue on that long jour­ney to­ward a more per­fect coun­try, that we can ex­claim “O Death where is thy vic­to­ry! O Death where is thy sting!”

Frankie’s po­lit­i­cal ca­reer spanned al­most 26 years, hav­ing served var­i­ous­ly as the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ma­yaro, a Min­is­ter of Gov­ern­ment in the Min­istries of Works and Trans­port, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, and fi­nal­ly in En­er­gy. He al­so served as Chair­man of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment on two oc­ca­sions: from 2003 to 2005 un­der the lead­er­ship of my pre­de­ces­sor for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, and from 2011 to 2018 along­side me. Through­out it all, I was there with him. He showed how to han­dle de­feat. He showed me how to ap­pre­ci­ate vic­to­ry through amaz­ing self-be­lief and per­se­ver­ance. He suf­fered and over­came the worst poi­son ar­rows shot from the evils of the po­lit­i­cal quiver but even then he was a teacher to the weak­er ones.

Through­out Frankie’s stew­ard­ship he lent his sup­port for far-reach­ing changes in the par­ty which many pre­dict­ed would ei­ther nev­er oc­cur, or if they did, cer­tain­ly not in our life­time. Among these changes were the re­moval of the par­ty tie in Par­lia­ment, and the in­tro­duc­tion of the “one man one vote” sys­tem for in­ter­nal par­ty elec­tions. His met­tle was test­ed, but on every oc­ca­sion he, and the in­sti­tu­tions he served, emerged stronger and more re­silient un­der his calm­ing de­meanor and guid­ing hand.

Even now, it is dif­fi­cult to speak of Frankie in the past tense, but I will long cher­ish the re­la­tion­ship we shared. Through my re­la­tion­ship with Frankie, I have come to un­der­stand that friend­ship is one of the great­est gifts a hu­man be­ing can re­ceive. It is a bond be­yond com­mon goals, com­mon in­ter­ests, or com­mon his­to­ries. Friend­ship is be­ing with the oth­er in joy and sor­row, even when we can­not in­crease the joy or de­crease the sor­row. It is a uni­ty of souls that gives no­bil­i­ty and sin­cer­i­ty to love. Friend­ship makes all of life shine bright­ly. Even our scrip­tures re­mind us that blessed are those who lay down their lives for their friends.

Frankie was al­ways pre­pared to lay down his life, po­lit­i­cal­ly, eco­nom­i­cal­ly, so­cial­ly, and spir­i­tu­al­ly for us, those sons and daugh­ters in whom he be­lieved, and in whom he saw the promise of a bet­ter, brighter Trinidad and To­ba­go. He loved Ma­yaro and al­ways spoke lov­ing­ly of the peo­ple who raised him there and in San­gre Grande.

Frankie’s de­ci­sion to re­sign his Cab­i­net po­si­tion, when his star was shin­ing bright­est, was an­oth­er defin­ing mo­ment in our jour­ney to­geth­er. That de­ci­sion, like all oth­ers he would make, was found­ed on a bedrock of hon­esty and in­tegri­ty in pub­lic life.

While oth­ers might have thought oth­er­wise, as Po­lit­i­cal Leader and know­ing the man, I had no reser­va­tion what­so­ev­er in sup­port­ing Frankie in his tenure as Chair­man of the Par­ty in 2011, and in re­call­ing him to the Cab­i­net of Trinidad and To­ba­go in 2015. In so do­ing, I re­lied heav­i­ly on his ad­vice and trust­ed his judge­ment im­mense­ly as I ad­mired his in­ner strength even as his out­er strength was fail­ing.

Frankie was a good, kind and gen­tle­man, and he be­lieved in us, even when we didn’t be­lieve in our­selves. He was cer­tain­ly a gift to all of us, and we are all very lucky to have had him walk­ing with us for a while and show­ing us the way. May God bless this gen­tle soul, who pulled us clos­er to the promise of a big­ger, bet­ter, and brighter Trinidad and To­ba­go.

May his trade­mark smile re­main in­deli­bly im­print­ed in our mem­o­ries as we thank God for lend­ing him to us.

May his soul rest in per­fect peace.