Gail Alexan­der

Same size - but with sig­nif­i­cant changes.

The new Dr Kei­th Row­ley Cab­i­net re­tains most of the pre­vi­ous fa­mil­iar faces in front­line port­fo­lios - but with the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry in the hands of two moth­ers and the re­turn of for­mer Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Dr Amery Browne as For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter.

And Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley yes­ter­day pre­sent­ed his new team to T&T with a pub­lic no­tice, “We’re start­ing on a 60-month jour­ney, as it can be count­ed in months and no one will be al­lowed to fall asleep as con­duct and per­for­mance will be re­viewed on an on­go­ing ba­sis.”

Row­ley gave the as­sur­ance at yes­ter­day’s swear­ing-in of the new Gov­ern­ment team at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s, where he took the oath of of­fice at 4.06 pm. It was the first func­tion at the re­done Pres­i­dent’s House since 2007.

The func­tion fol­lowed re­cent an­nounce­ment of the fi­nal re­sults of last Mon­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion. There­after, Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes im­me­di­ate­ly is­sued let­ters to Row­ley and UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, en­quir­ing of their will­ing­ness to be ap­point­ed Prime Min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion Leader re­spec­tive­ly.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in a state­ment on Tues­day, sig­nalled will­ing­ness to do so but was ab­sent at yes­ter­day’s func­tion al­though in­vit­ed. She will be sworn in as Op­po­si­tion Leader at a sep­a­rate func­tion.

Min­is­ters took their oath of of­fice amid strict so­cial dis­tanc­ing mea­sures yes­ter­day.

Row­ley, dressed in a three-piece suit with red tie, pock­et ker­chief and mask, told the gath­er­ing his Cab­i­net size re­mains the same as be­fore - 22 mem­bers. He said the changes are not earth-shat­ter­ing but are sig­nif­i­cant.

Tak­ing the oath of of­fice as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Row­ley was PNM San Fer­nan­do West MP Faris Al-Rawi.

It will be the sec­ond term of of­fice for Al-Rawi, as well as 16 oth­er Cab­i­net mem­bers - in­clud­ing Min­is­ters Colm Im­bert, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, Stu­art Young, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, Sham­fa Cud­joe, Ran­dall Mitchell, Fitzger­ald Hinds and Ro­han Sinanan. Ten of them - from Im­bert to Young - re­tained port­fo­lios they held in the last term.

There is one new min­istry - Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice - and three oth­ers which fea­ture com­bined el­e­ments of oth­er min­istries.

There are four new faces in the Cab­i­net: For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter-des­ig­nate Amery Browne, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Pen­ny Beck­les-Robin­son, Labour Min­is­ter Steven McLashie and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

Browne, T&T’s for­mer am­bas­sador to Brazil, re­turned from there re­cent­ly and is quar­an­tined with his fam­i­ly. Browne had pre­vi­ous­ly served in the Patrick Man­ning PNM gov­ern­ment.

Yes­ter­day, Row­ley said (COVID) con­di­tions in Brazil are now wor­ri­some. He said Browne’s quar­an­tine is ex­pect­ed to end Sun­day and he ex­pects him out on Mon­day once Browne’s test is neg­a­tive. Row­ley said Browne is ex­pe­ri­enced, has held Cab­i­net re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and his se­lec­tion is an­oth­er step in the pub­lic ser­vice which Browne can ful­fil.

Among changes, Row­ley said he’s put Ed­u­ca­tion in the hands of two moth­ers - Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and Min­is­ter in Ed­u­ca­tion Lisa Mor­ris-Julien.

“And I trust they couldn’t be bet­ter placed – the two of them are re­spon­si­ble for their own fam­i­lies and for the chil­dren of T&T now,” he said.

The most sig­nif­i­cant thing he ex­pects in that min­istry is a rad­i­cal re­form of T&T’s cur­ricu­lum from pri­ma­ry to sec­ondary school. He asked the two women to en­sure re­form places the top­ic of civics on the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem cur­ricu­lum to pre­pare peo­ple for cit­i­zen­ship.

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Di­vi­sion will now be un­der the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter. Min­is­ter in the OPM Symon De No­bri­ga will be Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter, re­plac­ing Don­na Cox, who moves to So­cial De­vel­op­ment.

Row­ley al­so thanked those who’d ad­vised him on who should hold Fi­nance. He said at this time, a min­is­ter who knew what is hap­pen­ing is Fi­nance is need­ed and this wasn’t the time for ex­per­i­ment­ing and train­ing – but for ex­pe­ri­ence,

“This is a pe­ri­od where chal­lenges of fi­nanc­ing and bud­get­ing aren’t for the faint-heart­ed and I as­sure you the cur­rent Fi­nance Min­is­ter (Im­bert) isn’t a faint-heart­ed per­son.”

Along­side Im­bert is San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning, who will be a Min­is­ter in Fi­nance.

For­mer min­is­ter in Fi­nance Allyson West now heads Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion. West held Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion af­ter for­mer Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald was charged by po­lice.

An­oth­er new face in Gov­ern­ment, Sen­a­tor Has­sel Bac­chus, will be a min­is­ter in Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion. He’s TSTT’s for­mer Chief Tech­nol­o­gy of­fi­cer.

Row­ley said the ex­pe­ri­enced Franklin Khan was re­turned to En­er­gy since ex­pe­ri­ence was very valu­able in the en­er­gy busi­ness.

3 min­istries fo­cus on youths

The new Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice Min­istry held by Fitzger­ald Hinds will pro­vide a path to train youths to pick up re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in ar­eas, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley said.

The min­istry will re­build three youth camps and re­lo­cate youths from un­pro­duc­tive ac­tiv­i­ties to oth­er ar­eas. He said con­ver­sa­tions will al­so have to be held on what na­tion­al ser­vice means.

Re­tain­ing the pre­vi­ous Agri­cul­ture team of Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat and Avinash Singh, he said the thrust will be not on­ly to­wards di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion but al­so search for the next gen­er­a­tion of farm­ers. The team will bring agri­cul­tur­al lands in­to pro­duc­tion and en­cour­age youths to­wards farm­ing and sup­port­ing ex­ist­ing farms.

“With­out farm­ing, there will be no farm­ers and with­out this, there will be lit­tle agri­cul­ture,” he said.

Row­ley said there’s al­so syn­er­gy in the com­bi­na­tion of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment held by Sham­fa Cud­joe. The min­istry is al­so ex­pect­ed to as­sist youths de­vel­op in com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing sports.

Out of the nine PNM MPs re­moved as can­di­dates, for­mer San Fer­nan­do East MP Ran­dall Mitchell is the on­ly one al­lo­cat­ed a min­istry. He re­tained Tourism, which he pre­vi­ous­ly held and to which was added the Cul­ture and Arts port­fo­lios. Row­ley said the lat­ter are in­te­gral parts of what tourism will be­come when it re­turns to life.

T&T’S NEW GOV­ERN­MENT

PRIME MIN­IS­TER Dr Kei­th Row­ley (MP)

AT­TOR­NEY GEN­ER­AL & LE­GAL AF­FAIRS - Faris Al-Rawi (MP)

AGRI­CUL­TURE - Clarence Ramb­harat (Sen­a­tor)

ED­U­CA­TION - Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly (MP)

EN­ER­GY & EN­ER­GY IN­DUS­TRIES - Franklin Khan (Sen­a­tor)

FI­NANCE - Colm Im­bert (MP)

HEALTH - Ter­rence Deyals­ingh (MP)

HOUS­ING & UR­BAN DE­VEL­OP­MENT - Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son (MP)

LABOUR - Steven McLashie (MP)

LO­CAL GOV­ERN­MENT/RUR­AL DE­VEL­OP­MENT - Kaz­im Ho­sein (Sen­a­tor)

NA­TION­AL SE­CU­RI­TY & MIN­IS­TER IN THE OF­FICE OF PM - Stu­art Young (MP)

PLAN­NING & DE­VEL­OP­MENT - Camille Robin­son-Reg­is (MP)

PUB­LIC AD­MIN­IS­TRA­TION & DIG­I­TAL TRANS­FOR­MA­TION - Allyson West

PUB­LIC UTIL­I­TIES - Mar­vin Gon­za­les (MP)

SO­CIAL DE­VEL­OP­MENT & FAM­I­LY SER­VICES - Don­na Cox (Sen­a­tor)

SPORT & COM­MU­NI­TY DE­VEL­OP­MENT- Sham­fa Cud­joe (MP)

CUL­TURE, TOURISM & The ARTS - Ran­dall Mitchell (Sen­a­tor)

TRADE & IN­DUS­TRY - Paula Gopee-Scoon (Sen­a­tor)

WORKS & TRANS­PORT - Ro­han Sinanan (Sen­a­tor)

YOUTH DE­VEL­OP­MENT & NA­TION­AL SER­VICES- Fitzger­ald Hinds (MP)

TO COME: FOR­EIGN & CARI­COM AF­FAIRS - Dr Amery Browne (Sen­a­tor)

MIN­IS­TERS IN MIN­ISTRIES

San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning - Fi­nance

To­ba­go East MP Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy- Of­fice of the PM (Gen­der/Chil­dren’s Af­fairs)

Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga - Of­fice of the PM (Com­mu­ni­ca­tion)

Sen­a­tor Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal - Min­istry of the AG and Le­gal Af­fairs

Sen­a­tor Avinash Singh - Agri­cul­ture

D’Abadie O’Meara MP Lisa Mor­ris-Julien - Ed­u­ca­tion

Sen­a­tor Has­sel Bac­chus - Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion & Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion

Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce - Hous­ing & Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment

La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro MP Fos­ter Cum­mings - Works & Trans­port