Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke asked her for a job.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the state­ment at yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Red House.

The Prime Min­is­ter was at the time speak­ing about the meet­ing be­tween her Gov­ern­ment and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine on Tues­day.

When asked if she had re­ceived a let­ter from the PDP leader and for­mer deputy chief sec­re­tary Duke about a ref­er­en­dum be­fore mov­ing for­ward with To­ba­go’s au­to­no­my, she said she did.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the let­ter she re­ceived from Duke was a con­grat­u­la­to­ry one on the Gen­er­al Elec­tion win and her be­com­ing Prime Min­is­ter.

She said, “If I were to be bru­tal­ly hon­est, sure, Wat­son Duke did send me con­grat­u­la­tions and every good word.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “He al­so asked me for a job. I’ll be hon­est, I did get it, and cer­tain­ly we are con­sid­er­ing it.”

She gave no de­tails about the job Duke re­quest­ed or whether she planned to ap­point him and, if so, in what role.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Duke con­firmed he asked Per­sad-Bisses­sar to work with Gov­ern­ment, but said it was done in the in­ter­est of serv­ing the peo­ple of To­ba­go and Trinidad.

“I did con­grat­u­late her, and as I al­ways do to any per­son who was the gov­ern­ment, that I am avail­able to work for and on be­half of the peo­ple of To­ba­go and Trinidad,” Duke said.

“I’m very much con­cerned about the liveli­hood of my peo­ple. I’m very much con­cerned about the pol­i­cy that shapes the life of my peo­ple. And so in that re­gard, I made my­self avail­able.”

He added, “It’s good for the Prime Min­is­ter to put it on the ta­ble. It’s al­so good for her to con­sid­er it be­cause all per­sons of Trinidad and To­ba­go... should make them­selves avail­able for the build­ing up of their coun­try.”

Duke al­so con­firmed he wrote to the Prime Min­is­ter con­cern­ing To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal fu­ture.

“The let­ter had to deal with To­ba­go’s right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and not ask­ing for au­ton­o­my,” he said.

“These are de­ci­sions for To­ba­go, and I thought it best that the Prime Min­is­ter be in­formed by my­self... that we all need to par­tic­i­pate in this de­ci­sion.”