JENSEN LA VENDE 

Se­nior Re­porter 

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt 

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad be­lieves the ap­point­ment of Colm Im­bert as Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties is a de­mo­tion for the se­nior Cab­i­net min­is­ter, while an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed be­lieves he was placed there to help im­ple­ment in­creas­es in pub­lic util­i­ty rates. 

The two spoke with Guardian Me­dia af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s Cab­i­net was sworn in yes­ter­day, with Im­bert be­ing re­moved as Fi­nance Min­is­ter and Vish­nu Dhan­paul, who served as High Com­mis­sion­er to the Unit­ed King­dom, re­plac­ing Im­bert. 

“I think that is a clear de­mo­tion. I don’t think he (Im­bert) was well-liked in the Cab­i­net or by the pop­u­la­tion, giv­en his strin­gent fi­nan­cial poli­cies. But more than that, the at­ti­tude, the ar­ro­gance that he ex­hib­it­ed did not go down well with the pop­u­la­tion,” Ram­per­sad said. 

How­ev­er, Mo­hammed said Im­bert’s reshuf­fle was po­lit­i­cal foot­balling in ac­tion. 

“Mr Im­bert is in Pub­lic Util­i­ties. Is Mr Im­bert a new gov­ern­ment hench­man? Would he re­al­ly want to raise the price of the rates of wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty? It’ll have to be seen. So, where he didn’t guide us, you know, where he put us in de­spair as a na­tion, as it per­tains to the coun­try’s eco­nom­ics, is he now put in­to Pub­lic Util­i­ties to do an­oth­er hench­man’s job on the pop­u­la­tion,” Mo­hammed claimed.

He added the de­ci­sion by the Prime Min­is­ter to re­tain his port­fo­lio as En­er­gy Min­is­ter meant he would be work­ing non-stop and opined that Bri­an Man­ning would have been bet­ter utilised in that min­istry to give Young more space to fo­cus on be­ing Prime Min­is­ter. 

Both an­a­lysts agreed though that Fitzger­ald Hinds be­ing re­moved as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter was a wel­comed move as he was not ef­fec­tive in the po­si­tion. 

For Ram­per­sad, she be­lieved Hinds failed as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and ques­tioned how he would per­form in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, while Mo­hammed said new­ly ap­point­ed Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les will have his work cut out for him. 

Ram­per­sad said she was puz­zled by the ap­point­ment of Camille Robin­son-Reg­is as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. She claimed it was not prac­ti­cal for an AG to serve with­out hav­ing prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence. 

“I’m not speak­ing le­gal re­quire­ment, I’m speak­ing prac­ti­cal re­quire­ments, you would want some­body with a le­gal back­ground, you know. So, I don’t see that mesh­ing well at all. I see prob­lems. We had prob­lems even with the Se­nior Coun­sel, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour. So, I think we’re go­ing to have more prob­lems with the new At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, not be­ing au courant with every­thing in the law as it is hap­pen­ing, not hav­ing a prac­tice.” 

Robin­son-Reg­is, ac­cord­ing to her bio, ob­tained her cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and the Nor­man Man­ley Law School in Ja­maica and worked as cor­po­rate sec­re­tary at Na­tion­al Flour Mills. She was ad­mit­ted to the bar in 1985.