KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

There has been a se­ries of res­ig­na­tions from state boards and po­lit­i­cal of­fices since the elec­tion vic­to­ry of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) on Mon­day’s elec­tion, sig­nalling the start of a ma­jor lead­er­ship over­haul across pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions.

The change in ad­min­is­tra­tion has trig­gered a wave of vol­un­tary de­par­tures of key fig­ures ap­point­ed dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) tenure.

Among the ear­li­est to step down was Sahid Ho­sein, who re­signed as chair­man of the Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NP) one day af­ter the elec­tion. Ac­knowl­edg­ing his sta­tus as a po­lit­i­cal ap­pointee, Ho­sein said it was “the right thing to do” to al­low the in­com­ing gov­ern­ment to in­stall its lead­er­ship.

Al­so step­ping aside was Shameer “Ron­nie” Mo­hammed, chair­man of Caribbean Air­lines, who in­formed staff of his de­par­ture in a bul­letin on Thurs­day. Mo­hammed, who had served on the board since 2016, thanked em­ploy­ees for their ded­i­ca­tion and de­scribed his tenure as an “in­cred­i­ble jour­ney.”

“To­geth­er, we have nav­i­gat­ed chal­lenges, cel­e­brat­ed achieve­ments, and built a com­pa­ny that not on­ly con­nects the Caribbean but al­so pro­vides a sense of pride and iden­ti­ty for our re­gion,” he said.

Michael A A Quam­i­na, SC, demit­ted of­fice as chair­man of Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL) on Thurs­day. In his farewell mes­sage, he praised the staff’s com­mit­ment and ex­pressed pride in the com­pa­ny’s na­tion­al role.

At the Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NED­CO), di­rec­tor Ar­lene Gorin-George al­so re­signed on Thurs­day, ex­press­ing grat­i­tude to the Min­istry of Fi­nance for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve and ex­tend­ing best wish­es for the com­pa­ny’s fu­ture suc­cess.

The en­tire board of the East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (EPOS) al­so stepped down. Chair­man Hillan More­an and Deputy Chair Dr Charisa-Marie Alex­is-Fran­cois re­signed ear­ly on Tues­day, fol­lowed by the re­main­ing di­rec­tors lat­er that day. More­an said the de­ci­sion was in keep­ing with ac­cept­ed prac­tice dur­ing a change in ad­min­is­tra­tion and pledged sup­port to the in­com­ing board.

With Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the UNC-led coali­tion ex­pect­ed to as­sume of­fice next week, fur­ther res­ig­na­tions are ex­pect­ed from statu­to­ry bod­ies, in­clud­ing the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty WASA), the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) and oth­er state agen­cies.

New board ap­point­ments are ex­pect­ed in the com­ing weeks, as the ad­min­is­tra­tion be­gins to im­ple­ment its de­vel­op­ment agen­da.

The PNM is un­der­go­ing its own in­ter­nal re­struc­tur­ing fol­low­ing the elec­tion de­feat. For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young re­signed as par­ty chair­man on Wednes­day, while po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced he was step­ping down ef­fec­tive Thurs­day, sig­nalling a tran­si­tion to a new gen­er­a­tion of lead­er­ship with­in the par­ty.