Akash Sama­roo

Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos

As Dr Kei­th Row­ley at­tend­ed what he said would be his last Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing as Prime Min­is­ter, his fel­low re­gion­al lead­ers wished him a hap­py re­tire­ment and re­flect­ed on their work­ing and per­son­al re­la­tion­ships with him.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on day two of the 48th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment in Bar­ba­dos yes­ter­day, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne said while he and Row­ley had their ups and downs, it did not tar­nish what he con­sid­ered an am­i­ca­ble re­la­tion­ship.

“Kei­th is a very good friend, we’ve had our dif­fer­ences, in fact, we’ve had many dif­fer­ences. But at the end of the day, we are good friends. I con­sid­er him to be a re­gion­al­ist and some­one who has made a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to Cari­com. He has been in the vine­yard for sev­er­al decades and would have con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We cer­tain­ly want to wish him suc­cess in his new en­deav­ours,” Prime Min­is­ter Browne said.

The An­tiguan PM said he is cer­tain Row­ley will re­main pro­duc­tive in his re­tire­ment and he even shared the nick­names they had for each oth­er.

“I’m sure he will not nec­es­sar­i­ly re­tire but find oth­er things to do, in­clud­ing farm­ing. We share a com­mon­al­i­ty where I’m Farmer Browne and he’s Farmer Kei­th,” Browne said jok­ing­ly.

PM Browne said Row­ley’s suc­ces­sor Stu­art Young will be judged based on his per­for­mance.

“I know Stu­art Young, I don’t want to be pre­emp­tive. I know he has the ca­pac­i­ty for sure, and his per­for­mance we will ob­serve and we will be able to make a de­ter­mi­na­tion in the fu­ture based on per­for­mance,” he said.

Mean­while, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves, in jest, said he wore a red shirt at the con­fer­ence in trib­ute to Row­ley.

“We have a good re­la­tion­ship. Every­body in Trinidad and To­ba­go knows the Uni­ty Labour Par­ty which I head, his­tor­i­cal­ly has a link with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). We don’t get in­volved in the pol­i­tics of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Gon­salves said.

He re­flect­ed that he al­so had a good work­ing re­la­tion­ship with for­mer prime min­is­ters Patrick Man­ning, Bas­deo Pan­day and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The St Vin­cent Prime Min­is­ter said he would cer­tain­ly miss Row­ley. He re­vealed a quote from Eng­lish po­et William Wordsworth he shared with the Prime Min­is­ter and the Trinidad and To­ba­go del­e­ga­tion on the tran­si­tion of pow­er in T&T.

“Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive but to be Young was very heav­en,” he said with a smile.

Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali al­so re­flect­ed on Row­ley’s con­tri­bu­tion to the re­gion and said he is cer­tain there is more to come.

“We have shared many in­sight­ful con­ver­sa­tions on many im­por­tant glob­al and re­gion­al is­sues and I ben­e­fit­ted from his strong un­der­stand­ing of glob­al and re­gion­al is­sues. I think that he is re­tir­ing as Prime Min­is­ter of T&T but he still has a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to make in the re­gion­al space. And re­tir­ing as PM of T&T he would have more time avail­able for re­gion­al mat­ters and to par­tic­i­pate in a fuller and freer way in re­gion­al poli­cies,” Pres­i­dent Ali said.

He al­so said he had many con­ver­sa­tions with Min­is­ter Young when he par­tic­i­pat­ed at the En­er­gy Con­fer­ence in Guyana and there­fore he knows the in­com­ing prime min­is­ter well.

Do­mini­ca Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit al­so ex­pressed well-wish­es to the out­go­ing leader.

“It has been a plea­sure work­ing with Dr Row­ley. I’ve known him for a long time and he’s served his 10 years as PM of T&T and we’ve had very cor­dial per­son­al and of course at the Prime Min­is­ter-lev­el re­la­tion­ships and we wish him well. And I do hope that his ex­pe­ri­ences can con­tin­ue to be shared with the rest of the Caribbean,” Sker­rit said.

In Jan­u­ary, fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment that he would be leav­ing as Prime Min­is­ter which was fol­lowed by nam­ing his suc­ces­sor, Row­ley said he would at­tend this Cari­com meet­ing to wrap up some busi­ness with the sub-com­mit­tees he was in­volved in and soon af­ter he would demit of­fice.