DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has con­firmed that in just over two weeks, he will hand over lead­er­ship of Trinidad and To­ba­go to prime min­is­ter-des­ig­nate Stu­art Young.

Af­ter more than four decades in pol­i­tics—hav­ing first con­test­ed an elec­tion in 1981—Dr Row­ley is prepar­ing to close the book on his tenure as the coun­try’s leader on March 16. But be­fore step­ping down, he in­tends to com­plete a fi­nal set of tasks in the com­ing weeks.

“Many peo­ple in pub­lic life do not be­lieve or for­get that your ser­vice in pub­lic life is re­al­ly for a pe­ri­od. Doesn’t mat­ter how good you are or how im­por­tant you think you are, it’s all about a spe­cif­ic pe­ri­od—long, medi­um, or short,” Row­ley told the gath­er­ing at the com­mis­sion­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian Boule­vard in Ari­ma.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian and two of her chil­dren died in a fire at their Ari­ma home last De­cem­ber, and the project was one of the ini­tia­tives she had cham­pi­oned for her con­stituen­cy.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing yes­ter­day that he was un­able to ac­com­plish every­thing he set out to do, Row­ley ex­pressed grat­i­tude for his con­tri­bu­tions to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. He said among his fi­nal tasks is over­see­ing the com­mis­sion­ing of the Cen­tral Block at the Port-of- Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, which he de­scribed as “the most sig­nif­i­cant thing we would have done in­fra­struc­tural­ly in the coun­try.”

“We will have the Cen­tral Block on the 10th of March. And, of course, on the 15th of March, we will take com­ple­tion of the con­struc­tion of the To­ba­go air­port ter­mi­nal build­ing. And as we do that, I leave you on the 16th of March as Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

As he pre­pares to trans­fer lead­er­ship to En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, Row­ley de­fend­ed his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s record.

“As fast as you take off what comes to you at the end of the belt, an­oth­er one ap­pears al­most in­stan­ta­neous­ly. Just cast your mind back on roads that didn’t have any pave­ments... But one week af­ter the pave­ment has been built, every­body for­gets that there was a time when there was no pave­ment. And there­fore, they start fo­cus­ing on an­oth­er prob­lem be­cause the con­vey­or belt keeps push­ing.”

How­ev­er, he warned crit­ics that while many de­mand im­me­di­ate so­lu­tions to the coun­try’s chal­lenges, fi­nan­cial con­straints re­main a re­al­i­ty.

“We will nev­er have enough mon­ey to do all that is re­quired to be done now. So we have to do some, leave some for lat­er, come back to them. But it’s a con­tin­u­ous process.”

Row­ley high­light­ed his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s in­fra­struc­tur­al achieve­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly in road de­vel­op­ment. He point­ed to the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port’s com­ple­tion of key projects, in­clud­ing:

• Phase one of the To­co Main Road up­grade in the East

• The Diego Mar­tin High­way over­pass and turn­ings near West­moor­ings in the West

• The mod­ern high­way to Point Fortin in the South-West

• The Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way lane-widen­ing project

• The North-South road con­nec­tion via Cu­mu­to to San­gre Grande

He added that in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment ex­tend­ed be­yond road­works, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the health­care sec­tor. He said de­spite fi­nan­cial con­straints, his Gov­ern­ment de­liv­ered new hos­pi­tals in Point Fortin, Ari­ma, San­gre Grande, and Rox­bor­ough.

Row­ley al­so promised a par­al­lel or sub-par­al­lel road to the Claude Noel High­way in To­ba­go to ad­dress wors­en­ing traf­fic con­ges­tion.

How­ev­er, he stressed that con­tin­ued progress de­pends on na­tion­al sup­port—hint­ing at the need for pub­lic back­ing as the coun­try ap­proach­es its next gen­er­al elec­tion.

“As I say, the con­vey­or belt is still work­ing. We still have a lot on the belt com­ing at us to be done. And it falls to us to have the con­fi­dence as a peo­ple that we can get done what needs to be done.”

PNM dis­miss­es talk

of in­sta­bil­i­ty

As the coun­try pre­pares for the tran­si­tion from one prime min­is­ter to an­oth­er, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings has re­ject­ed the no­tion of a con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis, say­ing the par­ty has sought le­gal guid­ance at every step.

He yes­ter­day as­sured the coun­try’s gov­er­nance will re­main sta­ble and ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the PNM’s prospects in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

“I do not share the view, at all, by some that there is go­ing to be any cri­sis of any kind. The par­ty, at every step of the way, makes sure that it con­sults to make sure that its de­ci­sions are with­in the law, and we are con­fi­dent that the course of ac­tion that will be tak­en will bring con­tin­ued sta­bil­i­ty in terms of the gov­er­nance of the coun­try.”

He was re­fer­ring to po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany’s warn­ing that the move could cre­ate con­sti­tu­tion­al in­sta­bil­i­ty be­cause Young would be the prime min­is­ter while Row­ley re­mains PNM leader.

Re­fer­ring to Sec­tion 76 (1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, Ghany has not­ed that the prime min­is­ter and par­ty leader ought not to be dif­fer­ent peo­ple.

Ghany cau­tioned: “If the Pres­i­dent goes down that road and (does not) ac­cept that in­ter­pre­ta­tion, she is go­ing to open up our sys­tem of gov­ern­ment to a very, very dan­ger­ous pe­ri­od of po­ten­tial in­sta­bil­i­ty for the fu­ture.”

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad echoed these con­cerns, de­scrib­ing the move as un­prece­dent­ed in T&T.

“I think it is a for­mu­la for chaos and even can lead to a con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis. This is not usu­al­ly the way a prime min­is­ter is ap­point­ed. In­di­rect­ly, a prime min­is­ter is elect­ed be­cause the po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty is elect­ed, and he’s the one that be­comes prime min­is­ter of the par­ty that com­mands the ma­jor­i­ty of seats in the House.”