Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day as­sured that his de­par­ture from pol­i­tics will not leave a lead­er­ship vac­u­um in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) or the gov­ern­ment.

Speak­ing af­ter the par­ty’s screen­ing ex­er­cise for To­ba­go East and West, Dr Row­ley ex­pand­ed on his de­ci­sion to re­tire from pol­i­tics af­ter 45 years. He promised a seam­less tran­si­tion for the par­ty and the coun­try.

“One thing for sure—there’s go­ing to be no vac­u­um,” he said.

Al­though he de­clined to name his pref­er­ence for a suc­ces­sor, Row­ley ex­pressed full con­fi­dence in the con­sti­tu­tion­al process for se­lect­ing new lead­er­ship.

“Un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, they (Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment) have a role to play, and I have every con­fi­dence that they will play the role they are re­quired to play as the sit­u­a­tion evolves.”

He con­firmed he will not re­main PNM leader un­til 2026, em­pha­sis­ing his readi­ness to leave ear­li­er if cir­cum­stances re­quire.

“I al­ways tell my col­leagues, don’t fall in love with these jobs. There are times when you have to leave them, and it’s bet­ter to leave on your terms than to be sent out,” he said.

Row­ley stressed that his de­ci­sion to step aside was a con­scious and cal­cu­lat­ed move, not an abrupt de­par­ture.

“I’m re­al­ly sur­prised that peo­ple are mak­ing such a big thing about this. This is how it ought to be. If I’m break­ing new ground here, it’s for good rea­son, and I hope the fu­ture looks more like this.”

Re­flect­ing on his tenure, Row­ley iden­ti­fied the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic re­sponse as the pin­na­cle of his ca­reer.

He said: “The COVID ex­pe­ri­ence for me, I think, would have been the high­light of my ca­reer. I was not on­ly func­tion­ing for Trinidad and To­ba­go but al­so lead­ing Cari­com dur­ing that dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od. I think we came out of it with sig­nif­i­cant cred­it.”

He com­mend­ed the Min­istry of Health for its role dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, stat­ing: “I was very proud to have led that health team that steered us through COVID. We didn’t just nav­i­gate the health cri­sis; we al­so main­tained the in­tegri­ty of the health­care sys­tem un­der tremen­dous strain.”

Dr Row­ley al­so high­light­ed achieve­ments in youth de­vel­op­ment, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, and en­er­gy.

“I am very proud of the youth pro­gramme by the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and the work of the Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion un­der Min­is­ter Bac­chus. These min­istries are chart­ing a path for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

“In en­er­gy, we rene­go­ti­at­ed con­tracts, re­struc­tured At­lantic LNG, and re­vived plat­form con­struc­tion lo­cal­ly, cre­at­ing jobs and restor­ing our ca­pa­bil­i­ty in that sec­tor,” he said.

Dr Row­ley was em­phat­ic about the sig­nif­i­cance of the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate’s re­vival.

“If I’ve done noth­ing else, putting Trinidad and To­ba­go in a po­si­tion to have Point Lisas as a gate­way in­to the world mar­ket for Venezue­lan gas, to me, is the high­light of my po­lit­i­cal ca­reer. This achieve­ment doesn’t just ben­e­fit us now; it se­cures our eco­nom­ic fu­ture,” he said.

He de­scribed the con­struc­tion of the Man­a­tee plat­form as a per­son­al tri­umph.

“When you go to the site and see the qual­i­ty of work and the lev­el of skills in­volved, it’s in­spir­ing. Know­ing that 100 per cent of it was done by our peo­ple—imag­ine if that plat­form wasn’t built here - all those work­ers would have been with­out jobs. Now, we’re not just build­ing one plat­form; we’re ready for the next.”

Asked about spec­u­la­tion that an up­com­ing PNM re­treat would se­lect a suc­ces­sor, Row­ley dis­missed those claims.

“We’ve had many re­treats be­fore, and we didn’t choose any­body. To­mor­row will be no dif­fer­ent,” he said

On the tim­ing of his de­par­ture, Row­ley said: “Be­cause of the way it’s evolv­ing, I couldn’t an­swer whether there will be any in­ter­nal PNM elec­tions be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tions. That’s not my de­ci­sion.”

When asked whether he had the gen­er­al elec­tion date in his back pock­et he replied: “All I have in my pock­et is a blue ban­dana. I don’t keep elec­tion dates there.”