KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

At 10.11 am yes­ter­day, Stu­art Young be­came Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eighth Prime Min­is­ter. It is a role he says he feels ho­n­oured to be be­stowed, as he looks for­ward to be­ing able to de­liv­er to cit­i­zens.

Fol­low­ing his swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s, yes­ter­day, Young said, “It’s a great ho­n­our to be the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go. This is an ho­n­our on­ly sev­en per­sons have had be­fore me and I am tak­ing that very se­ri­ous­ly, es­pe­cial­ly the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that I know that comes along with it and apart from be­ing ho­n­oured and a sense of great re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, I’m re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to de­liv­er­ing for the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go in this new role and port­fo­lio.”

The 50-year-old, born on Up­per Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain, al­so wast­ed no time in ex­er­cis­ing his prime min­is­te­r­i­al pow­ers by ap­point­ing a new cab­i­net, in­clud­ing the ap­point­ment of Camille Robin­son-Reg­is as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Young pledged to fo­cus on tack­ling crime, help­ing young peo­ple and de­vel­op­ing the econ­o­my.

In his first ad­dress as PM, with par­ents Richard and Prescil­la and sons Er­ic and Ethan in the front row to wit­ness him seal his name in this coun­try’s his­to­ry books, Young pledged to lead with in­tegri­ty.

He said, “As we be­gin this new chap­ter, this is my com­mit­ment to you, I will lead with in­tegri­ty, in­clu­sion and ac­count­abil­i­ty. We will har­ness our unique strengths, di­ver­si­ty and as­pi­ra­tions to build a fu­ture where every cit­i­zen has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to thrive.

“I will work tire­less­ly with each and every cit­i­zen who wants to be a part of this jour­ney to cre­ate a safer, stronger and pros­per­ous Trinidad and To­ba­go to take on crime so that every­one feels safe and se­cure in their own neigh­bour­hoods, to fu­el our in­no­va­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty and cul­ture, to dri­ve eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion where every sin­gle cit­i­zen can chart their own des­tiny to en­sure that young peo­ple will have a seat at the ta­ble.”

Though the Op­po­si­tion has threat­ened to legal­ly chal­lenge his ap­point­ment, Young said he is open to work­ing with them.

He said, “I ask the Op­po­si­tion and the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion to join with me to build a bet­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go and that’s as much as I can do, and I ask that with clean hands and a clean heart ... It is up to the leader of the Op­po­si­tion and every cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go as to how they want to go for­ward with Trinidad and To­ba­go. I am not go­ing to be hin­dered in any way by any­one who does not want what is best for Trinidad and To­ba­go. There may be le­gal pa­ra­me­ters, etc. but so be it but let’s wait and see how it un­folds.”

Asked how he would dif­fer­en­ti­ate him­self from for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley now that he heads the Gov­ern­ment, Young said there are a lot of things he could build on from the work Row­ley has done but said the coun­try will see the change un­fold.