Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Pi­o­neer of the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) par­lia­men­tar­i­an, pub­lic ser­vant par ex­cel­lence, gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, Patrick Man­ning’s right-hand man and, through decades of ser­vice, al­ways soft-spo­ken and hum­ble.

This was how late for­mer PNM deputy leader and chair­man Dr Lenny Saith was re­mem­bered by peers, politi­cians and the Pres­i­dent af­ter his death yes­ter­day. The PNM has now been plunged in­to mourn­ing.

Saith died at his Sumadh Gar­dens, San Fer­nan­do home af­ter ail­ing for some time. He had been ap­proach­ing 90. He was an en­gi­neer whose ear­ly life’s work—in­clud­ing at Trin­to­plan and as the gov­ern­ment’s chief plan­ning and con­struc­tion en­gi­neer—con­tributed to projects that cat­a­pult­ed T&T’s di­rec­tion up­wards.

He emerged frontal­ly with the PNM af­ter the par­ty’s crush­ing 33-3 de­feat at the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion’s hands in 1986. Saith as­sist­ed the then op­po­si­tion leader Patrick Man­ning, be­com­ing Man­ning’s al­ly through­out their years in pol­i­tics. He re­tired in 2010. Saith’s par­lia­men­tary ca­reer be­gan in 1987 when he served as a tem­po­rary Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor un­til 1990. He went on to be­come a PNM deputy leader and chair­man, was gov­ern­ment Sen­ate leader for ten years af­ter en­ter­ing gov­ern­ment in Jan­u­ary 1992 with the Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion, and served dur­ing oth­er terms up to 2007.

Saith held the min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and In­for­ma­tion, plus the ad­di­tion­al port­fo­lio of Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries. He served as min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and al­so in Trade and De­vel­op­ment.

He al­so act­ed as prime min­is­ter on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions in the Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He was award­ed the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T in 2017. In 2018, he was among the in­au­gur­al group of re­cip­i­ents of the Dr Er­ic Williams Medal of Ho­n­our, the PNM’s high­est ac­co­lade.

Ac­co­lades pour in

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, in ex­tend­ing sin­cere con­do­lences to Saith’s fam­i­ly, friends and col­leagues, said, “Dr Saith de­vot­ed decades of ser­vice to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, hold­ing sev­er­al min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios across suc­ces­sive Par­lia­ments.

“The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent ex­press­es pro­found grat­i­tude for his en­dur­ing ser­vice to our na­tion and joins the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in mourn­ing his loss.”

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley stat­ed on Face­book, “I am very sad­dened by the news as I re­flect on my long as­so­ci­a­tion with this stal­wart of pub­lic ser­vice to all the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“In all these years of shar­ing time, space and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty with him, through storms and even provo­ca­tions, I have nev­er seen him frown or ut­ter a word in anger. He was al­ways that calm­ing voice that steered dis­cus­sions to rea­son and good out­comes.”

Saith was among the cadre of leg­endary tech­nocrats who craft­ed the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate in late Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams’ time, his sis­ter-in-law Di­ane Seuk­er­an re­called.

“Lenny was low pro­file but very present. My broth­er-in-law was a re­mark­able man, qui­et and peace­ful, but when he spoke, voic­ing vol­umes of sense and wis­dom.”

“He was a pub­lic ser­vant par ex­cel­lence—a man who was the very an­tithe­sis of a politi­cian,” added Faris Al- Rawi.

Po­lit­i­cal gi­ant

—Beck­les

Op­po­si­tion PNM leader Pen­ny Beck­les added, “He was a colos­sus in all of his spheres of in­flu­ence and left an in­deli­ble mark in every space—pro­fes­sion­al, so­cial and per­son­al—that he oc­cu­pied.

“De­spite his many ac­co­lades and achieve­ments, Dr Saith had no airs about him. He was a sim­ple and hum­ble man. He sought nei­ther po­si­tion nor sta­tus and en­deared him­self to peo­ple, many of whom loved work­ing with him.

“He was known to en­cour­age peo­ple to op­er­ate at lev­els that they them­selves did not know or be­lieve that they were ca­pa­ble of.

“He brought his pro­fes­sion­al fer­vour to the chair­man’s port­fo­lio and tremen­dous­ly aid­ed in turn­ing the par­ty’s for­tunes around.”

‘PNM owes him’

For­mer PNM chair­man Con­rad Enill said, “While a lot of pol­i­cy de­ci­sions were be­ing tak­en, Dr Saith led that process. In many in­stances, he was a men­tor and im­ple­menter. He had cor­po­rate ex­pe­ri­ence, bring­ing that spe­cial skill to the gov­er­nance process, and in that way, suc­cess in many things was achieved with­in spe­cif­ic time­frames.

“He cre­at­ed a sense of peace, calm and sta­bil­i­ty that al­lowed oth­ers to do their best work. In many in­stances, he stood as the de­fence mech­a­nism be­tween young in­di­vid­u­als en­ter­ing and the re­al­i­ty of pol­i­tics. We owe him a debt of grat­i­tude for his con­tri­bu­tion.”

Saith is sur­vived by his wife, Rad­i­ca; daugh­ters Re­sha and Ma­li­ni; grand­daugh­ter; his in-laws, in­clud­ing Di­ane Seuk­er­an; and nephew, PNM sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi, and his twin sis­ter, Aas­ma Al Rawi-Sinanan.

His fu­ner­al ser­vice will take place at 4.15 pm on Thurs­day at JE Guide Fu­ner­al Home in San Fer­nan­do.

Tire­less work to re­build PNM – Ford

For­mer PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford said, “Dr Lenny Saith can best be re­mem­bered as the steady hand and guid­ing pres­ence who stood at the cross­roads of the ‘good and the bad’ with­in the PNM. From the mo­ment he en­tered the par­ty, he joined forces with then po­lit­i­cal leader Patrick Man­ning and Dr Kei­th Row­ley in the mon­u­men­tal task of re­build­ing the move­ment af­ter its shat­ter­ing gen­er­al elec­tion de­feat in 1986.”

“That marked the first elec­toral loss for the par­ty in 30 years...Yet, Dr Saith and his col­leagues em­braced the chal­lenge. Tire­less­ly, for five long years, they jour­neyed from con­stituen­cy to con­stituen­cy, speak­ing at cot­tage meet­ings—some­times to small, qui­et gath­er­ings, some­times to more spir­it­ed au­di­ences in tra­di­tion­al PNM strong­holds.”

“With com­pas­sion and de­ter­mi­na­tion, they sought to heal wounds, re­store con­fi­dence, and rekin­dle PNM’s spir­it. Their per­se­ver­ance was re­ward­ed in 1991, when the PNM re­turned tri­umphant­ly to of­fice,” Ford added.

In 1992, at the par­ty lev­el, Saith was elect­ed chair­man, a po­si­tion in which his calm de­meanour and steady lead­er­ship be­came in­valu­able. At a time when many MPs and in the sen­ate were new­com­ers, Dr Saith was the uni­fy­ing fig­ure—me­thod­i­cal, busi­nesslike, and re­spect­ed for his fair­ness.”

“He ap­proached dis­putes with wis­dom and tact, set­tling mat­ters swift­ly and de­ci­sive­ly, both with­in the par­ty and in his min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.”

Ford worked with Saith dur­ing his tenure as par­lia­men­tary sec­re­tary in the pub­lic util­i­ties and trans­port min­istry. Saith served as vice chair­man of the pub­lic trans­port ser­vice com­mis­sion (PTSC).

“Even then, his lead­er­ship qual­i­ties, hu­mil­i­ty, and com­mit­ment to ser­vice shone through. His po­lit­i­cal jour­ney was marked by dis­tinc­tion.... His trust­ed part­ner­ship with prime min­is­ter Man­ning un­der­scored the con­fi­dence re­posed in him, a tes­ta­ment to his un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion and com­pe­tence.”

“Though he re­tired from ac­tive pol­i­tics in 2010, Dr Saith con­tin­ued mak­ing qui­et, mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tions while the par­ty was in op­po­si­tion... He leaves be­hind a lega­cy of hu­mil­i­ty, dig­ni­ty, and res­olute com­mit­ment to the PNM and the na­tion. He’ll for­ev­er be re­mem­bered as a man of calm strength, deep re­spect, and self­less ser­vice—one who car­ried out every du­ty en­trust­ed to him with grace and ho­n­our.”

For­mer MP Ran­dall Mitchell added, “Dr Saith was a ded­i­cat­ed pub­lic ser­vant—one of the PNM’s great strate­gists. He gave decades of ser­vice to our coun­try, hold­ing key min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios and al­ways work­ing with com­mit­ment, dis­ci­pline, and vi­sion for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. His lega­cy of ser­vice and loy­al­ty to par­ty and coun­try will al­ways be re­mem­bered.”