Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has added two more mem­bers to her Gov­ern­ment, bring­ing it to a to­tal of 38 peo­ple.

On the eve of the First Ses­sion of the 13th Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment, at­tor­ney Dar­rell Al­la­har was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and Sen­a­tor David Nakhid was ap­point­ed Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs.

At a post-Cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ence at the Ca­bil­do Build­ing in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said both mem­bers would be “very good rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the Par­lia­ment” to “as­sist us with all the work we have there.”

Al­la­har joins Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary Nicholas Mor­ris.

Fol­low­ing his swear­ing-in at Pres­i­dent’s House yes­ter­day, Al­la­har re­mained tight-lipped when pressed about his func­tions and said he was sur­prised about the ap­point­ment.

“There are cer­tain things, mat­ters of state that you don’t say un­til the ap­pro­pri­ate time and per­haps I am not the ap­pro­pri­ate per­son. All will be re­vealed in due time… I am look­ing for­ward to mak­ing a use­ful con­tri­bu­tion in what­ev­er I am giv­en and what­ev­er I am al­lo­cat­ed to do,” he said.

Asked what made him say yes to the ap­point­ment, Al­la­har said, “This to me is a new chal­lenge, step­ping out of a com­fort zone from pri­vate prac­tice and I am look­ing for­ward to it in my 50s.

“What made me de­cide to say yes? I re­al­ly much ad­mire our Prime Min­is­ter’s vi­sion for Trinidad and To­ba­go and her work in bring­ing about a kinder, gen­tler Trinidad and that’s one of the things that at­tract­ed me to say yes.”

Al­la­har said the jus­tice sys­tem and the elec­tion process were two mat­ters of in­ter­est to him.

Al­la­har, 56, is new to the po­lit­i­cal are­na, as he has been a civ­il lawyer for 31 years, spend­ing 20 years in pri­vate prac­tice. He is a for­mer as­sis­tant reg­is­trar of the Supreme Court and al­so served as a le­gal ex­ec­u­tive to for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj.

Mar­ried and a fa­ther of two, Al­la­har’s wife and son are al­so at­tor­neys.

Out­spo­ken for­mer pro­fes­sion­al foot­baller Nakhid, who was on­ly in­formed of his ap­point­ment by Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Wednes­day, said he has grand plans to trans­form the Min­istry of Sport work­ing along­side his line Min­is­ter Phillip Watts.

“I was ex­pect­ing, based on the last five years, to be put in a po­si­tion that I can help Trinidad and To­ba­go. This is what I in­tend to do. I in­tend to use this op­por­tu­ni­ty to trans­form sports with­in our com­mu­ni­ties,” he said.

“I think it’s go­ing to be based on a mod­el that we have not had be­fore in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We’ve seen sport mere­ly as a hob­by. It’s go­ing to be front and cen­tre in how we trans­form, es­pe­cial­ly the East-West Cor­ri­dor and the un­der-served com­mu­ni­ties in the rur­al ar­eas and I in­tend to bring sexy back 100 per cent.”

He added, “I’m not hap­py with how foot­ball is in Trinidad, how Trin­bag­o­ni­ans are per­ceived but one step at a time.”