Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A man of the peo­ple, a ser­vant of the peo­ple, a pa­tri­ot and an in­no­va­tor.

Those were among the many trib­utes paid to Fazal Karim, for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) gen­er­al sec­re­tary, for­mer Ch­agua­nas East MP and ex-Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship min­is­ter, who died yes­ter­day.

Karim was 71.

His Janazah is at 1.30 pm to­day at Cara­pichaima Masjid Hall. Bur­ial is at Wa­ter­loo Mus­lim Ceme­tery. He was said to have been ill.

Karim, whose fam­i­ly is­sued no­tice of his death, said he, “Served at the right hand of for­mer prime min­is­ter, the Ho­n­ourable Bas­deo Pan­day as the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress from 2000 to 2010, as well as a Sen­a­tor and Min­is­ter in the Cab­i­net of (then) Prime Min­is­ter the Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.”

Pan­day died on Jan­u­ary 1.

Karim served in posts dur­ing Pan­day’s ad­min­is­tra­tion’s tenure and Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­min­is­tra­tion. He was a PP gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor from 2010 to 2015 and a UNC MP from 2015 to 2020.

Karim served as Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing (May 2010 to Sep­tem­ber 2015) and Ch­agua­nas East MP (Sep­tem­ber 2015 to Au­gust 2020).

The fam­i­ly stat­ed Karim served as the CEO of the Na­tion­al Train­ing Agency (1999 to 2007), the CEO of YTEPP (1997 to 1999), a di­rec­tor and board mem­ber of sev­er­al State agen­cies, co­or­di­na­tor of the UWI School of Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies, lec­tur­er and teacher for many years.

Karim is sur­vived by his wife of 47 years Apos­tle Dr Judy Karim, chil­dren Rhon­da, Ria and Rhion, son-in-law Dr Col­in Samuel, daugh­ter-in-law Zi­ta Karim, and grand­chil­dren Jor­dan, Chris­ten, Christo­pher-Reign, Vic­to­ria and Ethan-John.

The fam­i­ly said Karim’s great­est love and ac­com­plish­ment was his fam­i­ly who stayed by his side to the very end, added, “Fazal was the epit­o­me of a ser­vant of the peo­ple, ded­i­cat­ing his en­tire life to em­pow­er­ing cit­i­zens of all ages through ed­u­ca­tion and skills train­ing.”

They said he was es­pe­cial­ly pas­sion­ate about el­e­vat­ing the sta­tus and recog­ni­tion of vo­ca­tion­al skills and worked tire­less­ly to­wards the “par­i­ty of es­teem (sic) of the sec­tor, en­vi­sion­ing and pi­o­neer­ing the Caribbean Vo­ca­tion­al Qual­i­fi­ca­tion through CXC, Work­force As­sess­ment Cen­tres, and many oth­er in­no­v­a­tive ini­tia­tives to pro­vide wide­spread ac­cess to vo­ca­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion/ train­ing.”

As an ad­min­is­tra­tor, ed­u­ca­tor and com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist, they said he pos­i­tive­ly im­pact­ed the lives of tens of thou­sands across the re­gion, con­stant­ly cre­at­ing new pro­grammes and projects to help peo­ple find path­ways to em­ploy­ment and ad­vance­ment.

“He’s left an in­deli­ble mark on the lives, hearts and souls of our na­tion’s chil­dren, hav­ing re­moved bar­ri­ers to ac­cess for ed­u­ca­tion­al and ca­reer ad­vance­ment and mak­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for learn­ing wide­ly avail­able through his ex­pan­sion of the GATE pro­gramme, UWI, UTT, COSTAATT, MIC, NESC and YTEPP.

“He was tru­ly a man of the peo­ple, re­mem­bered fond­ly by so many who’d see him in the mar­kets buy­ing pro­duce on week­ends, shop­ping in gro­ceries and hard­wares and at com­mu­ni­ty events on a reg­u­lar ba­sis. He em­braced peo­ple of all re­li­gions, eth­nic­i­ties and eco­nom­ic lev­els and re­mained a hum­ble, ac­ces­si­ble and kind man re­gard­less of po­si­tion and place in life,” his fam­i­ly said in a state­ment.

‘True pa­tri­ot’

Karim, who was re­placed as UNC’s Ch­agua­nas East can­di­date in 2020 by Van­dana Mo­hit, was seen at events sup­port­ing UNC’s San Fer­nan­do West can­di­date Sean Sobers for the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Yes­ter­day, UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar, ex­press­ing deep sor­row, added, “Fazal will be re­mem­bered for the great strides he made in sev­er­al crit­i­cal spheres of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment par­tic­u­lar­ly in ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion. He was well loved and T&T is in­deed poor­er to have lost a pa­tri­ot­ic son.”

The par­ty’s deputy leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said, “Fazal was a pa­tri­ot, ded­i­cat­ed and com­mit­ted pub­lic ser­vant who worked stren­u­ous­ly in the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor and pi­o­neered sev­er­al im­por­tant ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion ini­tia­tives. He’s left a lega­cy ... his vi­sion for a bet­ter T&T was epit­o­mised by his slo­gan ‘we must take our youth from cut­ting cane to fly­ing plane’.”

Deputy leader (gov­er­nance) for HOPE Louis Lee Sing said, “Fazal was a found­ing mem­ber of HOPE, work­ing with us from 2022 ap­prox­i­mate­ly one year un­til Au­gust 2023 when his ill­ness in­creased. It’s re­gret­table los­ing such a pa­tri­ot, he’d have been a great con­trib­u­tor.”

For­mer UNC min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath al­so paid trib­ute to Karim say­ing he served the UNC and T&T with un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment, earn­ing the re­spect and ad­mi­ra­tion of col­leagues on both sides of the aisle.

“His pass­ing leaves a void, not eas­i­ly filled, in the po­lit­i­cal land­scape, as he’d been an in­valu­able as­set, as UNC Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary and a most com­pe­tent and ac­com­plished Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship min­is­ter. He was one of a few, that left gov­ern­ment with his head held high, prin­ci­ples not be­ing tarred with the brush of ar­ro­gance and cor­rup­tion. Re­gret­tably, al­though hav­ing ac­com­plished much for his con­stituents and laud­ed for his ex­em­plary work, he was un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly and un­fair­ly re­moved by the pow­ers that be, as Ch­agua­nas East MP—an atroc­i­ty he nev­er for­got or for­gave in our many dis­cus­sions,” Bharath added.

NTA leader Gary Grif­fith hail­ing Karim as a states­man and pa­tri­ot, laud­ed his pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ded­i­ca­tion to pub­lic ser­vice.

“Even in the last few months, since NTA’s for­ma­tion, he con­tin­ued of­fer­ing his full sup­port and en­cour­age­ment, un­der­stand­ing the trans­for­ma­tive im­pact NTA aims to make in unit­ing our coun­try.”

Trib­utes at JSC meet­ing

At yes­ter­day’s Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (State En­ter­pris­es) on TSTT, chair­man An­tho­ny Vieira an­nounced the death of Fazal Karim, a for­mer mem­ber.

Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh, a JSC mem­ber, said, “We re­mem­ber (Karim) for his ser­vice to the coun­try, a man who made an in­deli­ble con­tri­bu­tion to T&T’s de­vel­op­ment be­ing an life­long ed­u­ca­tor- a sec­ondary school teacher who had worked at UWI and served as min­is­ter.”

TSTT chair­man Sean Roach added, “I too had a good re­la­tion­ship with him. I met him in 2012 to dis­cuss mat­ters when Keshorn (Wal­cott) won the gold medal.”

Ear­ly yes­ter­day, the UNC’s Dave Tan­coo who suc­ceed­ed Karim as UNC gen­er­al sec­re­tary, said, “May the Lord grant his fam­i­ly Sabr and re­ward him and them, with Khair both in this world and the next.”

UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader David Lee said Karim was an in­no­va­tor.

“He left his mark on T&T’s tech­ni­cal and vo­ca­tion­al sec­tor ... in­sti­tut­ing some of the most dy­nam­ic re­forms to tech­ni­cal train­ing which ben­e­fit­ed hun­dreds of youths. We’ll nev­er for­get his fa­mous words ‘from cut­ting cane to fly­ing plane’’ in launch­ing the Avi­a­tion In­sti­tute, the first of its kind in the Caribbean. An­oth­er rev­o­lu­tion­ary project was the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre (NESC) Drilling Acad­e­my with a rig for train­ing. Fazal un­der­stood T&T’s great­est re­source was youth and was de­ter­mined to nur­ture and de­vel­op them.”

UNC’s Rush­ton Paray added, “His im­pact was far-reach­ing. He was a true schol­ar, de­vot­ed to ex­pand­ing aca­d­e­m­ic and skills train­ing, leav­ing an in­deli­ble mark on the ed­u­ca­tion­al land­scape.”

For­mer UNC coun­cil­lor Safraz Ali said Karim helped peo­ple in San Juan East with flood re­lief sup­plies, dur­ing the heavy flood­ing in 2019.

“He im­me­di­ate­ly con­tact­ed me when he saw the sever­i­ty.”