Renu­ka Singh

It’s been one year since the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion and since the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment took of­fice.

At last year’s elec­tion, the de­fend­ing PNM was able to amass some 13,000 votes over the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

The past year was not with­out great dif­fi­cul­ty as the coun­try dealt with the COVID-19 virus and the glob­al bat­tle for vac­cines.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh and the par­ty pub­lic re­la­tions Of­fi­cer Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing for feed­back on this past year.

Young, in his re­sponse, said the Gov­ern­ment “has con­tin­ued to guide Trinidad and To­ba­go through dif­fi­cult times brought on by the glob­al pan­dem­ic ie COVID-19.”

“I am con­fi­dent that we will suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gate these un­prece­dent­ed times and dif­fi­cul­ties,” Young said.

Young said the Prime Min­is­ter has pro­vid­ed “the need­ed lead­er­ship over the last six years and es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the last year af­ter we were giv­en a fresh man­date by the pop­u­la­tion in Au­gust 2020.”

“Per­son­al­ly, I give the as­sur­ance to those who elect­ed me that I will con­tin­ue to give my best with­out fear or favour, mal­ice or ill will,” he said.

Leza­ma-Lee Sing said the PNM thanked the peo­ple of T&T “who have been dis­ci­plined and who are com­mit­ted to build­ing a new so­ci­ety as ar­tic­u­lat­ed in Vi­sion 2030.”

“We are all in this to­geth­er, and to­geth­er, we will achieve the best for our Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she said.

“One year ago, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment re­ceived a re­newed man­date from the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to man­age its af­fairs for a fur­ther 5 years,” she said.

Leza­ma-Lee Sing said that this first year since the elec­tion “has been noth­ing short of hum­bling.”

Laurel Lezama-Lee Sing

“This ad­min­is­tra­tion has had to gov­ern our peo­ple un­der ex­tra­or­di­nary con­di­tions, amidst some of the most dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances, at a time when the world con­tin­ues to grap­ple with the many mul­ti-lay­ered, mul­ti-faceted chal­lenges that have come with the glob­al pan­dem­ic,” she said.

“Hard de­ci­sions had to be tak­en, and our Prime Min­is­ter has done his best to act in the best in­ter­est of all the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she added.

“We in the PNM con­tin­ue to be grate­ful to the pop­u­la­tion for its con­fi­dence and be­lief in the work and the vi­sion of the PNM,” the PRO said.

She said over this past year, de­spite pre­vail­ing cir­cum­stances, the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion has achieved a num­ber of suc­cess­es.

She said this has been a very fruit­ful first par­lia­men­tary ses­sion, with the pas­sage of sev­er­al crit­i­cal pieces of leg­is­la­tion which pro­tect our women, which strength­en our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, and which all re­dound to the ben­e­fit of the pop­u­la­tion at large.

She said, “Sev­er­al min­istries, in­clud­ing Fi­nance; Agri­cul­ture; So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices; En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries; For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs; Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment; Works and Trans­port; Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty; and Ed­u­ca­tion have played an in­te­gral role in de­liv­er­ing items iden­ti­fied in our man­i­festo.”

The par­ty’s PRO said the Min­is­ter of Health and the team at the min­istry must be spe­cial­ly com­mend­ed for their ser­vice over the past year, and since the ad­vent of the pan­dem­ic in late 2019.

Leza­ma-Lee Sing added:”We are tremen­dous­ly grate­ful too, to the CMO and his team of pro­fes­sion­als, and to all the health­care providers and front­line work­ers who con­tin­ue to brave­ly bat­tle this in­vis­i­ble war on be­half of our coun­ty,”

She said the new min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice has come at a crit­i­cal time when “our peo­ple, and in par­tic­u­lar, our young peo­ple are called up­on to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for our coun­try. The min­is­ter has ar­tic­u­lat­ed a num­ber of plans to de­vel­op­ment of our young peo­ple and that will har­ness the pow­er of the youth.”

She said the Gov­ern­ment es­tab­lished a Re­cov­ery Plan, the in­tent of which is to:

-ad­dress and mit­i­gate the hard­ship in­flict­ed by COVID-19

-restart the econ­o­my

-lay the foun­da­tion for sus­tained eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery.

She said, “This PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion con­tin­ues to work as­sid­u­ous­ly in pur­suit of ful­fill­ing that man­date.

It is im­per­a­tive that we con­di­tion our­selves for life af­ter the se­vere rav­ages of COVID-19, and for liv­ing with the virus. The Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to es­tab­lish pro­to­cols for our new nor­mal and new re­al­i­ty.

Faris Al-Rawi

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Dur­ing this first year, we lost our beloved Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the Sen­ate/ Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Sen­a­tor the Hon. Franklin Khan, she said

Mean­while, Al-Rawi al­so com­ment­ed on the one year an­niver­sary of the last elec­tion.

He said he re­flect­ed “on my first year in the sec­ond term of the Gov­ern­ment by work­ing in the streets and out­side of the homes and busi­ness­es in San Fer­nan­do West,” yes­ter­day.

“COVID has been bru­tal on the lives of peo­ple in San Fer­nan­do West but though it all I am heart­ened by the im­mense progress that we have made in ad­vanc­ing the 11 projects that com­prise our wa­ter­front and re­de­vel­op­ment of San Fer­nan­do,” he said.

“I am de­vot­ed to bring­ing mean­ing pros­per­i­ty to my con­stituen­cy and thank the amaz­ing peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do West for repos­ing their faith and con­fi­dence in me,” Al-Rawi al­so said.