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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Young: I didn’t enter politics for personal benefit

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18 days ago
20250628
Workmen adjust the pictures with the images of T&T's last three prime ministers, Dr Keith Rowley, Stuart Young and Kamla Persad-Bissessar, in the atrium at the Piarco International Airport yesterday. The information accompanying the pictures were updated.

Workmen adjust the pictures with the images of T&T's last three prime ministers, Dr Keith Rowley, Stuart Young and Kamla Persad-Bissessar, in the atrium at the Piarco International Airport yesterday. The information accompanying the pictures were updated.

COURTESY: PIARCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young (PNM PoS North MP) was ab­sent from Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day for de­bate on the con­tro­ver­sial Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025.

How­ev­er, in a state­ment, Young telegraphed the fact that he would be ab­sent as a form of protest of the move by Gov­ern­ment.

In a state­ment post­ed on so­cial me­dia, Young said, “Since I en­tered pol­i­tics as a tem­po­rary PNM op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor in March 2014, I have want­ed to make sus­tain­able, im­pact­ful and mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tions to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s growth and de­vel­op­ment. I did not en­ter pol­i­tics for per­son­al ma­te­r­i­al ben­e­fit.

“The UNC Gov­ern­ment has laid the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025 in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives for de­bate. This bill specif­i­cal­ly tar­gets me as for­mer Prime Min­is­ter. The bill’s retroac­tive ap­pli­ca­tion to March 10, 2025 is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly il­le­gal as it is ‘ad hominem’ (a law that tar­gets a spe­cif­ic in­di­vid­ual).

“I will not sup­port any ad hominem leg­is­la­tion and the abuse of the Con­sti­tu­tion. As a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple, it is my view that I should not par­tic­i­pate in or be present for the par­lia­men­tary de­bate of this bill. Ac­cord­ing­ly, I will not at­tend the par­lia­men­tary de­bate(s) on the bill.”

He added, “I will con­tin­ue to serve T&T to the best of my abil­i­ty and true to the oath that I have tak­en, with­out fear or favour, mal­ice or ill will.”

Mean­while, hours be­fore the bill was de­bat­ed, the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of T&T post­ed the de­tails of Young’s term as prime min­is­ter un­der a pho­to of him in the gallery of for­mer prime min­is­ters in the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port’s atri­um. Al­though Young’s pho­to had been post­ed be­fore yes­ter­day, the de­tails of the time he served as PM was miss­ing.


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