Gail Alexan­der

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er's no-holds-barred ap­proach, pi­lot­ed on the High­way Re-Route en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists, has stim- ulat­ed enough con­tro­ver­sy to dis­tract from the gold­en hand­shake Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai al- leg­ed­ly re­ceived from his for­mer state-owned FCB em­ploy­er.

Warn­er and Howai how­ev­er will con­tin­ue to hold the spot­light since their port­fo­lios-the two most cru­cial in the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion at this point-will be cri- tical­ly ob­served over the term. The com­po­si­tion of the new team in­di­cates it's been shaped to cor­rect Gov­ern­ment's "mis­steps," de­tours and flops along its two-year path, and es­pe­cial­ly re­cast PP's im­age con­cern­ing promis­es on an­ti-crime and coun­try man­age­ment for­ti­tude.

Checks among min­is­ters how­ev­er in­di­cat­ed many more than a few were peev­ed about the shifts, in­clud­ing some who were pro­mot­ed, as well as de­mo­tees. Sev­er­al may now iden­ti­fy with Warn­er, whose Works and Trans­port Min­istry was split in the Ju­ly 2011 reshuf­fle. Some ini­tial­ly per­ceived as "un­touch­able" and who had mega min­istry port­fo­lios saw those split or lost some as­pect in the changes.

Among them Su­ruj Ram­bachan and Fazal Karim, whose min­istries were split and Chan­dresh Shar­ma, shift­ed from Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment to a re­duced Trans­port (with Caribbean Air­lines re­turned to its tra­di­tion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Sole slot in Fi­nance). Few who had rea­son to cel­e­brate may have in­clud­ed Nizam Baksh, pro­mot­ed from Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment to Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Lin­coln Dou­glas (who once termed him­self "fur­ni­ture"), pro­mot­ed to Arts and Del­mon Bak­er, el­e­vat­ed to To­ba­go Af­fairs. But de­spite pro­mo­tion from Agri­cul­ture to Trade, Vas­ant Bha-rath has made it clear how much he'd in­vest­ed in the Agri­cul­ture man­date he re­ceived in 2010.

Even the nine min­is­ters un­af­fect­ed by shifts or port­fo­lio re­duc­tions are await­ing the gazetted ap­point­ment list to see if it holds any changes. At least one min­istry was ex­pand­ed how­ev­er fol­low­ing the PM's an­nounce­ment. The list in­clud­ed "Min­istry of Hous­ing," in­di­cat­ing En­vi­ron­ment and oth­er as­pects were re­moved from Roodal Mooni­lal.But the min­istry was sub­se­quent­ly in­creased to in­clude "State Lands and Ma­rine Re­sources." State Lands, for­mer­ly un­der Agri­cul­ture, in­volves is­sues con­cern­ing gov­ern­ment-owned land.

Ram­bachan, who gave up For­eign Af­fairs to Win­ston Dook­er­an, faces as big a chal­lenge as Warn­er-to prove him­self-in Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, now prepar­ing for 2013 polls. Un­like Warn­er, how­ev­er, Ram­bachan has a Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment back­ground and his al­pha style will dic­tate ef­forts to ex­cel.

Warn­er, though much tout­ed as Gov­ern­ment's best per­former, has to with­stand not on­ly sus­pi­cion on his Fi­fa is­sues-some of which re­main open-end­ed-but al­so Wednes­day's in­aus­pi­cious start to his tenure. The pro­mo­tion af­ter a de­mo­tion of sorts in 2011, puts Warn­er on the line in terms of abil­i­ty since his per­for­mance will help de­ter­mine PP's stocks and suc­cess, plus his own-po­lit­i­cal-fu­ture.

The ap­point­ment, though, may be a triple-edged sword for the PP. Not nec­es­sar­i­ly falling on­ly in the di­rec­tion of the an­ti-crime fight. Crim­i­nals would have had a laugh on Wednes­day when they re­alised that, rather than hunt­ing them, Warn­er's first Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty pri­or­i­ty was re­mov­ing HRM en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists, the bane of his for­mer min­istry's Pt Fortin project. It made a case for vic­tim­i­sa­tion claims since Warn­er said he called Works Min­is­ter Em­manuel George on the move (not the oth­er way around).

Apart from mak­ing PP's im­age vul­ner­a­ble to ac­cu­sa­tions of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in po­lice busi­ness and abuse of pow­er, it's raised queries about whether Warn­er is fol­low­ing the per­ceived pat­tern of PNM and PP pre­de­ces­sors: go­ing af­ter "small" rather than "big fish."

Warn­er's de­c­la­ra­tion that he was pre­pared for the con­se­quences-whether rise or fall-con­firms his recog­ni­tion of the neg­a­tive spot­light the is­sue has brought his Gov­ern­ment and his leader. He took pains on Thurs­day to re­move Per­sad- Bisses­sar from the is­sue, say­ing he didn't speak with her on it. PP sources said the COP stood by its con­cerns on the HRM re­moval dur­ing Thurs­day's Cab­i­net's dis­cus­sions.

It re­mains to be seen how Warn­er will en­joy the shift of his im­age from "peo­ple per­son" and how he will pur­sue se­cu­ri­ty im­prove­ments and mo­ti­vate po­lice to achieve this, since PR has lim­it­ed use in this min­istry. While Dook­er­an was "kicked up­stairs" to For­eign Af­fairs, which he'd ini­tial­ly want­ed, it re­mains to be seen who will act when PM Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at­tends next week's Cari­com sum­mit in St Lu­cia. Dook­er­an will ac­com­pa­ny her.

Sources, pro­ject­ing Warn­er may act, said COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har may not, since the COP has crit­i­cised cer­tain is­sues. TOP's Bak­er is seen as too ju­nior and MSJ's Er­rol Mc Leod no longer leads that par­ty. The team how­ev­er holds the rec-ord for irony in one re­spect-short­age of women in a fe­male-led Gov- ern­ment. The Cab­i­net has three wo-men in­clud­ing the PM. The Sen­ate team boasts on­ly Mar­lene Coudray and Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit while the House's has Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Nela Khan, Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin, Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine and Ra­mona Ram­di­al.

The changes will mean a make-or- break sit­u­a­tion for the PP in a sce­nario where the Op­po­si­tion is al­so set­tling in-house is­sues. Mon­day's PNM cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive not­ed dis­agree­ments in Ca­roni Cen­tral, St Ann's East and Diego Mar­tin units as con­stituen­cies fi­nalised is­sues for Sep­tem­ber's con­ven­tion, of­fi­cials said.