When Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC, an­nounced her Cab­i­net re­con­fig­u­ra­tion and re­align­ment of min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios for ef­fi­ca­cy, Sen­a­tor the Ho­n­ourable Faris Al-Rawi seized the op­por­tu­ni­ty, dur­ing the mo­tion to adopt the re­port from the JSC on par­lia­men­tary ac­com­mo­da­tion, to dis­parag­ing­ly com­ment on the PM's de­ci­sions.

Con­dem­na­tion seems to be the or­der of the day and rings through the bi­cam­er­al cham­ber, es­pe­cial­ly by those that oc­cu­py the seats in the Op­po­si­tion. The Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter is ex­er­cis­ing her right as head of the Ex­ec­u­tive and as such, her Cab­i­net com­po­si­tion can­not be per­ceived as an anom­aly or some­thing that does not ob­tain in oth­er par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cies or sys­tems of gov­ern­ment that pat­tern the West­min­ster mod­el.

In the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, a look at the Cab­i­net com­po­si­tions un­der our na­tion's first Chief Min­is­ter and Prime Min­is­ter, the great and ven­er­a­ble aca­d­e­m­ic Dr Er­ic Williams, will re­veal that from 1955 to 1981, there were changes al­most every year to his Cab­i­net-some­times there were 13 mem­bers, 14, then 12 and then the num­ber as­cend­ed again. The bot­tom line is that he ad­just­ed his Cab­i­net how he saw fit.

With a chang­ing econ­o­my, plur­al so­ci­ety, and chang­ing cir­cum­stances, every sub­se­quent prime min­is­ter (George Cham­bers, ANR Robin­son, Patrick Man­ning, Bas­deo Pan­day) re­con­fig­ured their Cab­i­net, re­aligned port­fo­lios based on need, or the hu­man re­sources they had with the rel­e­vant forte.

There are some port­fo­lios that have been re­named, made re­dun­dant, and some merged un­der one um­brel­la. For ex­am­ple, un­der one prime min­is­ter, the Min­istry of Works/Trans­port/In­fra­struc­ture was three sep­a­rate min­istries, the Min­istry of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs no longer ex­ists and the con­tem­po­rary term-for­eign af­fairs-ap­plies.

Some ad­min­is­tra­tions (both PNM and UNC) have had for­eign af­fairs to­geth­er with com­mu­ni­ca­tions and in­for­ma­tion as one min­istry and then as sep­a­rate en­ti­ties based on vari­ables that the sit­ting prime min­is­ter would have tak­en in­to ac­count.

Un­der for­mer British prime min­is­ter, Mrs Mar­garet Thatch­er, there were 5 Cab­i­net reshuf­fles un­der her pre­mier­ship from 1979 to 1990. The pre­ced­ing demon­strates that Mrs Thatch­er was ex­er­cis­ing her pre­rog­a­tive in hav­ing peo­ple in her Cab­i­net as she saw fit. There were even times when she had min­is­ters of state in her Cab­i­net.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Mr Patrick Man­ning, who is cur­rent­ly the longest-serv­ing Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment in the coun­try (1971- present), or­gan­ised his Cab­i­net un­der his terms in of­fice ac­cord­ing to how he saw fit-his Cab­i­net of 1991-1995 was far dif­fer­ent in mem­ber­ship and num­ber from 2002-2007 and saw many neo­phytes who were of the fe­male gen­der from 2007 to May 24, 2010.

In 2009, when sit­ting Pres­i­dent of South Africa Mr Thabo Mbe­ki was asked by the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of the African Na­tion­al Con­gress to re­sign, his suc­ces­sor Mr Kgale­ma Mot­lanthe an­nounced that he would keep 18 of the min­is­ters from his pre­de­ces­sor and then there were 10 new min­is­ters.

With the same African Na­tion­al Con­gress, the in­cum­bent Pres­i­dent of South Africa Mr Zu­ma has a Cab­i­net of 36 min­is­ters, which seems to be the largest-ever, sur­pass­ing Mr Nel­son Man­dela's gov­ern­ment of na­tion­al uni­ty when he was Pres­i­dent of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.

It must be not­ed that Mr Man­dela's gov­ern­ment and Cab­i­net in­clud­ed his pre­de­ces­sor, for­mer pres­i­dent FW Dek­lerk, who was head of the white Na­tion­al­ist Par­ty and the bel­liger­ent leader of the Inkatha Free­dom Par­ty, and Mr Man­go­suthu Buthe­le­si who was made Min­is­ter of Home Af­fairs un­der Mr Man­dela and con­tin­ued in the post af­ter Mr Man­dela demit­ted of­fice and even act­ed as pres­i­dent on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions.

I find that the com­ments with a neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tion levied on the Prime Min­is­ter on her new­ly con­sti­tut­ed and re­con­fig­ured Cab­i­net is a bit disin­gen­u­ous, as she has com­mit­ted no im­pro­pri­ety nor vi­o­lat­ed the Con­sti­tu­tion. She has ex­er­cised her right as Prime Min­is­ter (first among equals), vest­ed to her un­der the con­sti­tu­tion to or­gan­ise the ex­ec­u­tive arm of the State as she deems fit-a tra­di­tion es­tab­lished from our very first Prime Min­is­ter to her pre­de­ces­sor.

The ma­jor un­der­pin­ning is that the Gov­ern­ment of the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been giv­en a colos­sal man­date to per­form, and the ex­pec­ta­tions placed on her sur­pass­es what any oth­er prime min­is­ter be­fore has had to face, giv­en what was in­her­it­ed: un­lim­it­ed wants and needs and lim­it­ed re­sources. I speak with a high de­gree of cer­ti­tude that the adage: "Un­easy lies the head that wears the Crown" prob­a­bly re­ver­ber­ates in her sub­con­scious be­ing in­ces­sant­ly.

Mr Hansen Stew­art

Trinci­ty