SHAS­TRI BOODAN

The na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress is in full sup­port of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. The an­nounce­ment was made on Wednes­day night by UNC chair­man Jack Warn­er af­ter the par­ty's na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing held at Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va. Warn­er said the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive gave its full sup­port to Per­sad-Bisses­sar in her bid to en­sure in­dus­tri­al peace, eco­nom­ic growth and sta­bil­i­ty in T&T. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was grat­i­fied for the sup­port she re­ceived from the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive es­pe­cial­ly her thrust to bring in­dus­tri­al peace.

She said the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive had no for­mal meet­ings since May 4. She said the par­ty's chair­man ex­pressed the need for a for­mal meet­ing. She said 11 re­ports were re­ceived from par­ty of­fi­cers along with pro­pos­als to go for­ward. She said the par­ty was in the process of con­ven­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al arms of the par­ty which in­clud­ed the women's con­gress, na­tion­al as­sem­bly, its par­lia­men­tary arm and youth con­gress. At the meet­ing, Warn­er al­so an­nounced the res­ig­na­tion of Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh as the par­ty's gen­er­al sec­re­tary. Ra­mad­hars­ingh has been re­placed by UNC ac­tivist Davin­dranath Tan­coo.

Warn­er said the re­cent align­ment of port­fo­lios for min­is­ters had giv­en Ra­mad­hars­ingh much work and it was thought that in the best in­ter­est of the par­ty that Ra­mad­hars­ingh as­sist Tan­coo in the in­ter­im and serve as an ad­vis­er to the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive.

Warn­er said oth­er ad­vis­ers to the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive in­clud­ed min­is­ters Dr Tim Gopeesingh, Fazal Karim, Ru­pert Grif­fith and Chan­dresh Shar­ma. Ra­mad­hars­ingh said he was not asked to leave. He said the time had come to give up the post of gen­er­al sec­re­tary be­cause he was hold­ing on to sev­er­al port­fo­lios. Tan­coo, al­so an ad­vis­er to the Prime Min­is­ter, re­fused com­ment.