T&T Consul General in NY unveils plan to help foreign nationals

NEW YORK—Trinidad and Tobago Consul General to New York Rudrawatee Nan Ramgoolam has unveiled an ambitious plan to revitalise the consulate’s downtown offices to better serve a rapidly growing community.
A former University of the West Indies (UWI) lecturer and Government Minister, Ramgoolam identified systemic inefficiency, poor management and leadership flaws as the principal factors dogging that nation’s domestic and foreign institutions. Armed with extensive academic and public service experience, she promised to carry out every country’s mandate to facilitate the needs of its nationals.
In an hour-long T&T Guardian exclusive, she said: “the process has begun on changing how things are done. My motto has always been diagnosis, prescription and implementation, and this is what has been happening here.”
She listed some of the pressing issues that need immediate attention.
“In the past you had nationals queuing outside the building as early as 5 am for passport-related matters, mothers with children, even in the cold. There is no excuse for that.”
The system, she noted, has changed since she took office in September.
Priding herself on “meeting the needs of people”, the new consul general has initiated in-house training programmes in customer service management and technical efficiency.
Of the former, she stated: “There have been complaints in the way our nationals have been treated in the past. Our aim is to answer their concerns with courtesy and efficiency.” 
Interestingly, Ramgoolam will tap into her pedagogical background and spearhead the training.
“It’s about hands on leadership,” she added. 
Using the popular dictum, “a fish rots from the head”, she said leaders must be firm but flexible and held accountable for the image and practices of their organisations.
She identified motivation and the ability to engineer a homogeneous and spirited team as the ingredients for positive change.
“As a nation and people we have been lacking in that area and no amount of money can change that shortcoming,” she said.
Her prodigious planning has also centred on an outreach programme in Queens and Brooklyn where the Trinibagonian community has a strong presence.
She added: “We have to let our people know that we are here and offer a myriad of services, not just the issuance of passports.”
Plans are in place to establish venues where officers can interact with nationals. She was also considering the use of local media “to get the word out.”
She assailed politicisation of consulate affairs and pledged inclusiveness and a deliberate effort to bridge the geographic gap between Indo and Afro-Trinidadians, using the recent Divali celebrations at the consulate to support her argument.
“Our audience was not a Queens crowd (referring to district that is heavily populated by Indo-Trinidadians). It was a Trini crowd with people from various academic, racial and cultural backgrounds,” she said.
Acknowledging the need to be a reservoir of services in every capacity, especially in matters of immigration and deportation—an area she discussed at a recent meeting among her consular counterparts—she expressed her commitment to expand the legal counsel her office currently offers.
She said: “Our concern is not the legal status of nationals, so there shouldn’t be any distrust, but we must direct them appropriately on this serious matter. Our ultimate goal is to establish ties with legal, cultural and academic agencies.”
Estimating some 250,000 nationals in New York, Ramgoolam said it was imperative to increase her staff and develop a system “to easily identify and locate our people for resource needs and even natural disasters.”
She also said additional manpower would expedite, among other things, the processing of passports.
She added: “Nationals must understand that machine-readable passports have particular requirements that are set by the interna