Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz says he is yet to meet with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to dis­cuss the re­or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Cab­i­net. Cadiz made the com­ment yes­ter­day as he re­spond­ed to ques­tions from re­porters af­ter the launch of KC Con­fec­tionery's new chew­ing-gum line at South­ern Main Road, Cou­va.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced last month she would be em­bark­ing on a re­con­fig­u­ra­tion of Cab­i­net port­fo­lios and would meet with min­is­ters to dis­cuss changes. How­ev­er, she is yet to an­nounce the Cab­i­net changes. Cadiz de­clined to com­ment on his po­si­tion on the re-con­fig­u­ra­tion. "I would nev­er, ever sec­ond-guess my Prime Min­is­ter. My Prime Min­is­ter in­vit­ed me to join the Cab­i­net and I am there at her re­quest," he said.

Cadiz added it was en­tire­ly up to the Prime Min­is­ter to de­cide what hap­pened and "who she would want in her Cab­i­net, for a num­ber of rea­sons. We are in there in Cab­i­net for a whole host of rea­sons, and there­fore that is her de­ci­sion." His view was shared by Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Rudranath In­dars­ingh.

Asked how he felt about his min­istry's per­for­mance, Cadiz said: "I think we have done a rea­son­ably good job over the last two years. There was an aw­ful lot of clean­ing up that had to be done." He said the min­istry was still suf­fer­ing from staffing is­sues but among its main achieve­ments were the in­ter­ac­tion with the pri­vate sec­tor and the lev­el of in­vest­ment.