Gail Alexan­der

The equi­lib­ri­um of the Gov­ern­ment is in no way dis­turbed by the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice's (MSJ's) with­draw­al from the coali­tion, For­eign Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter, Su­ruj Ram­bachan said yes­ter­day. On the MSJ's de­par­ture yes­ter­day, Ram­bachan said: "The move was not un­ex­pect­ed since both Ro­get (An­cel) and Ab­du­lah had been telegraph­ing that they were go­ing to do this.

"In my view this does not in any way af­fect the func­tion­ing of the Gov­ern­ment and it does not af­fect the strength of the Gov­ern­ment. It does it af­fect the Gov­ern­ment's abil­i­ty to car­ry out its man­date that it got on May 24, 2010," he said. Asked if the sit­u­a­tion was akin to a mem­ber of a fam­i­ly leav­ing home, Ram­bachan said: "No, not at all. This was not un­ex­pect­ed as a good gov­ern­ment is al­ways pre­pared for any even­tu­al­i­ty.

"In­deed the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to en­joy wide­spread pop­u­lar­i­ty be­cause the Gov­ern­ment has been work­ing for the ben­e­fit of all stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the labour move­ments. "This is a good time to re­mind that we have set­tled 36 agree­ments in two years which had been left un­re­solved by the for­mer gov­ern­ment. We al­so passed leg­is­la­tion in­clud­ing amend­ments to the Mas­ters and Ser­vants Or­di­nance."

Asked about the ef­fect on the uni­ty im­age, Ram­bachan said: "The im­age of the Gov­ern­ment is not af­fect­ed. This doesn't af­fect the Gov­ern­ment's strength. Those who be­lieve that are de­lud­ed." On the frag­men­ta­tion of the uni­ty based pro­file, Ram­bachan said: "The MSJ doesn't rep­re­sent all of the labour move­ment in the T&T. The Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) has said they sup­port the Gov­ern­ment.

"If the MSJ de­cid­ed they won't be part of the part­ner­ship, this doesn't mean that the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple who sup­port the MSJ may do the same. That's a mis­con­cep­tion you must sep­a­rate the agen­da of Ro­get and Ab­du­lah from the agen­da of the peo­ple. The agen­da of the peo­ple is to en­sure they achieve pros­per­i­ty as a na­tion," he said.

Asked about the is­sues the MSJ had ex­pressed con­cerns about, Ram­bachan said most of the is­sues were be­ing ad­dressed via cer­tain leg­is­la­tion. On who would re­place MSJ leader David Ab­du­lah as a Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor, Ram­bachan said: "The Prime Min­is­ter will de­cide who will re­place him."