Gail Alexan­der

The Op­po­si­tion PNM?will break with tra­di­tion to hold its 44th an­nu­al con­ven­tion next month at the Grand Stand of the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, in­stead of Ch­aguara­mas Con­ven­tion Cen­tre, PNM?gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford said. He said the par­ty was forced to shift its Oc­to­ber 28 con­ven­tion from the tra­di­tion­al venue since it was told the cen­tre was un­der re­pair. He said the par­ty had held con­ven­tions at Ch­aguara­mas since the late 1960s when he at­tend­ed as a teenag­er. He said, how­ev­er, some spe­cial con­ven­tions were held in San Fer­nan­do and oth­er parts of T&T. "But we have tra­di­tion­al­ly held an­nu­al con­ven­tions at the Ch­aguara­mas Con­ven­tion Cen­tre. This is the first time we are not us­ing there,"?Ford said. The Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty's com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ments said yes­ter­day op­er­a­tions at the cen­tre have been scaled back since it was sched­uled for over­all up­grade. A?spokesman said plumb­ing and elec­tri­cal sys­tems were in dis­re­pair and a ten­der would be is­sued soon for up­grade work.

PNM MP?Colm Im­bert said un­der the UNC?Gov­ern­ment, sec­tions of the cen­tre were leased out to state and pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies so space was not avail­able for the par­ty. He said, "It has al­so been in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to get time­ly per­mis­sion from the PP ad­min­is­tra­tion to use the cen­tre. "It would al­so have been dif­fi­cult (to use) since we usu­al­ly use all three floors, so it's just not suit­able ac­com­mo­da­tion for our con­ven­tion as we are get­ting big­ger and big­ger. "The Sa­van­nah is a more cen­tral lo­ca­tion, more eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble in and out, with end­less park­ing and ac­ces­si­ble, via pub­lic trans­port." At the top of the con­ven­tion agen­da will be elec­tion of new ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers. Dead­line for nom­i­na­tions is 3 pm on Oc­to­ber 1 (Bud­get Day) at Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain.

Al­most a dozen posts are up for con­test, ex­clud­ing that of po­lit­i­cal leader held by Dr Kei­th Row­ley, chair­man (Franklin Khan), vice chair­man (Camille Robin­son-Reg­is) and gen­er­al sec­re­tary (Ford). These posts are for five years. Oth­er ex­ec­u­tive posts are for two years. Posts be­ing con­test­ed and the in­cum­bents are la­dy vice chair­man (MP Don­na Cox); pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer (Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi); as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary (Daniel Dook­ie); trea­sur­er (Mar­i­ano Browne); ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer (Neil Parsan­lal); elec­tions of­fi­cer ( Li­nus Rogers); field of­fi­cer (In­dar Paras­ram); labour of­fi­cer (Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus); wel­fare of­fi­cer ( Joyce­lyn Bod­den); op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer (Irene Hinds); youth of­fi­cers (male-MP?Nile­ung Hy­po­lite and fe­male-Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing).

Ford said while con­stituen­cies have mo­bilised and were on sched­ule to com­plete their con­fer­ences to­wards the con­ven­tion, nom­i­na­tions for the elec­tion have been slow. Al­so a pri­or­i­ty on the agen­da will be dis­cus­sion and a vote on rec­om­men­da­tions of a re­port by a team man­dat­ed to ex­am­ine the PNM's con­sti­tu­tion, in­clud­ing feed­back and pro­pos­als on the one-man/one vote sys­tem pro­posed by Row­ley to re­place the del­e­gate sys­tem. The team was head­ed by at­tor­ney Brigitte An­nisette-George. The con­ven­tion al­so will deal with the is­sue of the use of the par­ty's Bal­isi­er tie. There has been mixed feed­back on this in the last two years since Row­ley pro­posed lim­it­ing the use of the tie in Par­lia­ment and ex­pand­ing its use out­side of MPs and oth­er se­nior PNM?mem­bers. The PNM?will launch its par­ty school ini­tia­tive, ti­tled "Er­ic WIlliams In­sti­tute", at QRC?Col­lege on Mon­day, Re­pub­lic Day.