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Sunday, July 20, 2025

PM, entourage leave for South Africa

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20131208

It came as "quite a shock" to Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee (ESC) pres­i­dent Kafra Kam­bon when an of­fi­cial from the Prime Min­is­ter's Of­fice called him and told him he was be­ing in­vit­ed to ac­com­pa­ny the Prime Min­is­ter and her en­tourage to South Africa.

"I was in To­ba­go when some­one called me. It was quite a shock. But some sur­pris­es are good. I think it was a very good ges­ture on the part of the Gov­ern­ment to take peo­ple they feel have some con­nec­tion based on what they have been in­volved in, those rep­re­sent­ing the state and civ­il so­ci­ety, re­gard­less of their po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion," Kam­bon said in an in­ter­view.The ESC has sup­port­ed the an­ti-apartheid strug­gle.

Kam­bon, will leave this morn­ing for South Africa with Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment PRO Faris al Rawi for the state memo­r­i­al ser­vice for Nel­son Man­dela at the FNB Sta­di­um in Sowe­to on Tues­day. On Wednes­day, they will par­tic­i­pate in the view­ing of his body.Man­dela, South Africa's first Black pres­i­dent and icon­ic free­dom fight­er, died at age 95 last Thurs­day.

To­ba­go East MP Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin and Trans­port Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz, al­so part of the en­tourage, left for South Africa ear­li­er and are al­ready there, the PM told the me­dia yes­ter­day at a toy dis­tri­b­u­tion event at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.An­swer­ing ques­tions from the me­dia above the din of hap­py chil­dren, she list­ed the names of the six who will be go­ing to Man­dela's memo­r­i­al ser­vice in South Africa and said the Gov­ern­ment was told on­ly six peo­ple could have at­tend­ed.

Asked if her in­vi­ta­tion to Row­ley was the be­gin­ning of the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion Man­dela preached, based on po­lit­i­cal ten­sions be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion, she on­ly said it was "most ap­pro­pri­ate" to in­vite him.The PM said she has re­quest­ed of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Capt Gary Grif­fith that, while they would be pay­ing trib­ute to Man­dela on Tues­day and Wednes­day, T&T's na­tion­al flags be flown at half mast.Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Mar­lene Coudray has been ap­point­ed to act as prime min­is­ter in her ab­sence.

To beat any trav­el con­straints that may have been caused by the short time they had to pre­pare, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her staff worked as­sid­u­ous­ly to make the trav­el arrange­ments.Most of them on go­ing on the trip have al­so re­ceived yel­low fever vac­cines, a strict re­quire­ment by the South African gov­ern­ment for vis­i­tors to pre­vent the im­por­ta­tion of the dis­ease.Asked the cost of the trip, the PM said she could not give an es­ti­mate at the time but not­ed the vis­it was of "great val­ue".

Kam­bon said there was no way he could have made it to South Africa at this time on his own and said he felt priv­i­leged and glad for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be a part of the great event of Man­dela's fu­ner­al. He said it would be good for the ESC and for the so­ci­ety.


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