Fol­low­ing is the full text of the anounce­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of the res­ig­na­tion of for­mer Tourism Min­is­ter and Cab­i­net mem­ber Chan­dresh Shar­ma. Yes­ter­dayLeader of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har yes­ter­day called on his Cab­i­net col­league Tourism Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma to re­sign.If Shar­ma does not re­sign Ra­mad­har said, then Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar should fire him pend­ing com­ple­tion of po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to al­le­ga­tions of as­sault on his for­mer girl­friend Sacha Singh, the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of AMS Biotech Se­cu­ri­ty Con­cept and AM­Sure T&t Ltd.

I have ad­vised the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, His Ex­cel­len­cy, An­tho­ny Car­mona, of the de­ci­sion to re­voke the ap­point­ment of the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Tourism, Chan­dresh Shar­ma.

This ad­vice fol­lows my de­ci­sion to ac­cept the res­ig­na­tion ear­li­er sub­mit­ted by Min­is­ter Shar­ma.

There has been some dis­cus­sion on the num­ber of times changes have been made in my Cab­i­net. I say that is a mea­sure­ment of my com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing the high ideals up­on which we were elect­ed.

I am not swayed by any oth­er con­sid­er­a­tion oth­er than that which is right and ho­n­ourable. Each mem­ber of my ad­min­is­tra­tion must be mind­ful that we are held to dif­fer­ent, high­er stan­dards than ever be­fore, even by those who are our most bit­ter crit­ics.

There is no priv­i­leged es­cape, no al­lowance for ar­ro­gance, no for­give­ness for in­dis­cre­tion. Those days are gone, such com­pro­mise has ex­pired. The re­spon­si­ble lead­er­ship which we promised to ush­er in a dawn of a new era is the new po­lit­i­cal cur­ren­cy.

My lead­er­ship isn't formed in the mould of loud and an­gry politi­cians who feel that shout­ing and at­tack­ing every­thing is the best way to be heard. But my de­ci­sions and poli­cies speak even loud­er of who I am and what I ex­pect of those around me in gov­ern­ment.

The gov­ern­ment is stronger than ever be­cause of the tough de­ci­sions tak­en and the pop­u­la­tion can breathe eas­i­er to­day, con­fi­dent in the knowl­edge that val­ue based lead­er­ship will nev­er be com­pro­mised.

I take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to rec­og­nize Min­is­ter Shar­ma's con­tri­bu­tions and ser­vice to the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.