Gail Alexan­der

From Prime Min­is­ter and Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) col­leagues to po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents, trib­utes to for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning be­gan pour­ing in min­utes af­ter he passed away at 8.15 am. Here are some of them:

Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley

To­day Trinidad and To­ba­go was plunged in­to mourn­ing at the pass­ing of our for­mer Prime Min­is­ter and for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment, Mr Patrick Au­gus­tus Mervyn Man­ning.

Mr. Man­ning will be re­mem­bered as a vi­sion­ary, a pa­tri­ot and a Caribbean man who al­ways strived for ex­cel­lence. He made the de­vel­op­ment and well-be­ing of Trinidad and To­ba­go his pri­or­i­ty and in so do­ing, ded­i­cat­ed his life to serv­ing our twin is­land state.

Dur­ing Mr. Man­ning's tenure as Prime Min­is­ter, the coun­try ex­pe­ri­enced un­prece­dent­ed growth and de­vel­op­ment, the ben­e­fits from that pe­ri­od are still help­ing us through the try­ing times we face to­day.

Up un­til his death Mr. Man­ning re­mained a source of guid­ance and in­spi­ra­tion to a gen­er­a­tion of na­tion­al and re­gion­al lead­ers who still sought his coun­sel even af­ter he left ac­tive pub­lic life.

To Mrs. Man­ning and the Man­ning fam­i­ly, my fam­i­ly and I join you and the rest of the coun­try in mourn­ing his death. I ex­tend our heart­felt con­do­lences and grat­i­tude for shar­ing him with us, since his ser­vice to the na­tion meant time away from his fam­i­ly."

To the con­stituents of San Fer­nan­do East whom he rep­re­sent­ed for his en­tire po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, we ex­tend our deep­est sym­pa­thy, we em­pathise with your loss.

In recog­ni­tion of Mr Man­ning's pass­ing, flags are to be flown at half-mast at all pub­lic build­ings and for­eign mis­sions from to­day un­til the day af­ter Mr Man­ning's fu­ner­al. Sub­se­quent to con­sul­ta­tion with the Man­ning fam­i­ly, it has been de­cid­ed that a state fu­ner­al will be held for Mr Man­ning, the de­tails of which will be re­leased in due time.

Min­is­ter in the OF­FICE OF THE Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young

It is with a great sense of sad­ness that the PNM Fam­i­ly has been in­formed of the pass­ing of Mr Patrick Man­ning, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go and for­mer Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the PNM.

On be­half of the mem­bers of the PNM and on be­half of the Ex­ec­u­tive of the PNM, I take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­press our sin­cer­est and heart­felt con­do­lences to Ms Hazel Man­ning, her sons and Mr Man­ning's wider fam­i­ly.

Mr Man­ning served Trinidad and To­ba­go for decades as a leader with great vi­sion and his pass­ing is a loss to the Na­tion and to his par­ty, the PNM. We join in prayer for his soul and his fam­i­ly and thank him and his fam­i­ly for his life and his in­valu­able con­tri­bu­tions. We ask that God rest and bless Mr Man­ning's soul.

Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar

It is with deep sad­ness that we heard of the pass­ing of for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.On be­half all in the Par­lia­men­tary Op­po­si­tion and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, we send our heart­felt sym­pa­thies and prayers to his wife, Hazel, and his sons and close rel­a­tives.

Mr Man­ning was Prime Min­is­ter by elec­toral vic­to­ry three times in our his­to­ry - 1991, 2002 and 2007. He was al­so our longest serv­ing Par­lia­men­tar­i­an and one of the longest serv­ing Pub­lic Ser­vants in the re­gion. In­deed, his wife Hazel has al­ways ex­em­pli­fied strength and for­ti­tude in her fam­i­ly, some­thing which was clear through­out their pub­lic life.

The grief we share at his pass­ing is, with­out doubt, grief that will be shared by our fel­low na­tions in the re­gion. We wish the Man­nings God's guid­ance and sup­port and pray that the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter will find a place of joy and rest.

FOR­MER?PNM?CHAIR­MAN?DR?LENNY?SAITH

The time will come for me to speak, the shock has not sub­sided. Suf­fice to say, he was more than a col­league, he was a friend. We knew each oth­er wll be­fore 1986 when I chaired the PNM . . . I?will miss him. I?can tell you Patrick lived for his work, from ear­ly morn­ing to late, late at night, He was a hard, hard work­er. My con­do­lence go out to Hazel and the boys.

FOR­MER?COP?LEADER,?WIN­STON?DOOK­ER­AN

Mr Man­ning's po­lit­i­cal life was one of courage and one in which he nev­er swerved from his com­mit­ment to build­ing a mod­ern T&T. I?al­ways felt his vi­sion was laud­able. Be­ing from San Fer­nan­do, I knew him and I?knew his fam­i­ly. I al­ways had a very close re­la­tion­ship with him on a per­son­al ba­sis. I'm deeply sad­dened by his pass­ing. I?be­lieve T&T?owes a debt of grat­i­tude to his stew­ard­ship as dif­fi­cult as it has been. He will be re­mem­bered for his sin­cer­i­ty of pur­pose and his vi­sion for the na­tion.

FOR­MER UNC?MP/ILP?LEADER?JACK?WARN­ER

Trinidad and To­ba­go has lost one of its most ex­pe­ri­enced and valu­able po­lit­i­cal minds with the pass­ing of Ho­n­ourable Patrick Man­ning. I am con­soled by the fact that two months be­fore he died he and I met pri­vate­ly at his home and we made up what­ev­er dif­fer­ences we had, whether re­al or imag­ined. I am cer­tain that he will be bet­ter off where he shall fi­nal­ly rest than he was in Trinidad and To­ba­go these past six years.

Though we dif­fered in some as­pects of our po­lit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy and ide­ol­o­gy and in how we be­lieved the prob­lems fac­ing our coun­try could be solved and in how the de­vel­op­ment of our coun­try and its peo­ple ought to be pur­sued, as one hu­man be­ing to an­oth­er, it is im­pos­si­ble not to ap­pre­ci­ate the great things that Mr Man­ning achieved and the con­tri­bu­tions he made to this coun­try and to his po­lit­i­cal par­ty of choice.

I take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to of­fer trib­ute to Mr Man­ning as a for­mer Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go and to ex­tend con­do­lences to Mrs Hazel Man­ning, his fam­i­ly, the sup­port­ers of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment and con­stituents of San Fer­nan­do East whom he served for his 44-year po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.

Mr Man­ning's strength was in that he con­ceived of a vi­sion and pur­sued it re­lent­less­ly and with pas­sion, re­gard­less of what the crit­ics said. This is one of the hall­mark qual­i­ties of strong lead­er­ship. An­oth­er dis­tin­guish­ing qual­i­ty was that he was deeply loved by his fol­low­ers and ad­mir­ers, and re­spect­ed by his op­po­nents and col­leagues.

EX-PNM?MIN­IS­TER Jer­ry Narace

Patrick Man­ning will go down in his­to­ry as one of Trinidad and To­ba­go's great­est lead­ers; one of the great­est fight­ers for the peo­ple of T&T with­in our re­gion and one of the great­est pro­po­nents of the Caribbean re­gion as an eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al force in the mod­ern world.

We live to­day in a coun­try that Patrick Man­ning trans­formed with his vi­sion. It is a coun­try with greater free­dom and pros­per­i­ty; a so­ci­ety more ad­vanced than the one he in­her­it­ed when he be­came prime min­is­ter. When oth­ers saw on­ly lim­its to T&T's growth, he saw the true po­ten­tial of our land. Dur­ing his tenure as prime min­is­ter, he cre­at­ed a strong eco­nom­ic and en­er­gy ar­chi­tec­ture through piv­otal pol­i­cy changes, fu­el­ing the coun­try's in­fra­struc­ture, health sys­tem, ed­u­ca­tion and cul­ture.

No one was more deeply com­mit­ted to the Caribbean in­te­gra­tion than Patrick Man­ning. He was piv­otal to the cre­ation of the Caribbean Sin­gle Mar­ket with all its ben­e­fits to the peo­ple, while he al­ways ad­vo­cat­ed our com­mit­ment to Cari­com. His lead­er­ship in the re­gion is un­par­al­leled, set­ting an ex­am­ple for all re­gion­al lead­ers.

We have lost a great leader and a great man. I have al­so lost a dear friend.

RAMESH?LAWRENCE?MA­HARAJ

I knew Patrick since the 1980s, well be­fore I en­tered Par­lia­ment since we were both from San Fer­nan­do. We were al­ways friend­ly and lat­er. He was al­so my MP, so this is very sad news."

Be­fore his death, I had heard from some­one in the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal that he was hav­ing di­fi­cul­ties and I?con­tact­ed John Je­re­mie (for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al) who I?know to be close to him. He said he was in the US but had been con­tact­ed by the fam­i­ly with the news al­so.

When were were in Par­lia­ment, as Op­po­si­tion whip, we clashed but were still cor­dial. In 2001, when I - as UNC? AG- had spo­ken out on cor­rup­tion - he was one of those I had a meet­ing with at the Hilton

He ought to be re­mem­bered as a man who gave to­tal se­vice to T&T. Those op­posed to him would know even when there was po­lit­i­cal ri­val­ry, his para­mount aim was the wel­fare and ben­e­fit of T&T. He was good states­man, com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing the Par­lia­men­tary form of gov­ern­ment con­tin­ued and al­so com­mit­ted to con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form. Dur­ing his ser­vice to the PNM, there can be no doubt he up­held the high ideals of in­tegri­ty and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues. I ex­tend con­do­lences to his wife and sons and will cer­tain pay my re­spects in per­son at the fu­ner­al.

MOVE­MENT?FOR?SO­CIAL?JUS­TICE?LEADER?DAVID?AB­DU­LAH

THE?MSJ ex­tends its con­do­lences to Mrs. Hazel Man­ning and to all mem­bers of the Man­ning fam­i­ly on the pass­ing of Mr. Patrick Man­ning, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter. The pass­ing of a loved one, re­gard­less of that per­son's sta­tion in life, is al­ways a time of sad­ness for the mem­bers of the fam­i­ly and we there­fore say to Mr. Man­ning's fam­i­ly that we sym­pa­thise with the loss of your hus­band, fa­ther, broth­er, cousin, un­cle.

At the same time, Mr. Man­ning was much more than a fam­i­ly man. He was the per­son who served as a Mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Par­lia­ment for longer than any oth­er; was the on­ly per­son to have lost and then won the gov­ern­ment and had the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the sec­ond longest hold­er of the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter. His was a life ded­i­cat­ed to pub­lic ser­vice through pol­i­tics. In our times when so many have lit­tle or no in­ter­est in pub­lic ser­vice and where oth­ers see pub­lic of­fice as a means to pri­vate gain and per­son­al en­rich­ment, Mr. Man­ning's life stands out as a re­pu­di­a­tion of such self­ish­ness. His ex­am­ple must not be glossed over or ig­nored.

It is well known that the so­cial move­ments such as the Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions and NGOs (FI­TUN) were op­posed to many of Mr. Man­ning's poli­cies­dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2002-2010. We will not pre­tend the in­tense strug­gle of dif­fer­ent ideas and philoso­phies of what should con­sti­tute de­vel­op­ment and good gov­er­nance be­tween Mr. Man­ning and the so­cial move­ments did not ex­ist. His­to­ry must not be re-writ­ten.

To his cred­it, Mr. Man­ning sought to en­gage per­sons out­side of his po­lit­i­cal par­ty–and even per­sons who were op­posed to the PNM–to con­tribute to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. Thus, while I served as pres­i­dent of FI­TUN I was asked to serve as chair­man of the board of the Cipri­ani Col­lege of Labour and Co-Op­er­a­tive Stud­ies and a mem­ber of the Core Com­mit­tee of the Vi­sion 2020 process. Many oth­er cit­i­zens of all po­lit­i­cal per­sua­sions al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 2020 process. In this re­gard Mr. Man­ning must be com­mend­ed for rec­og­niz­ing that this coun­try's fu­ture could not be built with on­ly some of the pop­u­la­tion.

Mr. Man­ning did seek to bring about change in T&T–some of which will stand the test of time. The Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade made down­town Port of Spain a bet­ter space; the float­ing of the TT dol­lar, though crit­i­cised at the time, has stood us well in terms of eco­nom­ic growth as was the de­ci­sion to es­tab­lish an LNG in­dus­try. He ran his leg of the re­lay race do­ing it his way, gave us an ex­am­ple of pub­lic ser­vice and so may he now rest in peace.