Rhon­dor Dowlat

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was able to keep his cool and still man­age the coun­try in such a way that there were no scan­dals every day, gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), Ash­ton Ford, said yes­ter­day.

He made the com­ment in re­sponse to a poll in yes­ter­day's Sun­day Guardian which showed a ma­jor­i­ty of vot­ers were dis­sat­is­fied with the Gov­ern­ment's per­for­mance in its first year.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian, Ford ques­tioned what the peo­ple ex­pect­ed when the PNM came in­to Gov­ern­ment meet­ing the price of oil down to US$26 a bar­rel as com­pared to US$120 a bar­rel when the last ad­min­is­tra­tion went in­to of­fice in 2010.

"We had dif­fi­cul­ty in man­ag­ing the af­fairs of the coun­ty and had to make some ad­just­ments, which en­tailed hold­ing back on a num­ber of things we would have liked to do as stat­ed in our man­i­festo," Ford said.

He al­so com­mend­ed Row­ley for be­ing able to bring back the econ­o­my to a cer­tain lev­el where T&T sur­vived, "and still we were able to in­tro­duce 12.5 per cent val­ue added tax­es, start the hous­ing pro­gramme, move in­to build­ings that re­mained un­oc­cu­pied dur­ing the five years the last ad­min­is­tra­tion was in of­fice for pub­lic ser­vants, we were still able to pay out to the Ca­roni work­ers and make ad­just­ments to GATE in cut­ting out the wastage, at­tend to the much abused food card sys­tem and much more."

Ford al­so praised the Gov­ern­ment for not fir­ing peo­ple when it first got in­to of­fice, mak­ing ref­er­ence to the 3,000 peo­ple who were fired with­in three months when the last ad­min­is­tra­tion took up of­fice.

"We have not fired any­body from CEPEP, all the con­trac­tors are still there. We main­tain the em­ploy­ment in the pub­lic sec­tor. We have all the CEOs at all the re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties in­tact and we still have the di­rec­tor at Ed­u­ca­tion there," Ford said.

In a me­dia re­port yes­ter­day, Row­ley sug­gest­ed ad­just­ments were com­ing to his Cab­i­net af­ter the up­com­ing na­tion­al bud­get, in­clud­ing bring­ing in new faces via the Sen­ate.

Asked about the up­com­ing ad­just­ments that Row­ley spoke of and any hints to what those ad­just­ments may be, Ford said that was the call of the prime min­is­ter. He added that he re­mains in full sup­port of his leader.

"The ad­just­ments Row­ley would be mak­ing would be in terms of gov­er­nance. He is the on­ly one who can judge per­for­mance," Ford said.

Asked what the pub­lic could ex­pect in the up­com­ing na­tion­al bud­get, Ford on­ly said that the Gov­ern­ment would be in a bet­ter po­si­tion now to present the bud­get as com­pared to hav­ing just mere weeks, as it did when it came in­to of­fice for its pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2015/2016 bud­get.

Poll a sig­nal to Govt

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Win­ford James said yes­ter­day that the Gov­ern­ment ought to be con­cerned and make the rel­e­vant ad­just­ments for the bet­ter to keep peo­ple's good­will in the com­ing sec­ond year.

James was com­ment­ing on a Sun­day Guardian poll where the ma­jor­i­ty of some 961 peo­ple polled said they were dis­sat­is­fied with its per­for­mance in its first term. The re­sults for be­ing very dis­sat­is­fied rep­re­sent­ed 65.66 per cent of vot­ers–631 peo­ple.

Al­though ad­mit­ting he was doubt­ful about whether the re­sult of the Guardian poll was tru­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of pub­lic opin­ion, as it did not seem to be a sci­en­tif­ic poll, James said if he was the Gov­ern­ment and got such a re­sult he would be con­cerned that peo­ple were call­ing on him and his gov­ern­ment to make rel­e­vant ad­just­ments where the econ­o­my and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion were con­cerned.

"It's a sig­nal to Gov­ern­ment that the peo­ple are not hap­py in the way it's go­ing and there­fore the Gov­ern­ment should pay at­ten­tion and make the rel­e­vant ad­just­ments," James said.

Asked what he thought about Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley's an­nounce­ment in a me­dia re­port that ad­just­ments in the Cab­i­net would be made af­ter the pre­sen­ta­tion of the na­tion­al bud­get, James, not­ing the PM's cau­tious­ness in the way he sig­nalled changes are com­ing, said he be­lieves that his (Row­ley's) aim is to "make gov­er­nance bet­ter than how it is go­ing and that he wants to have greater ef­fi­cien­cy."

Ef­forts to con­tact Row­ley yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful as he did not an­swer his cell­phone, but in an in­ter­view with I95.5 FM yes­ter­day, Row­ley said the up­com­ing ad­just­ments were not about per­for­mance but about "the Gov­ern­ment keep­ing its shape in cer­tain ways and max­imis­ing strengths and min­imis­ing weak­ness­es."

He added that he tried as hard as he could to give some sense of sta­bil­i­ty in the Gov­ern­ment's struc­ture in the first year, ad­mit­ting that there was one ad­just­ment he had to make and that was when for­mer hous­ing min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc Don­ald ex­it­ed from Cab­i­net.

"I had to make a de­ci­sion be­cause of that and I don't know what will hap­pen in the fu­ture, but I am not re­quired to give out port­fo­lios to peo­ple to paci­fy them in any po­lit­i­cal struc­ture, which was the shape of the last gov­ern­ment. I don't have that prob­lem."