Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­turned to Trinidad and To­ba­go on Wednes­day evening af­ter at­tend­ing the 51st Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com in St Lu­cia, and im­me­di­ate­ly went to over­see the re­lief ef­forts be­ing or­gan­ised for Venezuela.

In a so­cial me­dia post on Wednes­day evening, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Tonight, up­on my re­turn from St Lu­cia, I was joined by Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, Jear­lean John, to vis­it the Galleons Pas­sage and in­spect the hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­lief sup­plies be­ing pre­pared for ship­ment to the peo­ple of Venezuela. Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with our Venezue­lan neigh­bours dur­ing this time of need.”

The re­lief ef­fort forms part of T&T’s as­sis­tance to sup­port peo­ple af­fect­ed by the twin earth­quakes in Venezuela on June 24.

Over the week­end, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers said T&T stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Venezuela as the coun­try mourns the vic­tims of the re­cent earth­quake while mark­ing the 215th an­niver­sary of Venezuela’s De­c­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence.

Sobers was at the time speak­ing at a wreath-lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny on Sat­ur­day at the Venezue­lan Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain.

“As we lay this wreath, let it be more than a sym­bol of mourn­ing. Let it al­so be a sym­bol of friend­ship, sol­i­dar­i­ty, and hope. May it ho­n­our the mem­o­ry of the de­part­ed. May it com­fort the be­reaved. May it strength­en the sur­vivors. And may it af­firm the en­dur­ing bond be­tween the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the peo­ple of Venezuela.”

Al­so in her post, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Gov­ern­ment re­mained fo­cused on de­liv­er­ing for the peo­ple of T&T.

“I have re­turned to Trinidad and To­ba­go fol­low­ing my par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 51st Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com in St Lu­cia. I now re­sume my of­fi­cial du­ties at home as our Gov­ern­ment re­mains fo­cused on de­liv­er­ing for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so thanked John, who served as act­ing prime min­is­ter dur­ing her ab­sence.

“I al­so ex­tend my sin­cere ap­pre­ci­a­tion to Jear­lean John, MP, for her stead­fast lead­er­ship and ser­vice while act­ing as Prime Min­is­ter dur­ing my ab­sence,” she said.