Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has shut down spec­u­la­tion that a Cab­i­net reshuf­fle is im­mi­nent, in­sist­ing there will be no changes to her min­is­te­r­i­al line-up “at this time.”

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was asked di­rect­ly whether there was any truth to re­ports that changes to her Cab­i­net were be­ing con­tem­plat­ed.

“No, the an­swer is no,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

She al­so crit­i­cised the so­cial me­dia pages that fu­elled the spec­u­la­tion.

“Why do you all put anony­mous sources? There’s al­ways some anony­mous per­son, some fake sto­ries, fake news,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Asked whether she was sat­is­fied with the per­for­mance of her min­is­ters, how­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter ac­knowl­edged that im­prove­ments could be made.

“I will tell you this. There is al­ways room for im­prove­ment in every one of us, so the whole Cab­i­net, and of course there’s room for im­prove­ment in the Me­dia Corps as well,” she said.

“So there will be no reshuf­fle at this time.”

Her com­ments come af­ter fresh spec­u­la­tion over the com­po­si­tion of her Gov­ern­ment emerged this week fol­low­ing the cir­cu­la­tion of a de­tailed three-pan­el list on so­cial me­dia pur­port­ing to show an im­pend­ing Cab­i­net reshuf­fle.

The doc­u­ment pro­posed sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant changes, in­clud­ing Sad­dam Ho­sein be­com­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Sean Sobers tak­ing over the En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries port­fo­lio, Gary Grif­fith be­com­ing Min­is­ter of De­fence and Saira Lakhan be­ing ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs.

It al­so list­ed Wil­fred Nicholas Mor­ris for For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs and pro­posed mov­ing Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der to Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries.

Sev­er­al peo­ple named in the pur­port­ed reshuf­fle pri­vate­ly cast doubt on the au­then­tic­i­ty of the doc­u­ment.

Alexan­der, the on­ly per­son con­tact­ed who re­spond­ed on the record, told re­porters on Tues­day that he had seen the list but had no in­for­ma­tion to sug­gest it was le­git­i­mate.

“I saw the doc­u­ment. I thought it was fun­ny,” Alexan­der said, adding that the Prime Min­is­ter had “ab­solute au­thor­i­ty” over where he serves.

The spec­u­la­tion was fur­ther fu­elled by an Ex­tra­or­di­nary Gazette con­firm­ing Sobers had been ap­point­ed to act as En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter dur­ing the ab­sence from the coun­try of sub­stan­tive min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

Mooni­lal has since ap­par­ent­ly re­turned to Trinidad and To­ba­go, with a post on his so­cial me­dia page show­ing him at­tend­ing an ac­tiv­i­ty at the Debe Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School.

An­a­lyst: Ru­mours aimed

at pres­sur­ing PM

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed be­lieves the reshuf­fle ru­mours are an in­ten­tion­al at­tempt to pres­sure Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­to mak­ing changes and could be em­a­nat­ing from both with­in and out­side the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

“I think the ru­mours of a reshuf­fle is a joke aimed, and it’s al­so in­ten­tion­al, aimed at push­ing, putting pres­sure on the Prime Min­is­ter, try­ing to push her in a di­rec­tion to do a reshuf­fle,” Mo­hammed said.

“It may very well be com­ing from both in­side and out­side be­cause in the world of pol­i­tics to­day it’s all about self-in­ter­est, that peo­ple are seek­ing to jos­tle for bet­ter po­si­tions or for po­si­tions that will al­low them to sur­vive, quote-un­quote, sur­vive the term while in Cab­i­net.”

Mo­hammed stressed, how­ev­er, that de­ci­sions over min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ments rest sole­ly with Per­sad-Bisses­sar and ar­gued that at­tempts to pres­sure her would be un­like­ly to suc­ceed.

“If any­body knows one thing about this Prime Min­is­ter, she’s not go­ing to be forced or bul­lied or in­tim­i­dat­ed or any of those things that are pushed in­to a di­rec­tion that she’s not mind­ed to go in­to at this point in time,” he said.

“So that is just mis­chief afoot and they are try­ing to get her to do some­thing that she will do when she’s ready.”

Mo­hammed de­clined to iden­ti­fy min­is­ters he be­lieves should be moved, say­ing he did not want to con­tribute to the cur­rent spec­u­la­tion.

He nev­er­the­less said some min­is­ters have demon­strat­ed pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ex­per­tise and should not be­come “col­lat­er­al dam­age” if Per­sad-Bisses­sar even­tu­al­ly de­cides to reshuf­fle her Cab­i­net.

“There are min­is­ters who should re­main, who are pro­fes­sion­als, who are ex­perts in their field, who have kept their head down and done the work,” he said.

But Mo­hammed was al­so crit­i­cal of the per­for­mance of oth­ers, say­ing there are min­is­ters who are “sim­ply be­hav­ing as if this is some sort of stage” and have not done the depth of pol­i­cy work ex­pect­ed of them.

One area where Mo­hammed be­lieves there is a clear need for im­prove­ment is Gov­ern­ment com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

He re­newed his call for a struc­tured com­mu­ni­ca­tions frame­work, ar­gu­ing that the ad­min­is­tra­tion needs a recog­nis­able face and co­or­di­nat­ed pol­i­cy for com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the pop­u­la­tion.

“I per­son­al­ly be­lieve that Gov­ern­ment com­mu­ni­ca­tions needs a frame­work, it needs a face, it needs pol­i­cy, it needs every­thing and I con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for that,” Mo­hammed said.

He ar­gued that an ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tions struc­ture, com­plete with clear man­dates, scripts and speak­ing points, would al­low in­for­ma­tion about the Gov­ern­ment’s work to be bet­ter trans­mit­ted through the me­dia to the pub­lic.

“Gov­ern­ment com­mu­ni­ca­tions is a very crit­i­cal as­pect of the work of the Gov­ern­ment and the over­all frame­work of gov­er­nance,” he said.