Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les is rais­ing se­ri­ous con­cern over what he de­scribes as an im­bal­anced eth­nic and racial com­po­si­tion among new­ly ap­point­ed state boards un­der the UNC-led gov­ern­ment.

“When I look at it, I won­der if we're liv­ing in Bangladesh or Del­hi,” Gon­za­les de­clared at an Op­po­si­tion news brief­ing at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader on Charles Street, Port of Spain.

He ar­gued that boards made up pre­dom­i­nant­ly of mem­bers from one race would nev­er have been ap­proved by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

“You couldn't bring a Cab­i­net note to Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley with on­ly a cer­tain race be­ing rep­re­sent­ed. It must rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go. That is how a PNM Cab­i­net con­duct­ed it­self,” Gon­za­les said.

Point­ing to Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, who was present, Gon­za­les de­scribed the board ap­point­ment process un­der the PNM as rig­or­ous, say­ing both Dr Row­ley and for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert would ask hard ques­tions about racial com­po­si­tion.

“And he would ask you di­rect­ly, is that board be­ing tak­en from In­dia, if it on­ly rep­re­sents a par­tic­u­lar race, or is it a board from Ghana? And I re­mem­ber Min­is­ter Im­bert, as the Cor­po­ra­tion Sole, would ask you, even be­fore Cab­i­net, is that a board from Mozam­bique?”

He added, “As far as the PNM is con­cerned, the ap­point­ment of state boards must re­flect a di­verse so­ci­ety like Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Gon­za­les said the pub­lic should be alarmed by this trend.

“If it doesn't trou­ble you, then I don't know what will trou­ble us as a so­ci­ety.”

He al­so ques­tioned the po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions of sev­er­al re­cent state ap­point­ments.

On Tues­day, UNC cam­paign man­ag­er Fer­oze Khan was ap­point­ed pro­gramme man­ag­er of the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP).

“And then you are see­ing many of them be­ing af­fil­i­at­ed with gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, cam­paign man­agers,” he said.

He de­scribed it as “po­lit­i­cal hypocrisy to the high­est.”

“And the same peo­ple, one of them Padarath-ing, job for the boys and job for the girls, PNM boys and PNM girls, in true Padarath style. And in the same way, jobs for the boys, jobs for the PNM boys, jobs for the PNM girls. Look at who are the UNC girls, and the UNC boys, do­ing the same thing.”

Gon­za­les is not the on­ly one rais­ing these con­cerns.

Michael Anisette, Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC), al­so crit­i­cised the com­po­si­tion of state boards, say­ing they lack eth­nic and class di­ver­si­ty. He urged the UNC gov­ern­ment to “rise above” race-based pol­i­tics and en­sure di­ver­si­ty in ac­tion, not just rhetoric.

Anisette warned that the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion should avoid re­peat­ing the “mis­steps” of the pre­vi­ous one.