Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says it is time to cre­ate a sys­tem of Par­lia­ment more suit­ed to the peo­ple of T&T and the Caribbean re­gion.

She said that dur­ing an ad­dress to del­e­gates of the re­cent­ly-held Com­mon­wealth Par­lia­ment As­so­ci­a­tion's meet­ing in Port-of-Spain. Among those in at­ten­dance at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's, were House Speak­er Wade Mark, his pre­de­ces­sors Bar­ry Sinanan and Oc­c­ah Sea­paul, chief whip of the Op­po­si­tion PNM Colm Im­bert, for­mer MP Hed­wige Bereaux, for­mer MP Er­rol Ma­habir, Plan­ning Min­is­ter Mary King and Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who was dressed in an "eman­ci­pa­tion out­fit", said: "Per­haps it is time to cre­ate a par­lia­men­tary mod­el that is more in keep­ing with the cul­tur­al re­al­i­ty of our (Caribbean) re­gion."

She said the Gov­ern­ment would take note of the de­lib­er­a­tions of the con­fer­ence which end­ed ear­li­er this week. "The fu­ture of the par­lia­men­tary process and the pos­i­tive evo­lu­tion of our young democ­ra­cies are se­cure in the hands of our re­gion's youths," she added. She told the del­e­gates of the youth par­lia­men­tary con­fer­ence they must play a crit­i­cal role in the main­te­nance of the re­gion's de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples. "You must be vig­i­lant and tena­cious in pro­tect­ing the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy. Use your cre­ativ­i­ty and in­tel­li­gence to help breathe a new life in­to the par­lia­men­tary sys­tem," Per­sad-Bisses­sar added.