Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

For near­ly four decades, 37 years to be ex­act, Clerk of the House Jacqui Samp­son Meiguel guid­ed dozens of this coun­try’s most pop­u­lar par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and per­haps even more less­er known ones through the poli­cies and pro­ce­dures of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Par­lia­ment.

She has stood next to four prime min­is­ters as they took their oath of of­fice, and served un­der Speak­ers Oc­c­ah Seep­aul, Hec­tor Mc­Clean, Ru­pert Grif­fith, Baren­dra Sinanan. Wade Mark and now Bridgid An­nisette-George.

She would have al­so over­seen the task of mov­ing the Par­lia­ment out of the Red House to the Wa­ter­front Com­plex and then back to the Red House.

She has pro­ceed­ed on pre re­tire­ment leave which will cul­mi­nate with her full re­tire­ment at the end of Jan­u­ary next year.

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House, Arou­ca Mal­oney MP Camille Robin­son Reg­is in pay­ing trib­ute said Samp­son - Meiguel was the epit­o­me of the high­est re­gard for pub­lic ser­vice, who re­mained “a steady light in a space that can some­times be tu­mul­tuous” who act­ed as the “bridge that was need­ed in good times as well as bad.”

“Mrs. Samp­son Miguel has demon­strat­ed her love for this hal­lowed in­sti­tu­tion and all it stands for,” Robin­son-Reg­is said. “She has demon­strat­ed in­tegri­ty, rep­re­sen­ta­tion of and com­mit­ment to the peo­ple. This is a woman whom I have come to know and re­spect, a hum­ble ad­vo­cate for what is right, a woman of hon­esty and de­cen­cy.”

Speak­ing for the Op­po­si­tion, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said is would be dif­fi­cult to imag­ine the Par­lia­men­tary fam­i­ly with­out her.

“She was ex­treme­ly hard­work­ing and ded­i­cat­ed and pro­fes­sion­al and had at her heart, the in­ter­ests of Par­lia­ment; and al­ways had this vi­sion of where the par­lia­ment should go. And it was note­wor­thy that Jacqui Samp­son Meiguel al­so trained sev­er­al per­sons through­out the years who con­tin­ue that vi­sion,” MP Mooni­lal said.

Mr. Bri­an Cae­sar pre­vi­ous­ly Clerk of the Sen­ate (Ag.) has been ap­point­ed as the sub­stan­tive Clerk of the House with ef­fect from Mon­day Oc­to­ber 9th.