Leah So­rias

Press Sec­re­tary Garvin Nicholas has said two of the six min­is­ters who ac­com­pa­nied Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to New York "paid their way."

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day from New York, Nicholas said the six min­is­ters de­cid­ed to go on the trip be­cause Par­lia­ment was in re­cess. He said Sports Min­is­ter Anil Roberts and Cul­ture Min­siter Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters paid for their trip. He said Pe­ters was stay­ing at his own home in New York while the oth­er min­is­ters sought ac­com­mo­da­tion at ho­tels. He said none of the min­is­ters were stay­ing at the Mar­riot Maquis Ho­tel where the PM is be­ing ac­com­mo­dat­ed. Per­sad-Bisses­sar left for New York last Fri­day fol­low­ing an in­vi­ta­tion from the Fed­er­a­tion of In­di­an As­so­ci­a­tions (FIA) to be a guest of ho­n­our at its 30th an­nu­al In­dia In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade last Sun­day.

Al­so go­ing with her were Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Fazal Karim, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma, Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Rudrawa­tee Ram­goolam and spe­cial ad­vi­sor on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to the PM Cap­tain Gary Grif­fith. Karim and Shar­ma al­ready have re­turned to T&T. Nicholas said most of the oth­er min­is­ters would re­turn home "long be­fore the PM." She re­turns on Sun­day. Shoot­ing down claims from Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald that Per­sad-Bisses­sar's trip was skewed Nicholas said: "We have been the most trans­par­ent in provid­ng de­tails of the trip, un­like Mc­Don­ald's par­ty. The min­is­ters came on dif­fer­ent roles."

He said Karim had a meet­ing with of­fi­cials of the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York (SUNY) re­gard­ing the de­vel­op­ment of ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes for T&T. SUNY is the provider of pro­grammes for the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, he added. Nicholas said Mooni­lal held dis­cus­sions with one of the hous­ing au­thor­i­ties in New York. He did not go in­to de­tails about the pur­pose of the meet­ing. "So you see peo­ple have been work­ing and do­ing dif­fer­ent things," Nicholas said. As to Mc­Don­ald's ques­tion as to why Trade Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz was not a part of the trip, he said: "The Min­is­ter of Trade does not have to be at every for­eign event."

Mean­while, Nicholas said com­ing out of the fund-rais­ing event Per­sad-Bisses­sar at­tend­ed in New York pledges, in ex­cess of over US$150,000, were made to the Chil­dren's Life Fund. He said 35 con­sul­tant sur­geons had pledged their free ser­vices to chil­dren of T&T. "When quan­ti­fied this would run in­to many mil­lions of dol­lars," Nicholas added.