JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, May 15, 2025

Cab­i­net in­ex­pe­ri­ence hurt­ing Row­ley so...

Marlene set to return

by

20160906

Sacked hous­ing and ur­ban de­vel­op­ment min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc Don­ald is set to make a re­turn when Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley makes a ma­jor Cab­i­net reshuf­fle short­ly, the T&T Guardian un­der­stands.

As the first an­niver­sary of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's Sep­tem­ber 7 gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry is ob­served to­day, sources yes­ter­day con­firmed Mc Don­ald is tipped to re­turn to the Cab­i­net.

Spec­u­la­tion was rife that Mc Don­ald's ex­pe­ri­ence was be­ing used when she ap­peared as the on­ly non-Cab­i­net min­is­ter on Gov­ern­ment's high-pro­file team, led by Row­ley, dur­ing last week's crime meet­ing with the Op­po­si­tion.

She was al­so at the sub­se­quent news con­fer­ence held by the PM to de­tail the out­come of the meet­ing.

At least four min­is­ters are ex­pect­ed to be af­fect­ed by the im­mi­nent reshuf­fle, a source said.

The T&T Guardian was told Row­ley was "ob­vi­ous­ly not hap­py" with the per­for­mance of some of his min­is­ters and would be look­ing to en­sure there were im­prove­ments in the com­ing year.

The source said Gov­ern­ment would ef­fec­tive­ly on­ly have three years to en­sure it was ready to seek re-elec­tion be­fore the fi­nal year be­gins, and Row­ley is keen to boost his par­ty's per­for­mance, es­pe­cial­ly in the face of neg­a­tive sur­vey re­sults and rat­ings on its first year in of­fice from var­i­ous sec­tors of the pub­lic.

"The Prime Min­is­ter is clear­ly not hap­py about the way some of his min­is­ters have per­formed over the first year and would be seek­ing to make the re­quired changes to en­sure more ef­fec­tive de­liv­ery on the up­com­ing years," the source in­sist­ed.

There is spec­u­la­tion that Mc Don­ald my be giv­en the Min­istry of Works port­fo­lio, as sources said she was a good hous­ing min­is­ter.

Sources al­so said the prospect of Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny chair­man Ger­ry Brooks join­ing the Cab­i­net could be­come a re­al­i­ty.

Changes were al­so like­ly in the Min­istries of Health and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions held by Ter­rence Deyals­ingh and for­mer news­pa­per ed­i­tor Max­ie Cuffie re­spec­tive­ly. But they ad­mit­ted the ap­point­ment could al­so de­pend on the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion clear­ing Mc Don­ald fol­low­ing its cur­rent probe of al­le­ga­tions against her.

Dur­ing a ra­dio in­ter­view on Sun­day, Row­ley had ex­pressed his frus­tra­tion at the length of time the in­tegri­ty body was tak­ing to probe a com­plaint by Fix­in' T&T that Mc Don­ald al­leged­ly breached par­lia­men­tary rules when she hired her com­mon-law spouse and his broth­er to work in her con­stituen­cy of­fice dur­ing the tenth par­lia­men­tary term at salaries above $10,000 each.

Par­lia­ment pays the ex­pens­es of con­stituen­cy of­fices and its rules for­bid the hir­ing of rel­a­tives.

Row­ley said: "In the spir­it of in­tegri­ty in pub­lic life, when al­le­ga­tions are made against pub­lic of­fi­cials, es­pe­cial­ly par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion must act ex­pe­di­tious­ly to deal with those in­ves­ti­ga­tions, de­ter­mine whether there's a case to an­swer or whether the per­son's name should be cleared and the per­son con­tin­ue with­out a cloud. But those in­ves­ti­ga­tions are drag­ging on too long."

The com­mis­sion has since de­fend­ed it­self, say­ing the PM's claim was un­fair and he had no de­tails to sup­port his claim.

Gov­ern­ment sources said yes­ter­day the in­volve­ment of Mc Don­ald in the Gov­ern­ment/Op­po­si­tion crime talks and Row­ley's com­ment on the probe were all in­di­ca­tions of his de­sire to have her re­turn to the Cab­i­net.

Calls to Mc Don­ald's phone went unan­swered yes­ter­day.

Mc Don­ald's his­to­ry

Mc Don­ald was first elect­ed MP for Port-of-Spain South on No­vem­ber 5, 2007, un­der then prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, and was ap­point­ed com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment, cul­ture and gen­der af­fairs min­is­ter. She re­tained her seat three years lat­er af­ter Man­ning's PNM lost a snap elec­tion on May 24, 2010.

Af­ter Row­ley was ap­point­ed new PNM leader and Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, he ap­point­ed Mc Don­ald to serve as deputy po­lit­i­cal leader and Chief Whip. She was re-elect­ed to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Sep­tem­ber 7, 2015 af­ter the PNM was re­turned to pow­er un­der Row­ley.

Four days lat­er she was ap­point­ed min­is­ter of hous­ing and ur­ban de­vel­op­ment, a po­si­tion she held un­til March 17, 2016, when she was re­moved from the Cab­i­net. She, how­ev­er, re­tained her par­ty po­si­tion.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored