Rose­marie Sant

New­ly-ap­point­ed Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan says he is hum­bled by the con­fi­dence placed in him by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley "to run one of the largest min­istries at a time when the coun­try needs the Min­istry of Works to get go­ing."

He is promis­ing to "work in the in­ter­est of the coun­try and the peo­ple."

Sinanan, who ran the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's suc­cess­ful 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign, re­places Fitzger­ald Hinds as Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter. Hinds has been re­as­signed to the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry fol­low­ing the dis­missal of re­tired Brigadier An­cil An­toine.

Al­so get­ting the axe in yes­ter­day's Cab­i­net reshuf­fle was En­er­gy Min­is­ter Nicole Olivierre, who has been re­placed by for­mer Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Franklin Khan. The new Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is for­mer San Fer­nan­do May­or Kaz­im Ho­sein.

Sinanan, a deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), ad­mit­ted his new min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties would be a chal­lenge, "es­pe­cial­ly with the eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances be­cause the Min­istry of Works is where you need a heavy bud

He said he planned to give it his all and would "scru­ti­nise the award of con­tracts" giv­en ques­tions raised un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Sinanan said he in­tend­ed to meet with the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and se­nior min­istry staff to chart the way for­ward.

"My job is to make sure Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy is im­ple­ment­ed with­in the frame­work of a de­tailed plan," he said.

Among the projects on the ta­ble are the Va­len­cia to To­co High­way, the Waller­field to Man­zanil­la High­way, con­tin­u­a­tion of the Point Fortin High­way and the Ch­aguara­mas cause­way.

He said he in­tend­ed to make sure that he lived up to his oath of of­fice and not dis­ap­point peo­ple who put their trust in him. He said his ob­jec­tive was to "serve the peo­ple and the coun­try to the best of my abil­i­ty."

Cu­ri­ous­ly, fol­low­ing the of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment of Sinanan's ap­point­ment a sto­ry pub­lished in De­cem­ber last year start­ed cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia about a 50th birth­day par­ty at his Val­sayn home which was at­tend­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley.

Among the guests were Jack Warn­er and busi­ness­man Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh, both of whom are cur­rent­ly chal­leng­ing ex­tra­di­tion re­quest by US au­thor­i­ties.

Re­ports al­so sur­faced that Sinanan bought land once oc­cu­pied by the Kay Don­na Dri­ve-in Cin­e­ma which is ear­marked to be ac­quired for the Curepe In­ter­change.

He told the T&T Guardian: "While it is true I do have an in­ter­est in the land which was once oc­cu­pied by the Kay Don­na Cin­e­ma along with oth­er share­hold­ers, what has been cir­cu­lat­ing is very un­true. Now they will see the truth."

Sinanan said he al­so owned prop­er­ty in Val­sayn and San­gre Grande but de­nied he owned land in To­co. He al­so dis­missed as "garbage" claims that he was paid mon­ey by the Gov­ern­ment.

In the case of Khan, while this is the first time he has been ap­point­ed En­er­gy Min­is­ter, he is no stranger to the sec­tor.

"I am a pe­tro­le­um ge­ol­o­gist and I worked for over two decades in the in­dus­try, so that is my pro­fes­sion­al train­ing. I in­tend to bring my ex­per­tise to bear on the Min­istry of En­er­gy," he said.

Khan, the chair­man of the PNM, has served on the Cab­i­net Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on En­er­gy in both the Patrick Man­ning and Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tions and said he is "rea­son­ably fa­mil­iar with some of the is­sues."

Asked whether there would be any con­flict of in­ter­est in his new port­fo­lio giv­en his in­volve­ment in the sec­tor in a pre­vi­ous in­car­na­tion, Khan said: "I have no in­ter­est in any en­er­gy sec­tor com­pa­nies as we speak."

More in­fo

In the Cab­i­net reshuf­fle an­nounced via a press re­lease from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, the for­mer San Fer­nan­do May­or re­places Sarah Bud­hu in the Sen­ate and now holds the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment port­fo­lio pre­vi­ous­ly held by Khan. Bud­hu con­test­ed the seat for Ca­roni East for the PNM in the last gen­er­al elec­tion but was un­suc­cess­ful.

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­is­ter of State in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young is now Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.