Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for To­co/San­gre Grande and Min­is­ter of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy, has vol­un­teered an opin­ion on the res­ig­na­tion of for­mer Sen­a­tor and Vice Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate of Trinidad and To­ba­go. On whose be­half did the Min­is­ter speak? He cer­tain­ly has not spo­ken on be­half of the con­stituents of To­co/San­gre Grande. Maybe, just maybe, he might have spo­ken in his ca­pac­i­ty as a min­is­ter of gov­ern­ment.

Ru­pert Grif­fith has ceased be­ing the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the con­stituen­cy of To­co/San­gre Grande a long time ago. We do not know who the po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC and Prime Min­is­ter of T&T has been lis­ten­ing to, and what is the source of the re­ports on his per­for­mance which has guid­ed her to have him con­tin­ue as a mem­ber of her Cab­i­net.On the ba­sis of her re­cent re­as­sur­ance to be more at­ten­tive to the mem­bers of the par­ty let me vol­un­teer this in­for­ma­tion:

Dr Grif­fith ap­par­ent­ly is not aware that the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship lost every sin­gle seat in the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions. He is ap­par­ent­ly not aware as well that the UNC lost the Ch­agua­nas West by-elec­tion by an al­most three to one mar­gin. Fur­ther, that three coun­cil­lors of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, all mem­bers of the Part­ner­ship, have re­signed.

It is there­fore not sur­pris­ing that he re­gards the res­ig­na­tion of for­mer Sen­a­tor Udit as "no big loss". Madame Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Grif­fith al­so as­sures us that the part­ner­ship is strong and the UNC is strong. Be­ware of the Greeks who bring gifts.

It is dif­fi­cult to please every­one as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the peo­ple, but Dr Grif­fith is ex­cep­tion­al. He has great­ly dis­ap­point­ed us. Mem­bers of the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive who worked for his suc­cess are no where to be found and he has changed of­fice staff like clothes. Mem­bers of the par­ty have been alien­at­ed and we are at a loss to know the rea­son for this.

See­ing that the right of re­call is not yet in place, it is not too ear­ly to find a re­place­ment for him. He has for­got­ten the rungs of the lad­der by which he did as­cend. His on­ly out­stand­ing achieve­ment has been the to­tal alien­ation of the sup­port of the COP and the mem­ber­ship of the UNC.

Taran B Sook­lal,

San­gre Grande