Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley be­lieves T&T’s lead­er­ship struc­ture paints an op­ti­mistic pic­ture for young girls.

For the first time in its his­to­ry, this coun­try has a fe­male Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion Leader.

Mot­t­ley, who spoke with re­porters at the Red House yes­ter­day, was spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Biss­esar to at­tend the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of Par­lia­ment.

“I think that it’s a good thing for the young girls to see that they can as­pire to all of­fices, whether po­lit­i­cal, whether with­in the con­text of oth­er ar­eas of en­deav­our. It’s an em­pow­er­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for them to see that it is pos­si­ble,” she said.

Mot­t­ley said she was al­so pleased with Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s ad­dress.

“I thought she ad­dressed some crit­i­cal is­sues. For us in the Caribbean the is­sue of AI is go­ing to con­tin­ue to be a ma­jor is­sue go­ing for­ward, and how we strike the bal­ance be­tween reg­u­la­tion and al­low­ing it to flour­ish is go­ing to be crit­i­cal.

“On the oth­er is­sues, with re­spect to en­sur­ing that we can make lives eas­i­er for the fam­i­lies of per­sons who have to take care of peo­ple with Alzheimer’s, that is al­so crit­i­cal. En­sur­ing that we do a bet­ter deal for the dis­abled per­sons,” she ex­plained.

“In my own coun­try, we had a com­mis­sion on per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, and it rec­om­mend­ed a range of ac­tions. We just passed leg­is­la­tion. We’re in the midst of try­ing to en­sure that our phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture is adapt­ed.

“We in­tro­duced new pay­ments for per­sons from the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Scheme for per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties. So these things are im­por­tant to our cit­i­zens across the re­gion.”

Asked about her pres­ence at yes­ter­day’s cer­e­mo­ny Mot­t­ley said she was in­vit­ed both as the Chair of Cari­com and a per­son­al friend.

Lat­er that day Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar fur­ther ex­plained, “When I was sworn (in 2010) she came, then sub­se­quent­ly she won her elec­tion and then she won again and then I’m back again and she told me we are fac­ing the same type of roots so we will be go­ing back for her elec­tion.

“I was very hap­py to see her. We are not just po­lit­i­cal friends but we did a lot of le­gal work to­geth­er.”

Mot­t­ley was al­so asked if Cari­com’s work would be im­pact­ed by the change in lead­er­ship in Trinidad and To­ba­go. At the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in Bar­ba­dos ear­li­er this year, a de­ci­sion was made to in­tro­duce leg­is­la­tion to treat cer­tain gun crimes as an act of ter­ror.

The Bar­ba­dos PM ex­plained, “It wasn’t a Trinidad ini­tia­tive, it was a Cari­com ini­tia­tive, so re­gard­less of who is in gov­ern­ment, Cari­com will con­tin­ue with those ini­tia­tives. And it is mul­ti-coun­try, so it de­pends on who wants to get on board or not.”

Mot­t­ley said there is a process in place.

“And Cari­com has ap­point­ed Mr God­frey Smith as the high-lev­el rep­re­sen­ta­tive on these mat­ters, so he is now work­ing with­in the re­gion and with ex­ter­nal part­ners to come up with the frame­work for how we should move as a com­mu­ni­ty.”