For­mer Na­pari­ma Col­lege Prin­ci­pal Dr Michael Dowlath has giv­en San Fer­nan­do West MP Faris Al-Rawi a fail­ing grade, stat­ing that his per­for­mance in the con­stituen­cy is like­ly to lead to his re­moval fol­low­ing the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions.

Ad­dress­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) pave­ment re­port at the Siparia Road KPA Pri­ma­ry School on Tues­day night, Dowlat, who is seek­ing to un­seat Al-Rawi, crit­i­cised the MP’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion. He said that dur­ing his walks in the con­stituen­cy over the past month, he con­sis­tent­ly heard com­plaints that the area has been ne­glect­ed by an "ab­sen­tee" MP, who he claimed, was more fo­cused on pro­tect­ing his par­ty than rep­re­sent­ing his con­stituents.

Dowlath de­scribed a range of is­sues af­fect­ing res­i­dents, in­clud­ing con­cerns about safe­ty, strug­gling busi­ness­es, a lack of op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple, de­te­ri­o­rat­ing roads rid­dled with pot­holes, and poor drainage. Dowlat fur­ther al­leged that the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion is be­ing sti­fled un­der Al-Rawi’s lead­er­ship as Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

Dowlath, who re­tired as prin­ci­pal of Na­pari­ma Col­lege in Jan­u­ary 2021, is al­so a for­mer Ac­cre­tion­al Coun­cil chair­man.

Dowlath gave Al-Rawi a fail­ing grade across sev­er­al cat­e­gories. He crit­i­cised his rep­re­sen­ta­tion, as he claimed that Al-Rawi failed to sup­port mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions and ig­nored lo­cal de­vel­op­ment needs while di­rect­ing mil­lions to­wards ques­tion­able projects else­where. He al­so rat­ed his lead­er­ship poor­ly, claim­ing that Al-Rawi left be­hind a lega­cy of le­gal blun­ders, flawed poli­cies, and pub­lic frus­tra­tion dur­ing his tenure as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment.

The UNC can­di­date gave a break­down of how he grad­ed the San Fer­nan­do West MP.

For at­ten­dance, Dowlath gave Al-Rawi a Grade F for his al­leged chron­ic ab­sen­teeism from the San Fer­nan­do West con­stituen­cy, miss­ing in ac­tion when con­stituents need­ed him most. He claimed the MP on­ly ad­dressed is­sues such as health­care, crime, and in­fra­struc­ture when elec­tions were near.

Re­gard­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty, Al-Rawi re­ceived a Grade F for re­port­ed­ly 58 re­cusals from Cab­i­net meet­ings up to 2022.

"Based on this dis­mal per­for­mance, we re­gret to in­form Mr Faris Al-Rawi that he has failed the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do West. He will not be pro­mot­ed for an­oth­er term. In­stead, the peo­ple will give him a well-de­served dis­missal at the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions," Dowlath said.

Speak­ing about the par­ty’s ed­u­ca­tion plan, Dowlath said un­der a Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led gov­ern­ment, the sec­tor would be re­vi­talised. He promised free lap­tops for all sec­ondary school stu­dents, the ex­pan­sion of ICT pro­grammes, com­pre­hen­sive cur­ricu­lum re­form, and greater em­pha­sis on vo­ca­tion­al and tech­ni­cal train­ing, life skills, vi­su­al and per­form­ing arts, sports, and pa­tri­o­tism.

Dowlath urged cit­i­zens to re­ject what he called the “PNM fail­ure in ed­u­ca­tion” and sup­port the UNC’s vi­sion for a smarter and more pro­gres­sive T&T.

“We will have bet­ter sup­port for teach­ers, in­fra­struc­ture up­grades, im­me­di­ate re­pairs, and the con­struc­tion of schools that the PNM has ne­glect­ed. We will en­sure safe, well-equipped learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments and form part­ner­ships with pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies to pro­vide ap­pren­tice­ships and job place­ments. Sup­port will al­so be pri­ori­tised for un­der­priv­i­leged stu­dents.”