Mem­bers of the me­dia have crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ab­sence from post-Cab­i­net brief­in­gs, call­ing for more di­rect en­gage­ment.

At yes­ter­day’s brief­ing, Guardian Me­dia’s Da­reece Po­lo ques­tioned the Prime Min­is­ter’s ab­sence dur­ing a week when she faced crit­i­cism from the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment.

“The Vice Pres­i­dent of Venezuela made cer­tain com­ments di­rect­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go and oth­er press­ing is­sues. So, I have to ask, where is Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­spond to these ques­tions that are now in the pub­lic do­main?”

Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Nicholas Mor­ris, who mod­er­ates the brief­in­gs, de­fend­ed the Prime Min­is­ter.

“All mem­bers of the pub­lic would have not­ed this week, in all of your pa­pers, the Prime Min­is­ter had a num­ber of state­ments on that is­sue. She has been very ac­ces­si­ble. She has spo­ken a lot on that is­sue. To­day, we have Cab­i­net. The Prime Min­is­ter has en­gaged in a num­ber of meet­ings. But she has al­ways re­mained ac­ces­si­ble and com­ment­ed on that is­sue,” Mor­ris said.

When asked about op­por­tu­ni­ties for fol­low-up ques­tions, he re­it­er­at­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter re­mains ac­ces­si­ble.

Ques­tions al­so arose re­gard­ing Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, who has been less avail­able since tak­ing of­fice and in­struct­ed that all ques­tions be sent via email. Guardian Me­dia has re­peat­ed­ly sought a re­sponse from Tan­coo re­gard­ing the Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor’s state­ment that there is no ev­i­dence of a for­eign ex­change car­tel, con­trary to Gov­ern­ment claims. The Prime Min­is­ter di­rect­ed the ques­tions to Tan­coo, who has yet to re­spond.

“The min­is­ter re­mains ac­ces­si­ble,” Mor­ris said, adding that with the na­tion­al bud­get ap­proach­ing, Tan­coo is par­tic­u­lar­ly busy.

An­oth­er re­porter ques­tioned why the Prime Min­is­ter was not present to ad­dress on­go­ing re­gion­al geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions and the URP is­sue.

Mor­ris not­ed that the Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and the Min­is­ter of Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment had en­gaged with the me­dia on these mat­ters.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les has re­peat­ed­ly crit­i­cised Per­sad-Bisses­sar for re­spond­ing to the me­dia via What­sApp rather than hold­ing me­dia con­fer­ences. The Prime Min­is­ter last at­tend­ed a post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing on June 5.