GAIL ALEXAN­DER

The high­est of praise, the depths of sad­ness – and a bou­quet of white and pink flow­ers in re­mem­brance, at the Sen­ate desk of late En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan.

Gov­ern­ment and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors plus Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark de­vot­ed yes­ter­day’s en­tire Sen­ate sit­ting to pay trib­ute to the man who had led the PNM Gov­ern­ment’s team in that Up­per House.

Even Op­po­si­tion mem­bers, who boy­cotted Par­lia­ment re­cent­ly, turned out yes­ter­day. Sen­a­tors ob­served a minute’s si­lence to ho­n­our Khan who died sud­den­ly last Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

Yes­ter­day, he was hailed as gi­ant in the po­lit­i­cal and en­er­gy sec­tors– an en­er­gy Czar who pro­mot­ed his Gov­ern­ment’s agen­da against stiff op­po­si­tion and a fam­i­ly man whose grand­daugh­ter Amelia was the ap­ple of his eye.

Every speak­er was shaky with emo­tion. All wore black, with white flo­ral cor­sages. All ex­pressed con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly, thank­ing them for Khan’s con­tri­bu­tion to T&T – and all laud­ed Khan for serv­ing to the “very end.”

Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon said Khan “al­ways did it right.

“Ex­em­plary in the ex­e­cu­tion of his du­ties, flaw­less­ly ful­fill­ing his oblig­a­tion to the leg­is­la­ture, stout­ly de­fend­ing the Gov­ern­ment with po­lit­i­cal pre­ci­sion all while serv­ing with re­spect, in­tegri­ty and great ho­n­our.

“He was an out­stand­ing de­bater whose de­liv­er­ies set him apart....a mas­ter pre­sen­ter ...His knowl­edge of T&T’s his­to­ry was show­cased in al­most every de­bate. As leader he un­der­stood the need for strong work­ing re­la­tion­ships with both the In­de­pen­dent and Op­po­si­tion bench­es. This was ev­i­dent by the mu­tu­al re­spect shown among all. “

She said he was an En­er­gy Czar. “He had a deep savvy un­der­stand­ing of the in­dus­try … un­der­stood al­most every facet . We in the Cab­i­net would mar­vel in his ex­pla­na­tions of en­er­gy pro­duc­tion re­ports. Frankie could tell you of every rig, every plat­form and well by name, lo­ca­tion, and every dis­cov­ery. He lived and breathed for the en­er­gy sec­tor .”

Gopee-Scoon not­ed Khan’s last con­tri­bu­tion in the Sen­ate ,”His last words ‘let us build T&T’ – a mis­sion for all of us.”

She added Khan was the quin­tes­sen­tial team play­er and gen­tle­man, and was stead­fast even in the dark­est part of his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer “His smile fal­tered at times, but he held his head high and re­mained com­mit­ted to ex­e­cut­ing his du­ties,”

“Frankie loved the peo­ple of T&T. He was ap­proach­able, lis­tened and al­ways showed great re­spect re­gard­less of who you are. It must have been his hum­ble unas­sum­ing way that re­al­ly caused him to be loved by so many. Frankie was known for stand­ing in line for dou­bles or at a roti shop and talk­ing and en­gag­ing with oth­ers. He was a shin­ing light; al­ways with a smile,”

“That smile was al­ways big­ger and brighter when any­one men­tioned his fam­i­ly. His love­ly wife Lau­ra, kids and grand­kids meant the world to him. He loved them to the core of his be­ing.

“Sen­a­tor Khan’s lega­cy will for­ev­er re­main one of hard work, ded­i­ca­tion, hu­mil­i­ty, sin­cer­i­ty, pa­tience and love for our dear coun­try and our peo­ple. We are for­ev­er bet­ter for know­ing him... we bid you farewell dear col­league, dear friend, dear broth­er.”

Loy­al to PNM to the end– Mark

UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark said Khan was a qui­et unas­sum­ing man who pro­mot­ed and cham­pi­oned the PNM Gov­ern­ment’s agen­da even in the face of stiff UNC op­po­si­tion.

“Franklin honed his unique style, par­tic­u­lar­ly his de­bat­ing skills. Ex­treme­ly mea­sured but nev­er­the­less force­ful in his be­liefs and ideas. Franklin Khan was ex­treme­ly loy­al and un­com­pro­mis­ing in his pro­mo­tion of the Gov­ern­ment’s agen­da which clashed at times with the na­tion­al in­ter­est and the peo­ple’s ul­ti­mate wel­fare and well-be­ing.”

“In sanc­ti­fy­ing his mem­o­ry, we will al­ways val­ue his cor­dial ap­proach to mat­ters raised and dis­cussed, his frank­ness of thoughts and views and his trade­mark smile and at times in­fec­tious sense of hu­mour.Franklin Khan re­mained loy­al and ded­i­cat­ed to his po­lit­i­cal views and par­ty right to the very end.”

Richards: A gen­tle­man

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Paul Richards said Khan was a coun­try boy at heart, al­ways proud of his coun­try up­bring­ing and the val­ues he had as a re­sult. “A proud son of Ma­yaro, to rose to the heights of ser­vice in T&T.”

His con­tri­bu­tions were filled with clear ev­i­dence of his train­ing, ex­pe­ri­ence and ex­per­tise in the en­er­gy sec­tor. Many times lay per­sons re­ceived a front row seat to class­es in the hy­dro­car­bon sec­tor And he had the unique gift of that smile….He was a gen­tle­men who al­ways showed re­spect and kept his dig­ni­ty, even in the most try­ing of po­lit­i­cal chal­lenges.”

Richards said he of­ten wor­ried about Khan. “When he re­turned af­ter his re­cent health chal­lenges, but be­ing the pa­tri­ot he was he sol­diered on, serv­ing his coun­try to the very end. “

“I re­mem­ber him telling me two years ago when I called ear­ly one morn­ing for an in­ter­view on some de­vel­op­ing en­er­gy sec­tor is­sue, that he promised his wife that morn­ings was for fam­i­ly un­less it was a cri­sis. He said his fam­i­ly sac­ri­ficed a lot on his be­half. “

Love for fam­i­ly: Browne

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne said, “A more bal­anced ra­tio­nal per­son you could nev­er find. Not pos­sessed by emp­ty van­i­ties or self-pro­mo­tion, and nev­er one to ut­ter in­sults or crude words across the isle, or across the (Par­lia­ment) aisles. Frankie was a voice of mod­er­a­tion, calm and sober re­flec­tion, rea­son, and sta­bil­i­ty and re­spect.”

Browne not­ed Khan’s un­shake­able love for hu­man­i­ty and for his fam­i­ly.

“He nev­er ever stopped talk­ing about his dear wife Lau­ra, son Kher­an and daugh­ter Khara, and the ap­ple of his eye, his dar­ling grand­daugh­ter Amelia.”

He said Khan’s wife had asked him to con­vey Khan’s spe­cial love for To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“Frankie loved To­ba­go and spent as much time there as he could. The peo­ple loved him in re­turn.”

“ His dear wife al­so asked me to tell you the pub­lic, and you his col­leagues, how dis­turbed and dis­gust­ed he was by the ven­om that seems to be grow­ing in the hearts of some. By the nasty per­son­al at­tacks and dis­plays of vi­cious­ness and mal­ice.

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Po­ems for Khan

Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee –Scoon read the Irish Fu­ner­al Prayer which she said, “Our boy Frankie would ap­pre­ci­ate.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne quot­ed Hen­ry Vandyke’s “Time Is…. “ po­em. And In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Hazel Thomp­son- Ahye pre­sent­ed a po­em she com­posed based on the ini­tials of late Min­is­ter Franklin Khan’s name. She re­cit­ed:

F -Face al­ways wear­ing his sig­na­ture smiles

R – Re­al it was with­out pre­tence or gu­dle

A -Al­ways pre­pared to con­tribute to a de­bate

N - Nei­ther daunt­ed by Op­po­si­tion or In­de­pen­dent slate

K- Knowl­edge and mas­tery of his port­fo­lio’s scope

L -Liq­ui­dat­ed the re­cent no con­fi­dence vote

I - In­vit­ed to serve he did so with dis­tinc­tion

N - Notwith­stand­ing a chal­leng­ing heart sit­u­a­tion

K- Key to his hum­ble child­hood he shared with me

H- How his moth­er strug­gled to mind his fam­i­ly

A -Al­ways mind­ful of his strong Ma­yaro roots

N -Nev­er failed to serve and nev­er did loot “