Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Laven­tille Out­reach for Ver­ti­cal En­rich­ment (LOVE) move­ment, a mem­ber of the UNC’s Coali­tion of In­ter­ests, says it did not get a sub­stan­tive po­si­tion with the Gov­ern­ment be­cause the Prime Min­is­ter said it did not ask for one in a time­ly man­ner.

The par­ty, which con­test­ed the Laven­tille West seat and lost in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, stands with the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) as the two po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ties in­volved with the coali­tion whose mem­bers did not re­ceive a place in the Gov­ern­ment nor Par­lia­ment.

Asked if it en­quired as to why the par­ty was seem­ing­ly left out at a news con­fer­ence at the par­ty’s head­quar­ters along George Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Po­lit­i­cal Leader Lennox Smith said, “When I first com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the Prime Min­is­ter on that par­tic­u­lar is­sue and I told her, board ap­point­ments, Sen­ate etc, she did in­di­cate to me, why didn’t I speak to her be­fore.”

Smith added that he ini­tial­ly did not agree with that po­si­tion.

“I didn’t think that I had to, I think the re­verse should have been the case where I should have been called ear­li­er.”

How­ev­er, he said it taught the par­ty a les­son.

“The les­son we learnt, we must be up­front and sharp,” he con­ced­ed.

But Smith said there is still time for the LOVE move­ment to get a place in the Gov­ern­ment.

“Af­ter that, she said ‘say what you want and what role you want to play’. But ini­tial­ly, she said I was a bit late. How­ev­er, where there are per­sons that may for one rea­son or an­oth­er, cur­rent­ly ap­point­ed but not en­gaged, I would be one of the first to be sub­sti­tut­ed. And I have no dif­fi­cul­ty with it, I want to say that one time,” Smith said.

Smith al­so reaf­firmed LOVE’s com­mit­ment to the Coali­tion of In­ter­ests and said he does not feel as if the par­ty was over­looked.

“I think it is ear­ly days yet, you are hear­ing of course board ap­pointees from the pre­vi­ous (ad­min­is­tra­tion) don’t want to leave.”

Smith re­vealed that two weeks ago, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke with him and asked what role he would like to play in the new Gov­ern­ment. Smith said he mes­saged the Prime Min­is­ter close to mid­night, and she re­spond­ed less than 30 min­utes lat­er.

“To me that says she has a work eth­ic that I can­not fath­om. I did not ex­pect her to be up and re­spond­ing at her time.”

He said fur­ther cor­re­spon­dence was met with quick re­spons­es from Per­sad-Bisses­sar.