GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Changes in min­is­ters’ re­spon­si­bil­i­ties have been made to most of the Cab­i­net, with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar now han­dling cer­tain pub­lic as­sis­tance pro­grammes, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der over­see­ing the prison sys­tem, and var­i­ous front­line min­is­ters’ re­spon­si­bil­i­ties shift­ed to their col­leagues.

Ahead of the up­com­ing 2026 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last week as­signed and re­as­signed cer­tain re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to var­i­ous min­is­ters.

It has ex­pand­ed and re­duced some min­is­ters’ port­fo­lios.

The ex­er­cise has al­so re­clas­si­fied and re­named two min­istries. The Agri­cul­ture, Lands and Fish­eries Min­istry held by Ravi Rati­ram is now the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries, af­ter all land as­pects were moved to Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein, now head­ing the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs and Lands.

The re­align­ment took ef­fect last Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 4.

Vol­ume 64 of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gazette yes­ter­day stat­ed that Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo re­as­signed the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, act­ing in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter and in ac­cor­dance with sec­tion 79(1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

The Per­sad-Bisses­sar Cab­i­net ap­point­ed in May com­prised 25 min­is­ters, four min­is­ters of state with­in min­istries, and six par­lia­men­tary sec­re­taries.

Changes for 18 min­is­ters

Shifts have now been made large­ly in 10 min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios where the rel­e­vant min­is­ters re­ceived ex­pand­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, but min­i­mal to no as­pects were re­moved.

The 10 are: Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, Roger Alexan­der (Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty), De­vesh Ma­haraj (Jus­tice), Sad­dam Ho­sein (Le­gal Af­fairs), Bar­ry Padarath (Pub­lic Util­i­ties), Dave Tan­coo (Fi­nance), Van­dana Mo­hit (Min­istry of the Peo­ple), Leroy Bap­tiste (Labour), and Kennedy Swarats­ingh (Plan­ning).

Changes were al­so made to port­fo­lios of eight min­is­ters, where cer­tain re­spon­si­bil­i­ties were shift­ed to oth­er min­is­ters, but the eight re­ceived no new re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

The eight are: David Lee (Hous­ing), Dr Roodal Mooni­lal (En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries), Ravi Rati­ram (Agri­cul­ture), Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe (Health), Michelle Ben­jamin (Cul­ture), Satyka­ma Ma­haraj (Trade), Phillip Watts (Sports), and Do­minic Smith (Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion/AI).

Sev­en min­istries were un­af­fect­ed.

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath said of the changes in his min­istry, “Gov­ern­ment is at­tempt­ing to har­monise agen­cies and state en­ter­pris­es where there’s a nat­ur­al fit, plus for bet­ter op­er­a­tions and func­tion­al­i­ty.”

PM heads pub­lic pro­grammes

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has as­sumed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for cer­tain ar­eas for­mer­ly held by four min­is­ters.

This in­cludes Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form, for­mer­ly un­der Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ho­sein, and var­i­ous pro­grammes to aid the pub­lic, for­mer­ly un­der Min­is­ters Lee and Ben­jamin. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so has as­pects from the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­istry un­der Smith, in­clud­ing the Na­tion­al Li­brary Ser­vice.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty’s Alexan­der now has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for mat­ters re­lat­ing to the prison sys­tem. This was shift­ed from Jus­tice Min­is­ter Ma­haraj.

Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the Crim­i­nal In­juries Com­pen­sa­tion Board and elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing, which were un­der Alexan­der, was shift­ed to Ma­haraj.

Ma­haraj, who’s a min­is­ter in the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Min­istry, has been giv­en five as­pects of the AG’s min­istry, in­clud­ing cer­tain com­mis­sions.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Je­re­mie is now re­spon­si­ble for mat­ters re­lat­ing to the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Unit, which was un­der Ma­haraj.

Agri­cul­ture, Lands, and Fish­eries un­der Rati­ram is now re­clas­si­fied as the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries. It is no longer re­spon­si­ble for Lands and Sur­veys, Land Man­age­ment, Sur­veys and Map­ping, the Land Sur­vey Board of T&T, the Land Set­tle­ment Agency, and Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed. These were all shift­ed to Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ho­sein.

Ho­sein, who’s a min­is­ter in the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry, now has a min­istry re­clas­si­fied as the Min­istry of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs.

Ho­sein is al­so now in charge of the Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of Tenure/Hous­ing for Squat­ters, which was re­moved from Hous­ing Min­is­ter Lee. Ho­sein al­so holds Val­u­a­tion, which was shift­ed from Fi­nance Min­is­ter Tan­coo.

Tan­coo has been giv­en ad­di­tion­al mat­ters re­lat­ing to the Na­tion­al Health In­sur­ance Sys­tem, for­mer­ly un­der Health’s Bo­doe, and Ex­port-Im­port Bank of T&T Lim­it­ed. The lat­ter was shift­ed from Trade’s Ma­haraj.

The Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny was shift­ed from Trade to Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste.

Mat­ters re­lat­ing to pow­er gen­er­a­tion, Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed, and POW­ER­GEN were shift­ed from En­er­gy’s Mooni­lal to Padarath.

Plan­ning Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh is now han­dling mat­ters re­lat­ing to so­cial plan­ning, de­vel­op­ment, and mon­i­tor­ing. That was un­der Mo­hit’s min­istry, which now has mat­ters re­lat­ing to the Geri­atric Ado­les­cent Part­ner­ship Pro­gramme. That was re­moved from Watts’ Sports Min­istry.

Min­is­ters re­act

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der: “If you’re look­ing at what’s oc­cur­ring in T&T’s pris­ons, af­ter all law en­force­ment agen­cies’ ef­forts, it’s clear what was one of the rea­sons be­hind the State of Emer­gency’s ex­ten­sion. While per­sons out­side look at the sit­u­a­tion as ‘just about pris­on­ers,’ it’s not. We have to de­ter per­sons from en­ter­ing pris­ons and keep re­turn­ing there. I’ve giv­en in­struc­tions—among oth­ers I’ll be giv­ing—to the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons and his team that, in the next cou­ple of weeks, for one, we must have clear sight of the pris­ons from Pi­ar­co Air­port.

“We al­so in­tend us­ing dif­fer­ent an­gles and strate­gies. Fur­ther equip­ment should come in soon to en­sure ab­solute con­trol of pris­ons, in­clud­ing those de­tained at the State’s plea­sure. I com­pli­ment all state agen­cies and our ex­ter­nal part­ners. Strate­gies, tech­nol­o­gy, and col­lab­o­ra­tions are just some of the many ini­tia­tives we’re us­ing. And there will be more.”

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal: “Re­align­ment of port­fo­lio ar­eas lends it­self to bet­ter syn­er­gies and ef­fi­cien­cies. Our sec­tor’s not the same as it was a decade ago. I’m hap­py to con­cen­trate more on our re­gion­al en­er­gy and in­vest­ment foot­print and key high-hang­ing fruits as T&T’s al­ready wit­nessed. Our eco­nom­ic fu­ture still de­pends high­ly on the en­er­gy sec­tor and our re-emer­gence as the hemi­spher­ic en­er­gy hub.”

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath: “This min­istry has sev­er­al state en­ter­pris­es, and we wel­come the ad­di­tions of TGU and Pow­er­gen, which were with this min­istry years ago due to their im­pact on T&TEC.

“There’s a great need to re­view the pow­er pur­chase agree­ments left to lan­guish by the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion. The im­pact of the ex­cess pow­er on the na­tion­al grid is some­thing we’re ex­am­in­ing in terms of our part­ner­ships with com­mer­cial en­ti­ties. We in­tend re­view­ing the agree­ments to make them more com­mer­cial­ly vi­able and ex­plore un­tapped ar­eas for in­vest­ment. This will be done with stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tion as a long-term plan.”

Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple Van­dana Mo­hit: “I wel­come the changes. They’ll help this min­istry to bet­ter serve the peo­ple.”

The Prime Min­is­ter did not re­spond yes­ter­day to ques­tions about the changes.