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Saturday, July 26, 2025

NOT ON BOARD!

... Gonzales takes issue with composition of new State boards; claims there’s ethnic ‘imbalance’

by

9 days ago
20250717
PNM chairman Marvin Gonzales  during yesterday’s media conference at the Office of the Opposition Leader in Port-of-Spain.

PNM chairman Marvin Gonzales during yesterday’s media conference at the Office of the Opposition Leader in Port-of-Spain.

ABRAHAMN DIAZ

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les is voic­ing se­ri­ous con­cern over what he de­scribes as an im­bal­anced eth­nic and racial com­po­si­tion among the new­ly ap­point­ed State boards un­der the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment.

“When I look at it, I won­der if we’re liv­ing in Bangladesh or Del­hi,” Gon­za­les blunt­ly de­clared at an Op­po­si­tion me­dia brief­ing at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader on Charles Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

Gon­za­les ar­gued that the State boards cho­sen so far com­prised pre­dom­i­nant­ly of mem­bers from one par­tic­u­lar race, a sce­nario he ar­gued would nev­er have been ap­proved by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

“You couldn’t bring a cab­i­net note by Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley with on­ly a cer­tain race be­ing rep­re­sent­ed. It must rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go. That is how a PNM cab­i­net con­duct­ed it­self,” Gon­za­les said.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, who was al­so in the room, Gon­za­les said ap­point­ing board mem­bers was a la­bo­ri­ous task, as Row­ley, and even for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, would pull no punch­es and did not mince his words when he ques­tioned the cab­i­net about the racial com­po­si­tion of the var­i­ous boards.

“And he would ask you di­rect­ly, is that board be­ing tak­en from In­dia, if it on­ly rep­re­sents a par­tic­u­lar race, or is it a board from Ghana? And I re­mem­ber min­is­ter Im­bert, as the cor­po­ra­tion sole, would ask you, even be­fore cab­i­net, is that a board from Mozam­bique?”

He added, “Be­cause as far as the PNM is con­cerned, the ap­point­ment of State boards and per­sons and cit­i­zens who are qual­i­fied to serve on State boards, it must rep­re­sent a di­verse so­ci­ety like Trinidad and To­ba­go.” The PNM chair­man said this de­vel­op­ment should be of con­cern to the cit­i­zen­ry.

“If it doesn’t trou­ble you, then I don’t know what go­ing to trou­ble us as a so­ci­ety.”

Gon­za­les al­so voiced con­cern over the po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions of some ap­pointees to state po­si­tions.

On Tues­day, UNC cam­paign man­ag­er Feeroze Khan was ap­point­ed as the new pro­gramme man­ag­er of the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP).

“And then you are see­ing many of them be­ing af­fil­i­at­ed with Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, cam­paign man­agers,” Gon­za­les added.

He said this reeks of “po­lit­i­cal hypocrisy to the high­est”. “And the same peo­ple, one of them Padarath-ing, job for the boys and job for the girls, PNM boys and PNM girls, in true Padarath style. And in the same way, jobs for the boys, job for the PNM boys, jobs for the PNM girls. Look at who are the UNC girls, and the UNC boys, do­ing the same thing.”

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to get a re­sponse from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day but this was un­suc­cess­ful.

How­ev­er, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­dera Sage­wan said she be­lieves the PNM was be­ing hyp­o­crit­i­cal with its as­ser­tion.

In a state­ment post­ed to Face­book, Dr Sage­wan said, “Let me start by say­ing I sub­scribe to com­pe­tence and fit for pur­pose over race, but un­der­stand that in a coun­try like ours, at the lev­el of gov­er­nance, ef­fort should be made to re­flect the com­pos­ite racial blend of the coun­try, once the first two cri­te­ria are met. That said, no PNM min­is­ter has the moral au­thor­i­ty to ex­press con­cern over the eth­ic mix of boards un­der the new gov­ern­ment! It amounts to the pot call­ing the ket­tle black!!”

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James was al­so dis­ap­point­ed with Gon­za­les’ choice of words.

“It’s a PNM thing, you know, PNM al­ways us­es the race card. And they al­ways feel in a self-right­eous way that the way they do it is the way.”

Dr James said if Gon­za­les is seek­ing a long po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, he should re­frain from us­ing lan­guage that is un­nec­es­sar­i­ly of­fen­sive and has racist un­der­tones.

“We have been liv­ing in this coun­try to­geth­er for too long for us to be mak­ing dis­parag­ing com­ments of the kind. So, if he has proof to the con­trary, well, he must present that proof to the pub­lic for the pub­lic con­sump­tion.”

But Gon­za­les is not alone in rais­ing such con­cerns.

Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette pre­vi­ous­ly ex­pressed con­cerns about the com­po­si­tion of boards un­der the UNC Gov­ern­ment.

An­nisette said the boards lack suf­fi­cient eth­nic and class di­ver­si­ty. He called on the UNC to “rise above” eth­nic and race pol­i­tics and demon­strate di­ver­si­ty not on­ly in words but in ac­tions.

He stressed the im­por­tance of hav­ing more bal­anced boards, not dom­i­nat­ed by one eth­nic­i­ty. He ar­gued that the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment should not re­peat the “mis­steps” of the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion in this re­gard.


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