At the 17th sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day, Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment ob­served a minute of si­lence on the re­cent death of for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Tu­na­puna MP and min­is­ter Dr Ed­ward “Ed­die” Hart.

Hart rep­re­sent­ed Tu­na­puna for more than 16 years.

Sports Min­is­ter Phillip Watts said Hart’s jour­ney from mod­est be­gin­nings at an or­phan­age in Tacarigua to be­com­ing a dis­tin­guished Par­lia­men­tar­i­an, pi­o­neer­ing com­mu­ni­ty leader, and a tire­less ad­vo­cate for sport and youth de­vel­op­ment “stands as a tes­ta­ment to re­silience, ded­i­ca­tion and self­less ser­vice.”

“Through­out his re­mark­able life, Mr Hart cham­pi­oned grass­roots ini­tia­tives and men­tored count­less young ath­letes through his en­dur­ing con­tri­bu­tions to foot­ball, crick­et, steel­pan and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.”

He added that Hart served this na­tion with dis­tinc­tion and stead­fast com­mit­ment.

“The min­istry salutes his ster­ling ser­vice to coun­try and com­mu­ni­ty, and joins the na­tion­al sport­ing and par­lia­men­tary fra­ter­ni­ties in mourn­ing the loss of a true pa­tri­ot and pi­o­neer of sport and pub­lic ser­vice.”

Op­po­si­tion whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les read a trib­ute giv­en by PNM’s Mar­i­lyn Gor­don on Hart.

“He was an ex­tra­or­di­nary hu­man be­ing, qui­et, shy, but a man of the peo­ple and a nat­ur­al born leader... he once re­lat­ed how he turned down an Op­po­si­tion par­ty’s $5m of­fer to cross the floor – he couldn’t be bought.”

Deputy speak­er Aiy­na Ali added, “Po­lit­i­cal­ly, he ex­em­pli­fied ser­vice-ori­ent­ed lead­er­ship...He con­vert­ed ad­ver­si­ty in­to love.

“Mr Hart was a states­man who served with dig­ni­ty and served his coun­try well.”