DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) vice chair­man Dr Amery Browne says the par­ty has no com­ment on re­marks by Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T (ORTT) re­cip­i­ent Pro­fes­sor Sel­wyn Cud­joe, who said he had heard crit­i­cism sug­gest­ing his award may have been linked to his af­fil­i­a­tion with the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Cud­joe was one of three men, along­side Pro­fes­sor Ken­neth Ram­c­hand and the late Ho­choy Charles, to re­ceive the ORTT at this year’s Na­tion­al Awards Cer­e­mo­ny on Wednes­day.

Speak­ing at an Op­po­si­tion me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Browne stressed that the PNM had no se­ri­ous con­cerns about the awardees, not­ing that due process had been fol­lowed.

“We don’t wish to get in­to, as an op­po­si­tion, pick­ing and choos­ing,” he said. “But just to say that we as pa­tri­ots would find ways to al­ways be rep­re­sent­ed at na­tion­al-lev­el events even if and when we do not agree with all of the de­tails. And yes­ter­day, at those na­tion­al awards, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment was rep­re­sent­ed and present, quite un­like the pos­tur­ing and po­si­tion of the UNC.”

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) fre­quent­ly skipped Na­tion­al Awards and In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions be­tween 2015 and 2024.

The Na­tion­al Awards recog­nise cit­i­zens, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly non-cit­i­zens, who have made dis­tin­guished con­tri­bu­tions in ar­eas in­clud­ing pub­lic ser­vice, arts and cul­ture, ed­u­ca­tion, sci­ence, and gal­lantry.

Nom­i­na­tions can be sub­mit­ted by in­di­vid­u­als or or­gan­i­sa­tions to the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, with sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion of the can­di­date’s achieve­ments. A Na­tion­al Awards Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee, chaired by the Chief Jus­tice, re­views all nom­i­na­tions and rec­om­mends awardees to the Pres­i­dent, who for­mal­ly con­fers the ho­n­ours. The Prime Min­is­ter has no di­rect ve­to pow­er over in­di­vid­ual awards.

While the awards are in­tend­ed to be non-par­ti­san and mer­it-based, de­bates over per­ceived po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence oc­ca­sion­al­ly arise.

Mean­while, Browne al­so com­ment­ed on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ap­point­ment of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John to act in her stead while she trav­els to the Unit­ed States for the 80th Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, say­ing the onus re­mains on the Prime Min­is­ter and that the op­po­si­tion’s po­si­tion on pru­dence and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty “con­tin­ues to stand.”