Gail Alexan­der

New Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, Richie Sookhai, yes­ter­day promised he’ll be work­ing with all stake­hold­ers to help “put a han­dle on” the crime sit­u­a­tion.

But with­in hours of his ap­point­ment, Sookhai was im­me­di­ate­ly chal­lenged by UNC MPs Rudy In­dars­ingh and Dave Tan­coo to at­tend to in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sues in their re­spec­tive con­stituen­cies.

“... And he must break with his par­ty’s ap­par­ent pol­i­cy of epic ge­o­graph­ic dis­crim­i­na­tion,” Tan­coo added.

The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter yes­ter­day an­nounced that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had ad­vised Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo to ap­point Sookhai as Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, ef­fec­tive yes­ter­day.

This, three months af­ter Sookhai was ap­point­ed a PNM sen­a­tor in Jan­u­ary.

Sookhai, 44, is the lat­est Min­is­ter in Works and Trans­port. Oth­ers who’d held that po­si­tion be­fore were PNM MPs, Fos­ter Cum­mings (now Youth De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter) and Adri­an Leonce (now Min­is­ter in Hous­ing).

With his el­e­va­tion to the min­istry, Sookhai has giv­en up his post as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Sookhai’s Diesel Ser­vices Ltd, which he held pre­vi­ous­ly.

In Jan­u­ary, Sookhai was ap­point­ed a PNM Sen­a­tor, re­plac­ing then-Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo, who’d re­signed to be­come Pres­i­dent.

Yes­ter­day, Sookhai who was sworn in as Min­is­ter at Pres­i­dent’s House, Port-of-Spain, was the first such ap­point­ment made by new Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo.

Fol­low­ing an in­jury Kan­ga­loo re­cent­ly sus­tained while ex­er­cis­ing, she was wear­ing an or­thopaedic boot on her left leg yes­ter­day.

Sookhai said he in­tends to serve the peo­ple. He said tran­si­tion­ing from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in­to Works has giv­en him the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve the peo­ple in a dif­fer­ent role and is “... some­thing that could be mean­ing­ful.”

Asked about crime, an is­sue Sookhai ex­pressed con­cern about last year pri­or to en­ter­ing Gov­ern­ment, he said the last per­son mur­dered was a neigh­bour of his who was very close to Sookhai’s pre­vi­ous busi­ness.

“So, I un­der­stand the need and the plight of the peo­ple right now and def­i­nite­ly, I can as­sure you the Gov­ern­ment is work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to try and curb the crime sit­u­a­tion—we’re putting all hands on deck,” he said.

“What­ev­er role I’m giv­en, I’m will­ing to serve in that ca­pac­i­ty to the best of my abil­i­ty.”

He added, “Per­son­al­ly, I take crime as a very se­ri­ous is­sue. I un­der­stand the suf­fer­ing of our peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly how much it im­pacts the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, so, def­i­nite­ly, I’ll be work­ing to­geth­er with every­one—all stake­hold­ers —to help put a han­dle on the sit­u­a­tion.”

Sookhai said what­ev­er role is sug­gest­ed for him by Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, he hoped Sinanan would give him the con­fi­dence to do.

On “pro­mo­tion” from the Sen­ate to a Min­istry, Sookhai said he guessed the Prime Min­is­ter saw it fit, giv­en his en­gi­neer­ing back­ground.

“...Which gives me the knowl­edge and skills to un­der­stand a lot that goes in Works and Trans­port. The Min­istry’s so di­verse, I’m def­i­nite­ly sure the skillset I pos­sess can help the Min­is­ter, the Min­istry, Gov­ern­ment and T&T by ex­ten­sion.”

But UNC Cou­va South MP In­dars­ingh said there’s a lot of work for Sookha to do.

“How­ev­er, I don’t ex­pect it to hap­pen. His ap­point­ment won’t change T&T’s run­away crime or in­fra­struc­ture col­lapse,” he said.

In­dars­ingh not­ed the many prob­lems in his Cou­va South area, com­pound­ed by heavy traf­fic in­to the lo­ca­tion due to the in­dus­tri­al es­tates there, and lim­it­ed ac­cess.

“Noth­ing was done when Min­is­ter Sinanan had the help of ex-min­is­ters Leonce and Cum­mings, so I don’t hold any hope Sookhai, as the lat­est ad­di­tion to Works, will be any­thing more than that,” In­dars­ingh added.

Oropouche West’s Tan­coo added, “Min­is­ter Sinanan’s re­fused to re­spond to my let­ters and mes­sages seek­ing ur­gent re­me­di­al works against flood­ing. There­fore, I’m chal­leng­ing Min­is­ter Sookhai to break with his par­ty’s ap­par­ent pol­i­cy of epic ge­o­graph­ic dis­crim­i­na­tion and up­hold his oath of of­fice to dis­charge du­ties with­out fear or favour, af­fec­tion or ill-will.

“If he wants any­one to take him se­ri­ous­ly, he’d fo­cus on ex­pe­di­tious­ly im­ple­ment­ing crit­i­cal re­me­di­al strate­gies to stop na­tion­al in­fra­struc­tur­al col­lapse, rather than just act­ing pri­mar­i­ly as a prop for min­istry pho­to op­por­tu­ni­ties.”