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Monday, July 7, 2025

Up close with Dr Roodal Mooni­lal

UNC has a good chance of removing the PNM

by

2017 days ago
20191228

He is some­times re­ferred to as the joke­ster on the UNC bench but all laughs aside Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has had and is hav­ing quite the ca­reer in pub­lic life. There are many ways to re­fer to him—MP, lawyer, doc­tor, for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, for­mer trade union­ist and for­mer teacher—just to name a few. These days he has his sights set on the gen­er­al elec­tions of 2020 and is hop­ing to play a key role for his par­ty. He sat down with Guardian Me­dia at a dou­bles shed on Debe junc­tion to speak about his per­son­al life and ca­reer.

What is one of your favourite songs?

I have many favourite songs. My favourite song de­pends on my mood at the time. I love a lot of Hin­di songs but par­tic­u­lar­ly love songs. There is a re­cent song now Mar­vi Ve . . . that is re­al­ly my favourite song.

One of mine is called Bil­lion­aire by Bruno Mars and Travis Mc­Coy. I al­ways want­ed to know how it feel to be a bil­lion­aire you know. Would you hap­pen to know how that feels?

No, I don’t. First I’m not sure who is Bruno Mars but I am cer­tain­ly not sure what that feels like.

I’m sure it’s not for­eign to you that your name has con­sis­tent­ly ap­peared on rich­est peo­ple in T&T list for the last few years. How come?

I don’t want to talk too much about it be­cause you may not know but it is the sub­ject of a court mat­ter right now. A year and a half ago I sued in the court in civ­il ac­tion the T&T Mir­ror and one Ju­lia Davy (sic); I sue for that type of pro­mo­tion which I be­lieve was very un­fair to me and al­most crim­i­nal be­cause some­body on the in­ter­net ac­tu­al­ly paid mon­ey; it is a paid com­mer­cial al­most and paid mon­ey to sug­gest that I was the third rich­est per­son in the coun­try. The first two I think died so I prob­a­bly am num­ber one. But, I took the mat­ter to court be­cause it was a se­ri­ous mat­ter be­cause it al­so sug­gests wrong-do­ing, be­cause every­body knows I am in pub­lic life…we are await­ing a judge­ment on it. Dur­ing that time it was very dif­fi­cult for me, I had to take ex­tra se­cu­ri­ty for my fam­i­ly, for my home, peo­ple who do that are ex­treme­ly ma­li­cious. Peo­ple like me we file our busi­ness with the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion every year, I am one of the few peo­ple who ac­tu­al­ly has cer­tifi­cates of com­pli­ance from the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion…I thought it was ter­ri­bly un­fair not on­ly for my­self but for my fam­i­ly as well to sub­ject them to crim­i­nal ac­tion and kid­nap­pers and so on, it was a das­tard­ly act; I took it to court and I al­so re­port­ed it to the Cy­ber Crime Unit of the po­lice as well be­cause my en­e­mies are ex­treme­ly rich; for peo­ple to ac­tu­al­ly pay for that to stay on the web­site means that they have mon­ey to spend to un­der­mine my own char­ac­ter and cred­i­bil­i­ty.

In the re­cent roll­out of the new poly­mer $100 notes were you once of the un­for­tu­nate peo­ple who had to go and line up in the bank to change mon­ey?

Well I did have a few small dol­lars to change but I just went to the bank on oth­er busi­ness and I just made a de­posit of what I had at home, so there was no need to get in line to get any new dol­lars that way.

Get­ting in­to the essence of the in­ter­view now..

I thought that was the essence of the in­ter­view?

Of course not. So, you are an MP, for­mer min­is­ter, doc­tor, lawyer, for­mer trade union­ist; which do you like the most?

I al­so lec­tured at the uni­ver­si­ty for like nine years. Every path I have tak­en ca­reer-wise brings re­ward, but I get a lot of sat­is­fac­tion from aca­d­e­m­ic work.

Let’s start with the doc­tor­ate, that is in what?

If it tell peo­ple my qual­i­fi­ca­tions, it sounds like I’m boast­ing. I have a BSC de­gree in Po­lit­i­cal Sci­ence, I have a Mas­ter’s de­gree in De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies, I have a PHD in Em­ploy­ment and Labour Re­la­tions, I have a LLB de­gree in law and a LEC diplo­ma from Hugh Wood­ing Law School… I spent 13 years at uni­ver­si­ty.

Okay, so tell me a bit about your trade union days, how was that for you?

Those days were rough days; pol­i­tics in those days was rough, some­times even phys­i­cal. A lot of demon­stra­tions, march­ing, ag­i­ta­tion and that trained me with the sort of courage to go to the street and be in­volved in protests. And it gives you al­so a sense of rights; you de­vel­op this feel­ing, you feel al­most per­son­al­ly of­fend­ed when the rights of oth­ers are vi­o­lat­ed. That is the val­ue you learn from trade union work.

And if my mem­o­ry serves me right you got called to the bar while be­ing part of the PP gov­ern­ment not so?

The sto­ry that re­al­ly de­fines that time is in the 2010 Gen­er­al Elec­tion I was do­ing law ex­ams at Hugh Wood­ing, fi­nal year, and I had a meet­ing with the reg­is­trar, Kath­leen Rochford, to ask her to post­pone my ex­ams be­cause the ex­am came at the same time May 24 /25 as the elec­tion. I sat with her and she took all my record and she said to me, ‘you have been in par­lia­ment all the time you nev­er failed one sub­ject, you nev­er failed one ex­am, you nev­er brought in one pa­per late, you nev­er asked for an ex­ten­sion to do any pa­per,’ she said from all the grades you had be­fore, go and write the ex­am. And I re­mem­ber study­ing in the back seat of a car when I go­ing to po­lit­i­cal meet­ings to talk…When we won on May 24, I cel­e­brat­ed for an hour or two at Rien­zi Com­plex and then I went home, I took a short rest and then I wrote a 3 1/2 hour ex­am in the morn­ing; I got a B.

Was it nat­ur­al to get in­to law be­ing a politi­cian or did you have some oth­er in­spi­ra­tion?

Since I was young I al­ways had an in­ter­est in law and when you in pol­i­tics and in Par­lia­ment. I rec­om­mend to all young politi­cians that they do law, be­cause law is a very crit­i­cal part of pol­i­cy mak­ing and you are in par­lia­ment, you are a law mak­er.

Any hopes of get­ting silk?

The on­ly hope of silk I have hopes of get­ting is a silky para­ta roti.

As I men­tioned pol­i­tics though, what year did you get in­to pol­i­tics and what or who was in­stru­men­tal in that hap­pen­ing?

I was in uni­ver­si­ty and I was in­volved with the uni­ver­si­ty guild and that is where I got in­volved in pol­i­tics…(In terms of par­ty pol­i­tics)I got in­volved with the NAR and when there was a split with the NAR and Club 88 I had gone with Club 88 and I be­came the first youth of­fi­cer of the UNC.

What has been your most grat­i­fy­ing mo­ment be­ing an MP?

The most grat­i­fy­ing mo­ment/s is when you dis­trib­ute hous­es to peo­ple who are so des­per­ate.

So you have been in ac­tive pol­i­tics for over 20 years and was a part of a Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion as well as a Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion, is there a fun­da­men­tal dif­fer­ence be­tween the two?

There are sev­er­al dif­fer­ences I don’t know if they are fun­da­men­tal. There are dif­fer­ences in lead­er­ship style; one is much more uni­tary and au­thor­i­tar­i­an, one is much more col­lab­o­ra­tive and par­tic­i­pa­tive.

Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­treme­ly par­tic­i­pa­tive and col­lab­o­ra­tive in her lead­er­ship style. Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is prob­a­bly de­fined more by a ul­tra-com­pas­sion­ate char­ac­ter. In 2015 you con­test­ed the post of par­ty leader, what has your re­la­tion­ship been with her since then? Have the wounds healed?

Our par­ty is like a fam­i­ly in some cas­es, you have times when you have dis­agree­ments but peo­ple are gen­er­al­ly root­ed in the val­ues of the par­ty and in the mis­sion of the par­ty. So, I would say that even when we were con­test­ing there were no wounds in fact few peo­ple know we were ac­tu­al­ly in touch a lot even dur­ing an elec­tion of that type and that is why when the elec­tions were fin­ished it was so easy to re­con­nect so to speak and con­tin­ue the par­ty work and the par­lia­men­tary work…we nev­er had fall out, we nev­er had prob­lems, we nev­er had noth­ing you know.

Does she have your full sup­port?

She has 100 per cent of my sup­port and I am as­sured of 100 per cent of her sup­port.

Do you still wish to be leader of the UNC one day?

Well let’s put it this way, I have no in­ter­est in the lead­er­ship of the par­ty now be­cause there is no va­can­cy…Lat­er in life if an op­por­tu­ni­ty ever presents it­self I could con­sid­er.

As we speak about your po­lit­i­cal fu­ture, I’ve no­ticed a lot of new young faces in the par­ty, are you wor­ried that you would soon be re­placed?

No, not at all. In fact I am ex­cit­ed that a lot of young peo­ple are emerg­ing and young peo­ple, I must say, with a lot of po­ten­tial. But to con­vert po­ten­tial in­to per­for­mance it re­quires se­nior­i­ty, it re­quires a few peo­ple with ex­pe­ri­ence and I al­ways see my­self in that role.

Will be of­fer­ing up your­self to the UNC to con­test the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tions?

Yes. That to me is a no-brain­er.

How good do you think the UNC’s chances are in de­feat­ing the PNM in the gen­er­al elec­tion next year?

We not over-con­fi­dent at all and we ought not to be com­pla­cent. Amer­i­ca has a dif­fer­ent im­peach­ment sys­tem be­cause of their con­sti­tu­tion, we don’t have an im­peach­ment con­sti­tu­tion­al role but I think on De­cem­ber 2 the im­peach­ment pro­ceed­ings against Kei­th Row­ley be­gan. So that he’s on his way out. I think the re­sults of that elec­tion is a good barom­e­ter and lit­mus test that the UNC has a very good chance of re­mov­ing the PNM. It re­quires a lot more work and it re­quires keep­ing mo­men­tum. If we do that and don’t score any own goals you could have a sit­u­a­tion where we could be re­turned to of­fice.

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What are your thoughts of Dr Kei­th Row­ley as a Prime Min­is­ter?

When he start­ed I thought he was un­fit to be Prime Min­is­ter, I’ve changed my mind, I think he’s un­made to be Prime Min­is­ter. The of­fice can­not match his char­ac­ter and his tem­pera­ment and his crass­ness, quite frankly, I think he would be a foot­note in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­to­ry.

Name one thing he has done right?

I thought he was coura­geous to call the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions with­in the time… I can’t think of any­thing in a pol­i­cy sense that he would have done right. If you want me to tell you the things he’s done wrong then that would take an­oth­er in­ter­view. But some­times I feel that he is dy­ing to be kicked out of of­fice.

In the last ad­min­is­tra­tion you were Hous­ing Min­is­ter, how do you think the HDC has done since you left of­fice?

The HDC has col­lapsed on it­self more or less, it has be­come a small ca­bal for the Prime Min­is­ter and his part­ners and I think that any­thing that could go wrong has gone wrong. We are go­ing back to the bad old days of hous­ing.

On a per­son­al note, I re­mem­ber when you be­came a fa­ther for the first time in 2014 I be­lieve, how has fa­ther­hood changed you?

I get more tired now. He is do­ing great, he is a hand­ful and on the move. Christ­mas time is a spe­cial time so I took him to the mall, shop­ping and he had a won­der­ful ex­pe­ri­ence in church a few nights ago in a ban­quet so that has been a ful­fill­ing part of my life. I go home ear­li­er now be­cause I want to see him be­fore bed­time; he reads a lot so every night I have to read a sto­ry. So fa­ther­hood has been a defin­ing pe­ri­od in life as well. It brought an enor­mous amount of joy and sat­is­fac­tion…And Mrs Mooni­lal has been very sup­port­ive and a very strong per­son.

It is al­so quite no­tice­able that you would have lost a sig­nif­i­cant amount of weight while in of­fice, how im­por­tant is health for you?

I have a life­long bat­tle with obe­si­ty, I be­lieve its ge­net­ic. My par­ents, both de­ceased now, were al­so big, my broth­ers and sis­ters are not slen­der. So, I am con­stant­ly hav­ing to go in­to pro­grams and the gym, some­times with doc­tor ad­vised di­ets; next year I am go­ing on an­oth­er im­por­tant di­et as well be­cause I want to get in shape for the elec­tion.

In terms of the oth­er in­di­ca­tors of health all is well. As I told the WPC from Arou­ca/Mal­oney, I said the day when she stood in Par­lia­ment and read what pur­port­ed to be a war­rant with my name on it, the next morn­ing I checked my blood pres­sure it was 120/79.

I am glad you brought it up, it there any con­cern that you might be ar­rest­ed one day be­fore the elec­tion?

There is al­ways a con­cern be­cause the PNM has been a bru­tal par­ty, it goes with­out say­ing that they are a par­ty ca­pa­ble of bru­tal­i­ty, dic­ta­to­r­i­al ten­den­cy and for many years now part of their strat­e­gy has been to ar­rest and jail po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents. I am prob­a­bly one of the biggest tar­gets that they have ever had; they tar­get me be­cause I tar­get them. I know I could be the sub­ject of search, ar­rest, jail if it has to be­cause over the year I am a per­son who has stood up to not on­ly the gov­ern­ment but to the Prime Min­is­ter him­self…I feel sor­ry some­times for my fam­i­ly. I re­mem­ber once, three or four years ago there was a ru­mour on a week­end that they had ar­rest­ed Mr Ram­lo­gan and Mr Ramdeen and I was next and my sis­ters in Cana­da and New York were trau­ma­tized and it was a ru­mour but ru­mours are al­so very hurt­ful to fam­i­ly. But peo­ple like us in pol­i­tics you can’t have skin like toma­toes, it has to be like cra­paud back pump­kin, rough and rugged.

So out­side of your pub­lic life, what else do you do?

Dr Mooni­lal: I en­joy oc­ca­sion­al bev­er­age with some of my friends in the con­stituen­cy. I en­joy very much sport. I ac­tu­al­ly do play golf.

(In­ter­ject­ing) With the Prime Min­is­ter?

He doesn’t play well so I don’t think we would ever play to­geth­er. So, I en­joy a game of golf, when I was younger I used to play a lot of foot­ball. I watch a lot of tv sport…trav­el­ling as well, and when you have time you spend with the fam­i­ly. Fam­i­ly time brings a lot of joy and fun. I en­joy a lot of movies too, there are some movies I have seen 24 times.


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