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Saturday, June 21, 2025

'We will work in clusters' — Swaratsingh joins Finance Ministry

by

Akash Samaroo
31 days ago
20250520
Kennedy Swaratsingh

Kennedy Swaratsingh

Akash Sama­roo

Kennedy Swarats­ingh be­lieves his re­cent ap­point­ment to the Min­istry of Fi­nance is a “clever” move by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to en­cour­age clos­er col­lab­o­ra­tion across key eco­nom­ic min­istries.

“We will work, so we do not just fo­cus on the port­fo­lio,” Swarats­ingh told Guardian Me­dia. “We fo­cus on a group of ac­tiv­i­ties that will gen­er­ate busi­ness, trade and fa­cil­i­tate eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gazette dat­ed May 19, 2025, Swarats­ingh was ap­point­ed a Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance as of May 13. He con­tin­ues to hold the po­si­tion of Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment.

He said the Prime Min­is­ter want­ed a more col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to tack­ling eco­nom­ic is­sues and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

“The Prime Min­is­ter felt that both my­self and Min­is­ter (Dav­en­dranath) Tan­coo (Fi­nance Min­is­ter) and the Min­is­ter of Trade have to work close­ly to­geth­er as we seek to re­shape the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion port­fo­lio and gen­er­al work in the econ­o­my,” he ex­plained.

“So, Min­is­ter Tan­coo, I think the Prime Min­is­ter would want him to play a role in my min­istry, and that Min­is­ter Tan­coo, the Min­is­ter of Trade and I will form a sort of a team to ad­dress the eco­nom­ic di­rec­tion un­der the di­rec­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter.”

Speak­ing to his qual­i­fi­ca­tions, Swarats­ingh said, “My doc­tor­ate is in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion and I've worked with gov­ern­ments for the last 10 years across the re­gion.”

He added, “And I've worked with in­ter­na­tion­al banks, with CAF (De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca) and oth­er banks as well.”

Swarats­ingh pre­vi­ous­ly served as Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion un­der the Patrick Man­ning-led PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion in 2007.


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