No crisis at Port Authority

Sinanan said, “We have appointed a new board. The entire board had resigned. They were not fired. There is no crisis.” He indicated that a new board, headed by former permanent secretary in the Finance Ministry Allyson Lewis, has been appointed and are awaiting receipt of their instruments of appointment.

The minister added that Adrian Beharry is the new deputy chairman. Sinanan said there was “no incident or issue of anything untoward” which caused former chairman Christine Sahadeo to resign from her post and other board members to also resign.

Al-Rawi said the resignation of the other board members was appropriate, “lest there could have been perceived to have been something by way off stand-off.” Sinanan agreed with Al-Rawi that there was no issue of dissent between board members. He expressed sadness to lose someone of Sahadeo’s calibre. Reiterating this development is not uncommon, Al-Rawi reminded reporters how the resignation of a member of the Integrity Commission caused others to “trump and follow suit.” The AG thanked Sahadeo and other former board members for their service. He said it was possible some of them may take up service elsewhere. Underscoring that no emergency Cabinet meeting happened on Monday, Al-Rawi explained that because the Cabinet’s Finance and General Purposes (FGP) Committee meets on Monday, “it is very convenient to have a Cabinet meeting following FGP so we cut through the pace of work a lot faster.” Al-Rawi reminded reporters most of FGP members are Cabinet ministers and, “therefore to accelerate the work of the Cabinet, it was just fortuitous to just to do it at that point.” He added that sometimes government members are in the House of Representatives and Senate “about three times a week.” He also said the incumbent People’s National Movement (PNM) administration is “different from a UNC (United National Congress) government. “What prevailed for the last five years does not necessarily prevail now,” Al-Rawi said.