Manning and Rahael cop awards

While the selection of the Member of Parliament for 2005 - Miss Gillian Lucky — was relatively easy, that of Minister of the Year has been a challenging one, what with so many contenders all of whom have made critical contributions to the upward movement of Trinidad and Tobago and by extension the Caribbean Community of Nations.

Take, for example, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator Knowlson Gift, whose diplomacy initiatives and sensitive handling of intra regional issues have brought Spanish, English, French and Dutch speaking nations of Latin America and the Caribbean that much closer together and secured for Port-of-Spain and, logically, the entire region, including South America, the siting, during his current term of office, of the headquarters of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

What is important, however, is that the Gift initiatives appear to have succeeded in advancing the cause of intra regional trade and cooperation. This will emerge in the coming days as of immense benefit to Trinidad and Tobago and the rest of Caricom, what with the around the corner abandonment by the European Union of preferential entry of the region’s raw cane sugar, once mistakenly believed to be of indefinite duration under the Sugar Protocol of the 1975 Convention of Lome. In turn, we should not forget the heaving overboard by the EU of the Convention of Lome’s "protection" of preferential entry of bananas.

In addition, there is the market threat that cheaply produced goods from China, India, Mexico, backed by US companies and technology, pose to the Spanish and English speaking Caribbean and indeed all of South America. Nonetheless, Gift’s critical defence of intra regional cooperation when he argued the case for Port of Spain as headquarters of the FTAA will succeed for Caricom to the extent that its Member States are able to diversify their economies, make the crucial move from commodities to products and seek to employ the technology of the US and Europe all with a view to making their goods and services competitive in the regional and international market place. Senator Gift’s contribution must be seen as a continuing one.

Public Administration and Information Minister, Senator Dr. Lenny Saith’s handling of the dissemination of Government information, whether through the post Cabinet Press Conferences or releases or being available to the Media, has assisted, in large degree, to a greater understanding by the average citizen of the operations and strategies of the People’s National Movement Government. Regrettably, there have been ocasions when some representatives of the Media have deliberately ignored the issues which gave rise to the Press Conferences and proceeded to ask questions on matters which bore no relation to the matters presented and which prompted the conferences.

Minister of Housing Dr Keith Rowley’s determination to provide some 100,000 housing units within a ten-year time frame will, even as it gives to 100,000 families better and long desired and needed accommodation, give them as well a greater sense of self worth, a crucial component of Dr Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In addition, the provision of housing, which over a period of time will be owned by the families, will help to motivate the children and nudge them toward being achievers, first in the classroom, at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels, and then in the market place. Not all may react positively, but the sinking in that Government cares,and with it the feeling of acceptance and belonging as well as that of being recognised — again I refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — will assist in setting them and their parents on the road to upward nobility. It is not too far fetched in this setting (forgive the cliche) to see more citizens moving toward a more positive outlook and away from the negatives.

The Ministry of Health’s Chronic Disease Assistance Plan (C-DAP) along with its programme under which tens of thousands of citizens have received corrective surgery, including the timely removal of cataracts, has helped to improve the quality of life for its beneficiaries. But C-DAP and the corrective surgery programme would have been as impersonal as the several Government health initiatives over the years had it not been for the demonstrated enthusiasm and undoubted personal concern of Health Minister, Senator John Rahael.

Minister Rahael is laying down the foundation for more citizens, old, middle aged and young alike, to access health care, vastly improved over that received by an earlier generation.