Senate tributes to ‘Stretch’

These were sentiments expressed by Leader of Government Business Franklin Khan, Senate President Christine Kangaloo, Temporary UNC Senator Chrislyn Moore and Independent Senator David Small as they paid tribute to Dumas who died on Sunday.

They extended condolences to his family.

The Senate observed a minute’s of silence in his honour.

Describing Dumas as “a true soldier in the red army” as they would say in PNM style, Khan said that Dumas passing was “very personal” to him as they both became ill at about the same time in December last year.

Immediately after he underwent a by-pass surgery for his heart, Khan said, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley told him that “Stretch suffered a stroke.” Since then he had been getting weekly updates from “Auntie Joan who I call the mother of the PNM,” he said.

Reviewing Dumas nine years of ministerial service under then prime minister Patrick Manning and as a senator, Khan said, Dumas performed creditably in all his functions and had a clear and analytical mind.

When he joined the current PNM Government in 2015 and given the local government and rural development portfolio, he said, Dumas was very instrumental in helping in him carrying out his duties. At the level of the party, he said that Dumas was the voice of the PNM calling for changes to the party’s constitution.

Dumas, he said, played leading roles in the Tobago House of Assembly elections and in the call for Tobago’s autonomy.

In her tribute, Moore said, their relationship was also personal as Dumas and her father were inseparable before her father had a stroke.

“He was one of ours.

He could be found at a village watering hole in Plymouth and across Tobago,” she said.

In his later life, she said, “He (Dumas) suffered great hardship. He appeared to be alone.” However, she said, his true friends and family were there with him to the end.

Small in his tribute said that Dumas served with distinction. When he was ministry of labour, Small said, he was also attached to the ministry and they would meet each other at events.

He described him as one of the most affable ministers, and his demise “Evokes a sense of loss” as he was dedicated to the advancement of Trinidad and Tobago.