Hosein believes in service

The son of late former San Fernando Mayor Rakeeb Hosein recalled his father wanting him to be a doctor or lawyer but admitted for some reason unknown to him he was just obsessed with “rubbish trucks” and wanted to work in the San Fernando City Corporation.

During an address last week at a PNM public meeting in Cocoyea, San Fernando he told of a sketch drawing of a rubbish truck that earned him first place in a competition.

“Since I small, I drawing rubbish truck. In those days, the rubbish truck was a ‘roll top’ and you had to push up the sides. I draw one of those trucks and came first with that drawing.

I didn’t know what it meant,” adding that he was not a comedian for the night but telling the truth.

“I ended up in the corporation (San Fernando) in a summer job and started at the lowest level which was a tool checker. I started to check tools. I used to come to work at five o’clock in the morning and the garbage truck going out. My job was to check the tools to make sure it was on the garbage truck. It is nothing to be ashamed of. I worked at the lowest point and I am proud of it.” Hosein spoke of the boy days when his father will wake him up early on mornings to go to the Coffee Street San Fernando PNM office for the late Prime Minister Patrick Manning to clean before going to school.

Hosein continued: “I just passed Common Entrance (now SE A) for Naparima College. My father used to wake me up between half past five and six o’clock in the morning.

In those days we had a galvanize bucket, gazette paper, a mop and I used to walk from home go up there, clean the office, take the gazette paper, clean the window make sure the seat clean, everything, go back home, bathe, change and walk to school at Naparima College.” In 1978, he told the crowd, he became employed at the San Fernando City Corporation.

He worked in almost all the departments in the corporation gaining knowledge of the system as he went along and it was a chance meeting with a former PNM councillor at a funeral in Roodal Cemetery, San Fernando that he was invited to become a councillor.

As a devout Muslim who wanted to be a servant for the people, Hosein said he did not turn down the offer and in 2003 he became a councillor and never looked back.

He spoke of working closely with now Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley during his time in Opposition. In 2013 he became the mayor of San Fernando.

At the meeting, a confident Hosein boasted: “Just as I cleaned up San Fernando, I am going to clean up the whole of Trinidad now in the ministry (Local Government and Rural Development) where I am employed as the minister of Rural Development and Local Government.

I am not going to sit down in the office at Kent House. He promised to meet directly with elected mayors and chairmen and councillors.

He added: “I am going to each corporation and I am going to do what the people put us there to do. What they want, we are going to execute it.” Highlighting projects under his watch as mayor of San Fernando such as the homeless shelter, a new look Harris Promenade complete with a refurbished monument of the “Last Train to San Fernando , new public convenience, water fountain, car park and a re-designed Marabella and Mon Repos Roundabouts, Hosein said he will continue his mission of service.

Turning to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley seated on stage, Hosein added: “I want to assure you tonight that I will not let you down and I will not let down the government and I will not let down the people of San Fernando.

Hosein said his Muslim upbringing is responsible for where he has reached today.

“It has taught me to be humble and I believe in service to humanity.” Hosein says he prays five times a day and went to Mecca in 2012 where he performed Hajj.