CABINET PRESSURE ON 3 MINISTERS

PRIME Minister Dr. Keith Rowley has turned the screws on three prominent Government Ministers.

And ministerial colleagues are saying the trio “will cause PNM to lose the (general) election.”

Rowley took a tough line at the recent Cabinet retreat and at other sessions of ministers.

Cabinet insiders say that some ministers have also groused about the respective performances of the three colleagues.

“We know they are our weak links,” one informed source said.

The ministers are Fitzgerald Hinds, who leads National Security, Marvin Gonzales, head of the Public Utilities portfolio, and Rohan Sinanan, who is in charge of Works and Transport.

In his post-retreat media conference, Rowley acknowledged that crime, water supply and public infrastructure were of major national concern, and spoke of plans to address the urgent issues.

He said that with the appointment of directors of National Quarries Ltd., road rehabilitation would be ramped up.

The crime emergency remains the country’s most pressing problem, but the Prime Minister has resisted repeated calls for the reassignment of Hinds.

Apart from unending violent crimes, border patrol is weak, leading to easy inflows of drugs, guns, illegal migrants and pirated goods.

The Fire Services are without essential tenders, and this has caused horrible deaths, including that of a 98-year-old Santa Cruz man less than a month ago.

There is the inequitable distribution of water, even though the troubled Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) is subsidised by taxpayers to the value of $2 billion each year.

The Government has not acted on a two-year-old report that revealed that WASA is overstaffed by 3,000 workers, with five layers of management and gross inefficiency.

Gonzales has blamed consumers and offered various defenses for the inefficient water supply, especially in rural, farming communities.

There are sporadic public protests by angry residents over the lack of pipe-borne supplies.

Each protest is met with promises of improving supplies to affected residents and businesses.

Many roads and bridges are in utter disrepair in spite of the $3.5 billion assigned to the Ministry of Works and Transport.

A total of $200 million was recently reallocated to Sinanan’s Ministry from the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government.

Frustrated motorists have complained for years about the disastrous condition of the national infrastructure, and have been met with indifference from Rowley and Sinanan.

A typical pre-election road paving exercise was done on the eve of the August 14 Local Government poll.

The poor condition of roads and bridges has sent up the cost of transportation, to add to the pain of five increases in the prices of fuel over the past seven years.

Delivery trucks have ceased making runs in certain communities with bad roads and high crime.

Sinanan, a deputy leader of the PNM, had previously lost stripes among his political colleagues over the party’s back-to-back losses of the important Sangre Grande Regional Corporation in Local Government elections.

The recent defeat was worse than that of three years earlier and led to tears from former corporation chairman and party veteran Terry Rondon.

Sinanan, who was born and grew up in Sangre Grande, is the PNM’s key operative in the north-eastern district.

Insiders say that the Cabinet is aware of public frustration over these matters and the increasing cost of living.

The ruling party lost ground in the Local Government poll, and Rowley, fearing a major national backlash, said: “It could have been much worse.”

Some political observers feel that Rowley would reshuffle his Cabinet members in order to moderate and temper a frustrated society.