Young outlines plans for new ministry if re-elected as Trinidad PM
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) — Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Stuart Young Friday said if his administration is returned to office following the April 28 general election, he will establish a ministry of implementation and efficiency.
Young, addressing the opening of a community centre in La Brea, a town in southwestern Trinidad, said that the new ministry would be working out of the Office of the Prime Minister.
“For too long things get lost in abeyance and that ministry will have the ability, when as I as prime minister, say hey, see that deep water harbour, I need that done, when I need this done and I need
that done, that ministry will have the ability to go in and get the inefficiencies done across the system,” Young said.
Young, who was sworn into office last Monday and announced the date for the general election less than 24 hours later, said the ministry is intended “to break the bureaucracy within the confines of the
law…and to get things done”.
“Trinidad and Tobago deserves better, and if the opposition, which will still be in the opposition tries to stand in the way of constitutional review etc, that ministry of implementation and efficiency out of the Office of the Prime Minister, with me riding them and them riding everybody else, will get a lot done in that period.”
Young said that a new chapter would be unfolding in Trinidad and Tobago following the general election, intending to “break glass ceiling” that should not have existed.
“No one can change the past, we are all in charge of the present and we can all dream and have hope for the future,” he said, noting that a state-of-the-art sporting facility will also be opened on Friday.
“I continue to give you the commitment that as prime minister I will fight even harder…to ensure that we have a future for our children,” he said, as he made reference to the ongoing talks and efforts to get the oil project with Venezuela off the ground, despite United States plans to withhold the necessary licences.
He told the ceremony that he had intended to announce at least two other projects for the La Brea area, including “a state-of-the-art project” which he did not identify.
“I am currently working on something, I thought I could have burst the mark here today. I am currently negotiating and pushing for a state-of-the-art project to be put down right here in La Brea.
“It is a project that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the Caribbean. It is a project that is going to be a facility that we are going to utilise your harbour…so people could ship, they could bring in etc…and give me the opportunity to deliver that to La Brea.
“I am hoping by the end of the year, I will be back here turning the sod…for a facility that exists nowhere else in the Caricom (Caribbean Community) region and we are competing with other countries…I am looking forward to coming back here as your prime minister after April 28 and delivering that to La Brea.”