PM to be planning minister in Cabinet reshuffle

Trinidad and Tobago will start the new year with a Cabinet reshuffle.

A release issued early on Tuesday morning by the Office of the Prime Minister listed changes that the Prime Minister has advised the President to make with effect from January 1, 2020.

Most notable of the four moves is that Dr Rowley will now take on the Planning portfolio as well as that of Prime Minister. Rowley previously held the Planning portfolio from 2001-2003.

Current Minister of Planning and Development Camille Robinson-Regis – one of the most senior Cabinet ministers – is being reassigned to the Ministry of Social Development and Family Services. Robinson-Regis is also lady vice chairman of the ruling PNM.

The current holder of the Social Development portfolio, Cherrie-Ann Crichlow-Cockburn, will become Minister in the Ministry of Planning and Development under Rowley. Crichlow-Cockburn, MP  for Lopinot-Bon Air West, has held the portfolio since the 2015 general election, when she entered Parliament for the first time.

Adrian Leonce, the present Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Public Utilities, will take on the same role in Rohan Sinanan’s Ministry of Works and Transport.

Senator Foster Cummings becomes Parliamentary Secretary to Kazim Hosein in the  Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government.