At the com­mis­sion­ing of the O’Meara Road up­grade project, the new Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian Boule­vard, Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced March 16 as the date on which he will demit the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter.

He will be the first prime min­is­ter in T&T to re­sign while still in of­fice and will es­tab­lish a tem­plate for the or­der­ly trans­fer of pow­er out­side of elec­toral change or death. Since he will not be con­test­ing his seat in the next elec­tion, he will soon be out of elec­toral pol­i­tics.

How­ev­er, be­fore he demits of­fice, he will leave his name en­graved on at least two com­mem­o­ra­tive plaques. First, at the open­ing of Port-of-Spain Hos­pi­tal’s new Cen­tral Block and the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the new To­ba­go Ter­mi­nal. Both projects have had con­tro­ver­sies over con­struc­tion cost over­runs.

With his im­pend­ing de­par­ture from the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice, Dr Row­ley has been more open about the stum­bling blocks that pre­vent­ed him from ac­com­plish­ing more while in of­fice.

Speak­ing at the sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny for Nu­trim­ix’s $150 mil­lion an­i­mal and pet food plant in Point Lisas, he took aim at the pub­lic ser­vice and the slow ap­proval process of the rel­e­vant agen­cies, com­plain­ing that the coun­try spe­cialis­es in "de­lay and ob­struc­tion" of de­vel­op­ment projects.

“We need to get se­ri­ous, and the process­es of de­ci­sion-mak­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go are just too la­bo­ri­ous, just too slow, and just too un­car­ing …"

Dr Row­ley held key min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios dur­ing his 30 years of ap­pren­tice­ship. These po­si­tions ought to have pro­vid­ed him with the ex­pe­ri­ence and in­sight to form an ac­tion agen­da to guide him when he ful­filled his am­bi­tion to be­come the Prime Min­is­ter.

He was min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, Hous­ing, Trade and In­dus­try, key min­istries that would have equipped him to han­dle big de­vel­op­ment projects.

Dur­ing his very pub­lic con­flict with then-prime min­is­ter Man­ning in 2008, he seemed to know all the prob­lems and had all the an­swers. Then, he claimed that the de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme had gone awry and that cor­rup­tion was “ten times worse in the PNM than in the UNC.”

Giv­en this back­ground and his pos­tur­ing as a man of in­tegri­ty, the PNM’s de­feat in 2010 made him the oblig­a­tory choice for the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader.

Dr Row­ley was no neo­phyte when he be­came the Prime Min­is­ter and had the re­quired ex­pe­ri­ence. This makes his com­ments an­noy­ing­ly egre­gious. These crit­i­cisms of the pub­lic ser­vice and its agen­cies can be viewed ei­ther as a glar­ing ad­mis­sion of im­po­tence, a fail­ure to ini­ti­ate re­forms nec­es­sary to fix these prob­lems, or worse, a lack of ef­fort or po­lit­i­cal will.

An elec­tion vic­to­ry sig­ni­fies that the pub­lic has placed their trust and con­fi­dence in the elect­ed of­fi­cial to im­prove and move the coun­try in the right di­rec­tion.

Politi­cians are stew­ards of pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions and the pub­lic purse. Prime min­is­ters must pro­vide the lead­er­ship to in­spire and per­form. That re­quires re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and own­er­ship, not ob­fus­ca­tion, de­flec­tion, and blame.

As Dr Row­ley de­parts, he pass­es the ba­ton to a younger man, his Gary Sobers and erst­while pro­tégé.

Hav­ing served so close­ly along­side Dr Row­ley, Mr Stu­art Young should be aware that he in­her­its all these de­fi­cien­cies and un­cer­tain­ties. Time will tell whether Mr Young will pro­vide suc­cess­ful out­comes or re­ly on the shield of blame and de­flec­tion. To whom much is giv­en, much is ex­pect­ed.