Who goes where in the new Cab­i­net of in­com­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young “re­al­ly mat­ters lit­tle.”

This is from Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi as he spoke yes­ter­day to Guardian Me­dia when asked about the Cab­i­net’s pos­si­ble com­po­si­tion.

“There’s no lob­by­ing, there’s no po­si­tion­ing. All of us have been at work for a num­ber of years and there­fore, those of us in min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios have our hands full right now. Any shift means that what you’re shift­ing has to be bal­anced against the man­age­ment of what you’re be­ing shift­ed from and what you’re be­ing shift­ed to.

“That is not an easy de­ci­sion, par­tic­u­lar­ly for a coun­try that is at the end of the tenure of a gov­ern­ment. I’m con­fi­dent that Min­is­ter Young, as Prime Min­is­ter, has all that is nec­es­sary for him to make the right choic­es and I’m con­fi­dent that our team is a very ca­pa­ble team,” he said.

Al-Rawi made the com­ments fol­low­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s spe­cial con­ven­tion at City Hall, Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day morn­ing, where it al­so pre­sent­ed its full slate of 41 can­di­dates to par­ty mem­bers.

On whether he might be moved to a new po­si­tion in Gov­ern­ment, Al-Rawi said, “The PNM nev­er dis­cuss­es its busi­ness that way. You know I can han­dle any port­fo­lio. That is not an is­sue. Com­pe­tence is not an is­sue. Right now we have to deal with what we have.

“I’m very ex­cit­ed about the work I’m do­ing in Rur­al De­vel­op­ment, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.”

On Sat­ur­day, sources close to the PNM hint­ed at a ma­jor Cab­i­net reshuf­fle which re­port­ed­ly in­cludes changes to the port­fo­lios of Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Al­ready Regi­nald Ar­mour has stepped down from the post of AG to take on a post in the East­ern Caribbean Supreme Court.

Al-Rawi, like his col­leagues Fos­ter Cum­mings, Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice and Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Kaz­im Ho­sein, al­so ex­pressed con­fi­dence in Young’s abil­i­ty as prime min­is­ter.

In shar­ing his ad­vice to Young as he takes up the man­tle of lead­er­ship of the coun­try, Al-Rawi urged him to “con­tin­ue do­ing what he’s good at.”

“Which is work­ing hard, press­ing on with the agen­da of build­ing a team, demon­strat­ing the re­fresh­ing new poli­cies that we have planned and pre­pared and con­tin­u­ing to por­tray why the PNM is just sim­ply the right al­ter­na­tive for the na­tion,” Al-Rawi ex­plained.

He said he has worked with Young “very well and very close­ly” for many years and al­so in the “trench­es at some very hard times, like deal­ing with is­sues such as lit­i­ga­tion and even COVID.

“He was Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, I was At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. I can tell you that we spent sleep­less nights in some very tough cir­cum­stances, just lit­er­al­ly craft­ing law and pol­i­cy and im­ple­ment­ing all at the same time. That unique ex­pe­ri­ence of pan­dem­ic man­age­ment tells me what he’s made of.

“We have great dis­cus­sions. I think that we’re head­ed in the right di­rec­tion,” Al-Rawi added.

Cum­mings al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed Young on his up­com­ing ap­point­ment as he “wish him all the best” as he moved on to take on prime min­is­ter­ship of the coun­try.

“He (Young) has a sol­id foun­da­tion on which to build that has been left by Dr Row­ley. The PNM is a very strong and re­silient par­ty and he has the par­ty be­hind him and I know that he is one who has been do­ing all he can to en­cour­age uni­ty with­in the par­ty and there­fore once he con­tin­ues along that vein, I think he will serve very well,” Cum­mings added.

Mean­while, Ho­sein im­part­ed more spir­i­tu­al nuggets to Young.

He hoped that God would con­tin­ue to guide him in his en­deav­ours, em­pha­sis­ing that God is all one needs.