Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath is urg­ing pub­lic fig­ures to be­come bet­ter in­formed be­fore com­ment­ing on sen­si­tive na­tion­al is­sues, fol­low­ing re­marks by Bmo­bile brand am­bas­sador and so­ca artiste Nailah Black­man on the con­tro­ver­sial Ka­ia Sealy mat­ter.

Black­man re­cent­ly weighed in on the is­sue through a so­cial me­dia post, call­ing for em­pa­thy and ex­press­ing con­cern about the treat­ment of Sealy.

The artiste said she typ­i­cal­ly avoids speak­ing on mat­ters that do not di­rect­ly con­cern her be­cause “it’s very easy to be mis­un­der­stood,” but felt com­pelled to break her si­lence.

“Word of the day to­day is em­pa­thy,” Black­man wrote. “Em­pa­thy is a hu­man emo­tion that al­lows one to feel and un­der­stand what some­one else is go­ing through from their per­spec­tive.”

She added that while so­ca artistes are of­ten ex­pect­ed to en­ter­tain and “bring the vibes and be in good spir­its,” she could no longer re­main silent.

Re­fer­ring to the mat­ter, she stat­ed: “What is go­ing on right now with Ka­ia Sealy is not right.”

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day about Black­man’s com­ments and the wider pub­lic de­bate sur­round­ing the is­sue, Padarath de­fend­ed re­cent state­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and cau­tioned pub­lic per­son­al­i­ties against speak­ing from po­si­tions not ground­ed in fact.

“This is not a pop­u­lar­i­ty con­test nor is it an is­sue that one must treat with emo­tive­ly for the sake of likes and shares,” Padarath said.

“Any­one who is in the pub­lic’s eye, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who rep­re­sent the State, has a greater de­gree of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in treat­ing with mat­ters that touch and con­cern the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of our coun­try.”

The min­is­ter sug­gest­ed that some pub­lic com­men­tary has been dri­ven by emo­tion rather than a full un­der­stand­ing of the facts and le­gal con­sid­er­a­tions in­volved.

“I stand with the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter in her pub­lic pro­nounce­ments on the mat­ter. Some­times per­sons speak from an un­in­formed po­si­tion, act­ing on emo­tion with­out know­ing the de­tails and the law,” he said.

Padarath al­so sought to re­as­sure the pub­lic about the in­de­pen­dence of the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

“I en­cour­age per­sons in pub­lic life to be­come bet­ter in­formed and speak more re­spon­si­bly. The DPP’s of­fice is in­de­pen­dent and the Gov­ern­ment has the trust, faith and con­fi­dence in his abil­i­ty to dis­charge his func­tion with­out fear or favour, af­fec­tion or ill will.”

The min­is­ter’s com­ments come as de­bate con­tin­ues over the Prime Min­is­ter’s crit­i­cism of sec­tions of the Op­po­si­tion, trade union lead­ers, ac­tivists and en­ter­tain­ers whom she ac­cused of am­pli­fy­ing rhetoric that emerged dur­ing re­cent demon­stra­tions out­side the Of­fice of the DPP.