Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Re­porter

gail.alexan­der@guardian.co.tt

A wide cross sec­tion of cit­i­zens, in­clud­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) per­son­al­i­ties and top mem­bers of oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties, are ex­pect­ed to at­tend this af­ter­noon’s fu­ner­al of PNM and ONR foun­da­tion mem­ber Fer­di­nand “Fer­die” Fer­reira.

Fer­reira died at the age of 93 last Thurs­day, af­ter be­ing hos­pi­talised. He had suf­fered a stroke sev­er­al weeks ago and had an­oth­er episode re­cent­ly. He was hos­pi­talised, where he died from his con­di­tion.

This af­ter­noon’s fu­ner­al ser­vice will be held from 1 pm at the Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist Church at Stan­more Av­enue, Port-of-Spain.

Rel­a­tives said Fer­reira had been as­so­ci­at­ed with the church through­out his life­time.

Fer­reira, whose wife Pearl died last Sep­tem­ber, is sur­vived by chil­dren David, Don­na and Jaime, daugh­ter-in-law Lavaugh, grand­chil­dren and oth­er rel­a­tives.

His son, for­mer PNM sen­a­tor Dr Lester Hen­ry, died in 2022.

A wake was sched­uled to have been held at the Fer­reira home in Blue Range, Diego Mar­tin, last night for friends and fam­i­ly to rem­i­nisce about what many have said was a pa­tri­ot’s life of ac­tivism on the coun­try’s be­half with wis­dom and com­mit­ment in his pur­suits.

Fer­reira will be re­mem­bered for a life of ser­vice from his teens and through­out his ca­reer in the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Port-of-Spain (PATT), where he rose from mes­sen­ger to gen­er­al man­ag­er and board com­mis­sion­er.

His ser­vice con­tin­ued in pol­i­tics, where Fer­reira was a spot­light name as a youth­ful PNM foun­da­tion mem­ber in the tenure of founder Dr Er­ic Williams.

He was al­so spot­light­ed for his ex­pul­sion from the PNM in 1979, af­ter join­ing Karl Hud­son Phillips in start­ing the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Na­tion­al Re­con­struc­tion; then re­turn­ing to the PNM in 1988 un­der the Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Fer­reira was al­so known as a sup­port­er of past PNM leader and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

In his life, post-PATT and ac­tive pol­i­tics, Fer­reira carved out a ca­reer as an in­ci­sive an­a­lyst—cri­tiquing po­lit­i­cal fig­ures and na­tion­al is­sues—and repos­i­to­ry of PNM his­to­ry.

Apart from Row­ley’s trib­ute, oth­er state­ments laud­ing Fer­reira have come from PNM’s top ech­e­lon, in­clud­ing cur­rent leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, PNM whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les, gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, past gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford and oth­ers.