Diplomacy requires more finesse than speaking on a political platform.
This was the scathing criticism offered by two-term Foreign Affairs Minister, Ralph Maraj regarding Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s handling of the India vaccine issue.
Last week, during the Conversations with the Prime Minister programme, Dr Rowley raised the issue of vaccines gifted to other countries from the Government of India and TT not receiving any.
Dr Rowley said that even in his capacity as chairman of CARICOM, he spoke with all the heads of governments about the genesis of the 500,000 vaccines from India and they all confirmed that there was no documentation, but that each country’s Indian High Commissioner was supposed to confer the bilateral arrangements with respective governments.
He said Indian High Commissioner to TT, Arun Kumar Sahu did not communicate the availability of India’s 500,000 vaccines to CARICOM.
But in a media statement yesterday Sahu sought to clarify his role in the matter.
He seemingly suggested that it was the Government’s responsibility to reach out to India noting that on multiple occasions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had publicly mentioned India’s global drive to share vaccines.
He noted that by the time T&T’s Government reached out, vaccines were limited but said however that efforts are being made to supply some vaccines to T&T.
Speaking with news Power Now this morning, Mr Maraj said the entire fiasco was very unfortunate and should never had happened.
He described, Dr Rowley’s claim that he was unaware of any vaccine initiative in which India had vaccines to share with the world as strange.
He said current Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Amery Browne had handled the issue well as he could, given that he acts under the direction of the Prime Minister and the current situation was sparked by the Prime Minister’s comments.
Courtesy Power 102FM
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