If you had to give an award for the busiest Minister in the PPP/C administration it would be hard to look past Robert Persaud. There is simply no substitute for youth and energy. He has been so busy flitting here, there and everywhere, opening this and commissioning that, talking to farmers and offering solutions to problems that sometimes you think that he has the capacity to do several things at the same time.
At one time the thinking was that he might be in the running for the presidential candidature; but the PPP doesn’t work like that. Robert has to wait his turn. He is being eased gradually onto the political centre stage and at his age he is probably likely to be around long after most of the seniors are either gone or are past it.
Robert is campaigning in his own way. He is working with the farmers, perhaps not making as many political speeches as Jagdeo but making speeches about farming.
Recently, he appears to have been handed one of Jagdeo’s pet projects…..the National Food and Nutrition Security Strategy. He’s talking about that these days. Jagdeo was to have become the region’s Food Security Czar; it was to have become part of his legacy. The problem was that he wanted to be so many things at the same time that he simply had to let something go; and since it couldn’t be the environment – that has more global appeal – it had to be food security. The other thing of course is that Jagdeo’s colleagues in the region simply weren’t taking him seriously.
Jagdeo’s days are numbered; perhaps Robert Persaud’s days are not. He’s running with the Food Strategy ‘ball’ these days.
But what exactly is this food strategy thing, anyway? It is, we are told, “a ten-year road map” that will take us to a biblical land of milk and honey…cheap and nutritious food for all.
It’s not just election-time propaganda….at least that’s what we are being told. Robert says it’s “a pullout from the the Low Carbon Development Strategy.” Careful Robert! It sounds suspiciously like you are patronizing Jagdeo here. This LCDS thing is his invention! Remember? It only came up the other day. We have been talking about a food strategy in this country every since you were a cub reporter at the Mirror……and even before that. OK! There is nothing wrong with making a noise about the Grow More Food Campaign and creating a website for farmers and doing things to help them with their packaging and their cold storage and their marketing but let’s keep this LCDS thing out of it. After all Mr. Jagdeo has enough people blowing his trumpet. Blow your own, Robert! Blow your own!
