Government’s Chief Whip and Minister of Social Protection, Amna Ally, has defended Government’s decision to select Barbara Patricia Pilgrim to replace former AFC member Charrandas Persaud as a Member of Parliament following the shock vote of Persaud who sided with the Opposition and voted in favour of the no confidence motion which saw the toppling of the APNU/AFC administration on December 21.
“There was no other AFC candidate eligible. So, we replaced the person. This is a Coalition, we use the candidates, we no longer look at individual parties. She was extracted from the Coalition,” Minister Ally was quoted by the Department of Public Information (DPI) as saying.
She further explained that former MP Charrandass Persaud was extracted from the constituency list in Region 6, which accounts for 25 per cent of the electorate in the National Assembly.
“Barbara Pilgrim was one of the candidates submitted in the 2015 elections to represent the constituency in Region 6. We found that she was the most appropriate candidate for us to extract and, so we extracted her because she was a candidate from the list.”
MP Pilgrim, an A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) member, took her oath of office on January 3, 2019, at the 112th sitting of the National Assembly of the 11th Parliament.
During an interview, she disclosed that her deep interest is in the affairs of communities. She made it clear that people will be the hallmark of her representation in the National Assembly.
“I feel very humbled to serve the people of this region. Because of my political involvement, so many people would call on me to do many things for them and now that I am in this position, I think I will be able to serve them better,” she was quoted by DPI as saying.
There are still many things, she noted, that can be done to improve the lives of residents in the region.
