Former TT Prime Minister to address GMSA dinner

PandayGeorgetown: Former Trinidad and Tobago (TT) Prime Minister Basdeo Panday will deliver the feature address at the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) Annual Awards Presentation and Dinner Thursday evening.

The event will be held at the Pegasus Hotel at 19:00h, the GMSA said in a release.

Born on May 25, 1933, Panday was the fifth Prime Minister of TT from 1995 to 2001 and has served as Opposition Leader from 1976–1977; 1978–1986; 1989–1995; and 2001–2010.

He was first elected to Parliament in 1976 as the member for Couva North. He is the former Chairman and party leader of the opposition United National Congress. In 2006, Panday was convicted of failing to declare a bank account in London and imprisoned but on March 20, 2007, that conviction had been quashed by the Court of Appeal.

In 2006, he was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman by the Overseas Indian Affairs Ministry.

He was granted bail on April 28 pending the outcome of his appeal due to his health condition and the poor state of health facilities at the Arouca prison. On May 1, he decided to resign as Chairman of the United National Congress, but the party’s executive refused to accept his resignation. However, he lost the party’s internal elections on January 24, 2010 to Deputy Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar by a large margin.