As Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley pre­pares to leave of­fice, his fi­nal acts are un­der in­tense pub­lic scruti­ny. From ma­jor in­fra­struc­ture projects to leg­isla­tive de­ci­sions, his ad­min­is­tra­tion is mark­ing the “prac­ti­cal com­ple­tion” of key ini­tia­tives across var­i­ous sec­tors.

On Mon­day, Row­ley com­mis­sioned the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal’s Cen­tral Block—a 540-bed fa­cil­i­ty built at a cost $1.3 bil­lion. This is one of two ma­jor projects he pledged to com­plete be­fore step­ping down, with the new ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ter­mi­nal set to be his fi­nal act on Sat­ur­day, just one day be­fore his res­ig­na­tion takes ef­fect.

Dur­ing the com­mis­sion­ing of Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian Boule­vard on Feb­ru­ary 26, Row­ley out­lined his last days in of­fice, in­ter­twin­ing the late D’Abadie/O’Meara MP’s lega­cy with his own. Ac­knowl­edg­ing the on­go­ing de­mands of gov­er­nance, he ad­mit­ted: “Plan­ning and ex­e­cut­ing na­tion­al projects is like a con­vey­or belt that is loaded and op­er­at­ing be­cause as fast as you take off what comes to you at the end of the belt, an­oth­er one ap­pears.”