New­ly ap­point­ed Fi­nance Min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul yes­ter­day pledged that his tenure will not bring fi­nan­cial hard­ship to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Dhan­paul, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Fi­nance Min­istry, has worked with eight fi­nance min­is­ters across suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions since 1991. He al­so re­cent­ly held the po­si­tion of High Com­mis­sion­er to the Unit­ed King­dom. Yes­ter­day, he of­fi­cial­ly re­placed Colm Im­bert, who served as Fi­nance Min­is­ter since 2015.

Fol­low­ing his swear­ing-in at Pres­i­dent’s House, Dhan­paul im­me­di­ate­ly dis­played a dif­fer­ent lead­er­ship style from his pre­de­ces­sor, who large­ly re­strict­ed di­rect me­dia ac­cess by block­ing jour­nal­ists from con­tact­ing him.