It is with great dis­com­fort and em­bar­rass­ment that I place on the pub­lic record that it is my con­sid­ered opin­ion that it is not saga­cious and to­tal­ly out of place for Su­ru­jdeo Man­groo, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC), to call up­on the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate of our coun­try to re­name the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port the “Bas­deo Pan­day In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port” in ho­n­our of the first East In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is not­ed that his call was made at the NCIC 2026 cel­e­bra­tion of In­di­an Ar­rival Day.

Mr Man­groo’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for re­nam­ing our in­ter­na­tion­al air­port af­ter Pan­day was based on the ground that his ser­vices as prime min­is­ter of the coun­try im­pact­ed the coun­try as a whole and he thus de­serves the ho­n­our.

Well, the African di­as­po­ra in our coun­try can al­so make the same claim for for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning. But even if we were to re­name the air­port Bas­deo Pan­day/Patrick Man­ning In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, it would still be not saga­cious, and an em­bar­rass­ment. And I am al­most cer­tain that if they were alive, both Messrs Man­ning and Pan­day would read­i­ly agree with me.