Verna turns down offer of Diplomatic appointment, will continue her social work at home

File: Verna St Rose-Greaves: "I have done my part...death will have to silence me".

Verna St Rose-Greaves is staying at home and will continue her social work in the country using a variety of channels. She made the point in a television interview with the Guardian media.

St Rose-Greaves has been fired from cabinet; her successor is Marlene Coudray, who is giving up her job as Mayor of San Fernando to join the cabinet.

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar offered the former minister the job of Ambassador to Costa Rica but she turned it down. She said the Prime Minister had asked her to undertake a specific task as minister of Gender Affairs, Youth and Child Development and that is what she was trying to do. "I didn’t come into government to go to Costa Rica,” she said.

St Rose-Greaves said she doesn't have a problem with her removal from the job. She added, "I wasn’t looking for a job so I wouldn’t be going anywhere else...There was work to be done and I wanted to do the work and the work is being done.” 

She suggested that under her watch she was perhaps making changes at a pace that caused some people to become uncomfortable. St Rose-Greaves said she had “no regrets whatsoever” for serving in the PP government.

“I have run the first leg of this relay, somebody else will run the second, third and fourth. I have done my part,” she said in the interview. And she pledged that she will not be silent on any issue. “The one thing that I am sure of, my voice will not be silenced. Death will have to silence me,” she said.
She said she would continue her social work on television and in the communities and towns across the country and the region.