The sudden passing of Franklin Khan has left Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley without a key member of his Cabinet who held the very crucial Energy and Energy Industries portfolio. It is also a blow to the People’s National Movement (PNM), which has lost its chairman.
These two roles, in which he was actively functioning up to the very end of his life, were among several in which he served this country, staying the course even at times when his always smiling countenance must have masked the intense pressures he regularly encountered.
Although he was a petroleum geologist by profession, Mr Khan served in ministerial roles far removed from that sector until late 2016, when he was appointed Energy Minister in a Cabinet reshuffle, replacing Nicole Olivierre.
It was a weighty portfolio that was handed to him at a difficult time, with the country in the throes of an economic downturn and a great deal of anxiety over the long-term viability of the oil and gas industry.
But even this did not compare to the difficulties Mr Khan had faced just over a decade earlier. Three years into his term as Ortoire/Mayaro MP in the then Patrick Manning administration, Mr Khan was indicted for corruption while his party was still in power.
In the face of bribery allegations levelled against him by a Local Government councillor, Dansam Dhansook, he resigned as Minister of Works.
Mr Khan was eventually cleared of all accusations and resumed his political career. The measure of the man was demonstrated by his ability to move on without even the slightest hint of bitterness or ill will.
The depth of gratitude this country owes to Franklin Khan is not limited to his service to T&T in the portfolios of Energy and Energy Industries, Rural Development and Local Government and Works and Transport.
His years of public service also included stints as president of the Geological Society of T&T, a director of the Water and Sewage Authority (WASA) and chairman of National Petroleum Marketing Co Ltd.
Before that, he had spent two decades in the energy sector, holding technical and managerial positions locally and abroad.
And it was those years of professional experience that he was drawing upon at the helm of the Energy Ministry when, in recent years, the increasingly competitive nature of the global oil and gas market made the task of mapping the recovery of the local sector so much more difficult.
Mr Khan’s biggest challenge had been, among many other Herculean tasks, trying to reverse declines in gas production by incentivizing capital investment.
This could not have been easy for a man who had been suffering heart-related issues and required major surgical interventions in February 2017 and April last year.
Through it all, he barely paused in his service to his party and country – and his smile never faded.
The magnitude of the loss suffered by T&T is eclipsed only by the void left in the Khan family. They have lost a husband, father and grandfather and to them, Guardian Media expresses deepest condolences.
