Dhanayshar Mahabir

Mahabir was born in 1959 in Trinidad and Tobago and educated at Presentation College, Chaguanas. He received a B.Sc. Economics at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, followed by an MA (Dean's List) and Ph.D. Economics from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.[2]

Until 2011, he was a tenured professor at the University of the West Indies, where he taught among others, Intermediate Micro-Economic Theory, Intermediate Macro-Economic Theory, and Advanced Economic Theory.[3] Mahabir was also a financial advisor to Ernst & Young, served as an Independent Director of the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange, and developed the CAPE syllabus in Economics.[4][5]

In the public sector, he served as the Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission to establish electricity rates for industrial customers, advised the Trinidad and Tobago Central Bank on Monetary Policy, and worked in liaison with the Ministry of Finance and Standard and Poor's.[6] Regionally, Mahabir served as the Country Economist at the Caribbean Development Bank, for Barbados, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Turks and Caicos, and Montserrat with a focus on structural adjustment programmes, as well as monetary and fiscal policy.[7]

Mahabir was appointed in 1996 as a temporary Independent Senator, and 2013 as a full-time Independent Senator by President Anthony Carmona for the 10th Republican Parliament.[8] In 2015 he was re-appointed to another term at the Senate where he presently serves as the coordinator of the Independent Senator bench.[9] Mahabir has served on the Business Committee, as well as the Foreign Affairs Committee, The Committee on Human Rights, Equality and Diversity, and is chairman of The Committee on Social Services and Public Administration.[10]