Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Prime Min­ster Patrick Man­ning is not a dic­ta­tor. This as­sur­ance came from Works and Trans­port Min­ster Colm Im­bert, af­ter his speech to launch the open­ing of the new Ma­coya Bridge and gantry signs in Ma­coya yes­ter­day. Im­bert took a few min­utes to make a few "elec­tions re­marks" and to clear the air that the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) was not a one-man show.

He said the PNM Gov­ern­ment was a team and he no­ticed a trend in news­pa­per re­ports from "our op­po­nents" which cat­e­gorised the Gov­ern­ment as a one-man show. "I as­sure you it is not," Im­bert said. "I have been in Cab­i­net now for a to­tal of over 12 years and I can say with­out any fear of con­tra­dic­tion that when we in Cab­i­net make de­ci­sions for the ben­e­fits of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, we have full dis­cus­sions, we ar­rive at con­sen­sus, no­body tries to rail­road any­one, par­tic­u­lar­ly the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter," Im­bert said.

He added Man­ning was "cer­tain­ly not the dic­ta­tor that he is paint­ed out to be." Im­bert said he was proud to be a mem­ber of the PNM led by Man­ning and with­in in the par­ty every­one was al­lowed to ven­ti­late their opin­ions and al­lowed free ex­pres­sions. "I per­son­al­ly have not seen this form of democ­ra­cy in any oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tion that I have been in, so I sim­ply want to make this point..the PNM is a team, it is not a one- man show," he said.